ماذا يعني تقديم الصين مبادرة للحل في أوكرانيا؟

 الجمعة 24 شباط 2023

ناصر قنديل

بالتأكيد ليس لدى الصين وهم بأن هناك فرصاً حقيقية لتسوية الصراع الدائر في أوكرانيا بين روسيا وحلف الناتو بالطرق السياسية، وأن الأمر يتوقف على مبادرة للحل السياسي ولو كان وراءها ثقل الصين، ولا أن ما مرّ من الحرب كان كافياً لإنضاج مواقف الطرفين لمنطقة وسط تتيح التوصل إلى تسوية، وبالتأكيد ليست الصين برومانسية التوهّم بأنها طرف محايد في جوهر النزاع الذي يدور من الجانب الروسي تحت شعار إسقاط القطبية الأحادية، وإنهاء مشروع الهيمنة الأميركية على العالم. فالصين تعلم تشخيص الناتو لها كمصدر خطر أول، وتصنيفه لروسيا تحدياً عسكرياً وأمنياً، وأن روسيا تخوض الحرب بالنيابة عن كل الدول المستقلة التي تسعى لتقليص مدى التسلّط الغربي على السياسة الدولية، والصين في طليعة هؤلاء، فماذا تريد الصين من مبادرتها والترويج الواسع تمهيداً لإطلاقها.

خلال الشهور الماضية ظهرت حقائق واضحة في مسار الحرب، أهمها أن التنافس العسكري بين روسيا وحلف الناتو يدور حول سلاحين رئيسيين حاسمين في الحرب، هما الطائرات المسيّرة، والصواريخ البالستية الدقيقة، وأن روسيا في هذين المجالين تملك تفوقاً حاسماً على ثلاثة مستويات، الأول هو امتلاك فائض من المخزون في هذين السلاحين، رغم كل الدعاية الغربية عن شح لدى روسيا دفعها للاستعانة بإيران والصين وكوريا الشمالية، والثاني هو امتلاك روسيا لخطوط إنتاج وتوريد وإمداد سلسة من المصانع إلى خطوط القتال مقابل اعتراف الغرب بمشاكل عديدة تعترض طريق قدرته على سد الفجوات التي تطرحها الفوارق بين قدرات الإنتاج وحاجات الميدان، ومشاكل النقل والإمداد على خطوط طويلة مهدّدة بالاستهداف، ما استدعى البحث عن بدائل من نوع الاستعاضة عن السلاحين الصاروخي والمدفعي بمدافع الدبابات، والثالث هو الارتياح الروسيّ لما لديه على مستوى الكادر البشريّ القادر على تشغيل المعدات التقنية الدقيقة التي ترتبط بها هذه الأسلحة وخصوصاً الصواريخ الدقيقة والطائرات المسيّرة، وقدرته على مزاوجة التدريب القريب من الجبهة والزجّ بالمقدرات الجديدة إلى خطوط العمل الميداني، بينما عمليات التدريب التي يجريها حلف الناتو لحساب أوكرانيا على الأسلحة الجديدة تستهلك وقتاً طويلاً وتجري بعيداً عن الجبهة وفي ظروف متفاوتة بين البلدان التي تستضيف هذه التدريبات.

تدرك الصين أنّها تتعرّض مع إيران لحملة مركزة من الغرب تحت عنوان اتهامهما بتقديم الدعم العسكري لروسيا، وذلك لجعل ملف دعم روسيا من ملفات التفاوض على قضايا خلافية أخرى مع كل من الصين وإيران، والملفات الخلافيّة واضحة وجدية وموضوعة على الطاولة، وعبر الترغيب والترهيب تريد واشنطن انتزاع توقيع بكين وطهران على وثيقة تنص على الامتناع عن تقديم أي دعم لروسيا في الحرب، يعني مجرد توقيعها من بكين وطهران إذلالاً لهما وتثبيتاً للهيمنة الأميركية، ولذلك رد الصينيون على الاتهامات الأميركية بالقول إن أميركا التي توجه الاتهامات للصين بدعم روسيا عسكرياً، وهي اتهامات باطلة، هي أميركا نفسها، أكبر مورد للسلاح إلى حرب اوكرانيا، وهي بالتالي فاقدة للأهلية الأخلاقية لتقييم شكل تعامل الصين مع الحرب، وتبنيها لموقف يدعو لوقف الحرب واعتماد الحل السياسي لقضايا النزاع.

طوّر الصينيون ردهم الى مستوى تحويل مضمونه الى مبادرة تؤكد موقفهم وموقعهم من الحرب، لجهة الدعوة لحل سياسي يقوم على إيجاد إطار دولي للبت بقضايا النزاع الحدودي بين أوكرانيا وروسيا من جهة، ويقدم الضمانات التي تطمئن روسيا في أمنها القومي والاستراتيجي من جهة موازية، لكنها مبادرة تبدأ بالدعوة لتخفيض مستوى النزاع، من خلال التزام الدول الدائمة العضوية في مجلس الأمن التي لا تشكل طرفاً مباشراً في الحرب الى الامتناع عن تقديم أي مبيعات سلاح أو هبات عسكرية إلى أي من طرفي النزاع الروسي والأوكراني. وهذا يعني وضع التزام الصين القائم فعلاً مقابل التزام مطلوب من كل من أميركا وبريطانيا وفرنسا، وهو ما تعلم الصين أنه لن يحصل، ما يعني انتقال زمام المبادرة السياسي في توجيه الاتهام بالتورّط في الحرب الى ضفة الصين بحق أميركا وفرنسا وبريطانيا، وامتلاك الصين الحق بفعل المثل طالما أن مبادرتها قد رفضت.

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‘Doomsday clock’: 90 seconds to midnight

Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:08 AM  [ Last Update: Thursday, 26 January 2023 11:17 AM ]

By Pepe Escobar

The Doomsday Clock, set by the US-based magazine Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has been moved to 90 seconds to midnight.  

That’s the closest ever to total nuclear doom, the global catastrophe.

The Clock had been set at 100 seconds since 2020. The Bulletin’s Science and Security Board and a group of sponsors – which includes 10 Nobel laureates – have focused on “Russia’s war on Ukraine” (their terminology) as the main reason.

Yet they did not bother to explain non-stop American rhetoric (the US is the only nation that adopts “first strike” in a nuclear confrontation) and the fact that this is a US proxy war against Russia with Ukraine used as cannon fodder.

The Bulletin also attributes malignant designs to China, Iran and North Korea, while mentioning, only in passing, that “the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between Russia and the United States, New START, stands in jeopardy”.

“Unless the two parties resume negotiations and find a basis for further reductions, the treaty will expire in February 2026.”

As it stands, the prospects of a US-Russia negotiation on New START are less than zero.

Now cue to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov making it very clear that war against Russia is not hybrid anymore, it’s “almost” real.

“Almost” in fact means “90 seconds.”

So why is this all happening?

The Mother of All Intel Failures

Former British diplomat Alastair Crooke has concisely explained how Russian resilience – much in the spirit of Iranian resilience past four decades – completely smashed the assumptions of Anglo-American intelligence.

Talk about the Mother of All Intel Failures – in fact even more astonishing than the non-existent Iraqi WMDs (in the run-up to Shock and Awe in 2003, anyone with a brain knew Baghdad had discontinued its weapons program already in the 1990s.) 

Now the collective West “committed the entire weight of its financial resources to crushing Russia (…) in every conceivable way – via financial, cultural and psychological war, and with real military war as the follow-through.”

And yet Russia held its ground. And now reality-based developments prevail over fiction. The Global South “is peeling away into a separate economic model, no longer dependent on the dollar for its trading needs.”

And the accelerated collapse of the US dollar increasingly plunges the Empire into a real existential crisis.

All that hangs over a South Vietnam scenario evolving in Ukraine after a rash government-led political and military purge. The coke comedian – whose only role is to beg non-stop for bags of cash and loads of weapons – is being progressively sidelined by the Americans (beware of traveling CIA directors). 

The game in Kiev, according to Russian sources, seems to be that the Americans are taking over the Brits as handlers of the whole operation.

The coke comedian remains – for now – as a sock puppet while military control over what is left of Ukraine is entirely NATO’s.

Well, it already was – but now, formally, Ukraine is the world’s first de facto NATO member without being an actual member, enjoying less than zero national sovereignty, and complete with NATO-Nazi Storm troopers weaponized with American and German tanks in the name of “democracy”.

The meeting last week of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group – totally controlled by the US – at the US Air Force base in Ramstein solidified a sort of tawdry remix of Operation Barbarossa.

Here we go again, with German Panzers sent to Ukraine to fight Russia.

Yet the tank coalition seems to have tanked even before it starts.  Germany will send 14, Portugal 2, Belgium 0 (sorry, don’t have them). Then there’s Lithuania, whose Defense Minister observed, “Yes, we don’t have tanks, but we have an opinion about tanks.”

No one ever accused German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock of being brighter than a light bulb. She finally gave the game away,  at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg:

“The crucial part is that we do it together and that we do not do the blame game in Europe because we are fighting a war against Russia.”

So Baerbock agrees with Lavrov. Just don’t ask her what Doomsday Clock means. Or what happened after Operation Barbarossa failed. 

The NATO-EU “garden”

The EU-NATO combo takes matters to a whole new level. The EU essentially has been reduced to the status of P.R. arm of NATO.

It’s all spelled out in their January 10 joint declaration.

The NATO-EU joint mission consists in using all economic, political and military means to make sure the “jungle” always behaves according to the “rules-based international order” and accepts to be plundered ad infinitum by the “blooming garden”.

Looking at The Big Picture, absolutely nothing changed in the US military/intel apparatus since 9/11: it’s a bipartisan thing, and it means Full Spectrum Dominance of both the US and NATO. No dissent whatsoever is allowed. And no thinking outside the box.

Plan A is subdivided into two sections.

1. Military intervention in a hollowed-out proxy state shell (see Afghanistan and Ukraine).

2. Inevitable, humiliating military defeat (see Afghanistan and soon Ukraine). Variations include building a wasteland and calling it “peace” (Libya) and extended proxy war leading to future humiliating expulsion (Syria).

There’s no Plan B.

Or is there? 90 seconds to midnight?

Obsessed by Mackinder, the Empire fought for control of the Eurasian landmass in World War I and World War II because that represented control of the world.

Later, Zbigniew “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski had warned: “Potentially the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition between Russia, China and Iran.”

Jump cut to the Raging Twenties when the US forced the end of Russian natural gas exports to Germany (and the EU) via Nord Stream 1 and 2.

Once again, Mackinderian opposition to a grand alliance on the Eurasian landmass consisting of Germany, Russia and China.

The Straussian neo-con and neoliberal-con psychos in charge of US foreign policy could even absorb a strategic alliance between Russia and China – as painful as it may be. But never Russia, China and Germany.   

With the collapse of the JCPOA, Iran is now being re-targeted with maximum hostility. Yet were Tehran to play hardball, the US Navy or military could never keep the Strait of Hormuz open – by the admission of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

Oil price in this case would rise to possibly thousands of dollars a barrel according to Goldman Sachs oil derivative experts – and that would crash the entire world economy.

This is arguably the foremost NATO Achilles Heel. Almost without firing a shot a Russia-Iran alliance could smash NATO to bits and bring down assorted EU governments as socio-economic chaos runs rampant across the collective West. 

Meanwhile, to quote Dylan, darkness keeps dawning at the break of noon. Straussian neo-con and neoliberal-con psychos will keep pushing the Doomsday Clock closer and closer to midnight.   

Pepe Escobar is a Eurasia-wide geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties.

(The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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Russia, now the South and East’s counterpoint to Israel

January 25, 2023

Source

by Ramin Mazaheri

There is no doubt that were Israel threatened with the forced implementation of even something as fundamentally just and decent as a two-state solution they would resort to using nuclear bombs. They are dead-set on waging war until they get all the Palestinians’ lands, and they have made it clear that there is no place for non-Jews (non-White Jews, actually) inside this land they have stolen as if human mores had not changed since the 19th century.

In the blink of a post-corona eye, Russia has become something quite similar.

As former Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev just reiterated, if the Russian nation is seriously threatened with defeat nuclear weapons will be used in self-defence. Other than North Korea, only Israel feels the need to use such language.

Russia and North Korea are genuine nations, ones whose existence was not entirely contrived by and for Western imperialism, but in many ways Russia has become a new Israel. To be more accurate – Russia is now the counterpoint and antithesis of Israel.

Just as Israel, the poisoned blade of Western capitalism and imperialism, faces and constantly thrusts east and south, now Russia is the South and East’s defensive rampart facing West.

Russia has gone from post-1991 kowtowing to Western liberal democracy – earnestly trying to join them – to realising that the West has declared total war against them. How can there be a reconciliation? War in the Donbass has been going on for nearly a decade – that’s not the blink of an eye. Anyway, the West simply does not remove sanctions once in place – look at decades of Western policy towards Iran, Cuba, North Korea, etc. – barring total capitulation. The West only removed sanctions on China because they absurdly thought that China had gone capitalist and that it had all just been Mao’s doing. Sanctions are now back in force, as Xi has reflected the broad persistence of socialism in China.

The alleged end of history was based on the idea that only one type of civilisation existed any more, but it’s clear that there is a false idolatry of a West which exists in only in theoretical words and not in practical deeds, and there is a tolerant and truly diverse non-West which insists on national sovereignty and the right to cultural differences.

The West’s outpost in Asia is well-known – Israel – and it is not just a rich colonialist’s whim and folly. Israel serves as an imperialist foothold to destabilise the entire Muslim world and Africa – training, funding and supporting all types of awful monarchies and puppet governments – and for these crimes they suffer internally from the awful, unstable Apartheid they have created.

The surprising development is that non-Western bloc’s frontier has shifted West: from 1979 onwards it was clearly Iran. Forty years of war on and around Iran failed to topple the revolution, and drained the West of vital tangible and moral resources. The non-Western frontier has now been pushed back to Russia.

Russia is the country that – for reasons which are diametrically and morally the opposite for the reasons of Israel’s existence – will now serve as the non-Western bloc’s frontier, a frontier which will be in long-term combat and instability.

This top Russian talk show just discussed this same idea, essentially: without a Cuban Missile Crisis 2.0 – something that scares the West into backing down – this war has no end in sight. Russia will not be allowed to sue for peace – they are looking at a much longer war than in the Muslim World, as Russia is on the true frontier of the West and not merely surrounding a colonial outpost.

But it’s a new type of world: Russia is the frontier in a war which will accelerate the legal and practical formation of a new world order – that of West versus non-West; of NATO versus BRICS; of corporate domination versus the sovereignty of a nation united, and more.

This war is total – not in terms of forces used but in what it encompasses:

Economically, Russians – with all their history of state control of assets to direct them towards the people’s good – simply could not accept the idea that corporate CEOs should be above the people’s elected representatives. This, of course, is what Western liberal democracy is based upon: markets, prices, supplies, wages, jobs and stocks are exclusively controlled by billionaire elite – and they insist that this is the only political advance needed following the end of bloodline monarchy.

Politically, whereas the West looks at itself and sees the victory of liberal democracy, Russia and others look at places like the European Union and see a continent which has been roiled by constant turmoil since that project went fully online in 2009. And the EU is supposed to be the sophisticated one in the Western bloc! Russia has ended the one claim the EU could plausibly make – that the EU prevents war: Brussels did all it could to subvert the 2014 Minsk Accords and to reject peace efforts over the past year.

Monetarily, the idea that the dollar is as good as gold is no longer tenable, and this was true before record inflation. That the daily users of the once-mighty euro don’t grasp this only shows their lack of intelligence and the obvious subversion of their own leaders. Petroyuans, gold-backed rubles, Iranian state-backed cryptocurrency – these are the answers and the certain future.

Culturally, the West is fighting for things which the majority of their own people do not even want – some sort of open-air Amsterdam brothel or dreadful, drug-ravaged San Francisco commune. It has been written that this non-West/West debate is actually anthropological because the West is redefining what “man”, “woman” and “family” is. I prefer not to waste time on this, as it is so absurd and so obviously led by and for a tiny minority, but certainly for many Westerners upending “conservative” definitions seems to be their raison d’être – the class struggle, anti-imperialism, internationalism, the mass deaths of the Western war machine all apparently bore them. It’s also clear that the average Westerner is greatly shocked and often affected by this useless “war” and worries over its effects for future generations, but in the West such persons are silenced or self-censor.

Just as Israel is on the wrong side of all these issues, so Russia has become – justified or not – the standard-bearer of the other side. It is a good thing, because the West could never follow or accept a Muslim to carry this standard, like Iran has done. Unlike with Iran, when Western propagandists criticise the allegedly “arch-conservative” Russia they can’t resort to “anti-Brown” scaremongering, stereotypes and absurdities, because Westerners are far more familiar with and similar to Russian Slavs.

It is now a two-world world, and the frontier is the Eurasian borderlands – i.e. the definition of “Ukraine”.

There is no chance that Russia can be defeated and dismembered – not only do they have nukes of course, but their friends (China, Iran probably India and maybe even Turkey and Egypt) wouldn’t allow it. The same probably goes for Israel – their Western allies would force their own peoples to suffer anything to keep Israelis from sharing one olive farm, much less dividing the land in two. Anyway, as that talk show discussed, there’s just no way the West would personally engage in the WWII-sized conflict which it would take to achieve their desire of a dismembered Russia.

The conscience of Israelis surely allows them no true peace – they are always in an unwinnable settler war (the Anglosphere has combined genocide with isolation (reservations) for their indigenous peoples, but the isolation tactic cannot work long-term on Palestinians) – but Russians must grapple with the fact that they will be much like the Muslim World for the past 20 years: the focus of Western imperialist aggression, monstrosities and lies.

In this sense the world today is very much like it was from WWII until 1991, when Russians led the only empire where the center was bled for the benefit of the periphery.

Despite the fighting going on in eastern Ukraine it’s not World War III but clearly Cold War II, with Israel and Russia the unstable frontiers facing each other in ideological, philosophical, political and economic war.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His latest book is ‘France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values’. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’.

Pakistan is facing a hybrid war

January 24, 2023

Source

by Zamir Ahmed Awan 

It is believed that the world is changing rapidly, technology has been improving at an accelerated speed, geopolitics is also changing, new alliances are emerging, and trade pattern has been transformed, and so on. But, one thing is not changed – the suffering of humankind. Human beings are still killed and forced to flee from their homes, and countries and poverty have grown. In addition to natural disasters, human-made disasters are even geared up.

Economic sanctions, narrative war, media war, etc., all are modes of hybrid war. The cold war may have been replaced by the Hybrid war, but, the mentality remained the same. Any country on the left side of the US is facing a hybrid war. Either, it is Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, or any other country, is facing similar challenges of hybrid war.

It is a matter of highly significant that we must understand the concept of hybrid war. Many scholars, researchers, and intellectuals are studying it around the globe, many conferences and seminars are being conducted worldwide and plenty of literature is available.

Pakistan is a typical case of hybrid war and facing it for a couple of decades. On the economic front coercion at the hands of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) to the war of narratives by the arch-rival: India, as revealed by the European watchdog DisInfoLab through the Indian Chronicles, to the physical penetration of the agents to create sabotage and terrorism in Balochistan and Karachi; Pakistan has faced it all. Media is in full swing to spread fake news, fabricate stories and distort Pakistan’s narrative. Unfortunately, the media is controlled by the West and over-engaged against Pakistan. Social media is also playing its dirty role too. The worst phenomenon is that many writers used Western literature as a source of information, which is totally wrong and biased against Pakistan. Pakistan could not develop its own authentic source of information yet.

The Chinese sage, Sun Tzu is also gets quoted extensively in the context of the hybrid mannerism of warfare in contemporary wars. Some 2500 years ago, he had prophesied that the supreme acme of skill is to win the war without fighting. Breaking the will of the people of the target state would be the real victory instead of destroying them. Sun Tzu insisted that capturing the enemy forces intact so that those could be used later on. What Chinese wisdom since ancient times!

Pakistan has immensely suffered at the hands of IFIs by accepting unacceptable demands of raising the interest rates, devaluation of the currency, removal of subsidies, increasing the cost of living, inflation, and price hike, which pushed the nation into severe poverty.

A New Instrument of Hybrid War dilated upon the impact of economic stress on Pakistan due to the hybrid war imposed by India. India’s External Affairs Minister Jai Shankar (Hindustan Times), admitted that the “BJP Government led by Narendra Modi ensured that Pakistan remained on the Grey List of the FATF is due to us, Pakistan is under the lens of FATF, and it was kept in the Grey List. We have been successful in Pressurizing Pakistan and the fact Pakistan’s behavior has changed because of the pressure put by India.”

Further, at least four aspects were deployed against Pakistan to hurt its economy under the ambit of hybrid warfare: International Monetary Fund (IMF), FATF, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and Karachi turmoil. It is viewed that “the best strategy of the enemy is to erode the economic strength of the targeted country.” Karachi, the economic hub and lifeline was systematically destroyed to choke Pakistan’s economy and make it dependent on international institutions. It is extremely worried about the present economic situation of the country and attributed the same to a concerted effort by the enemy under the umbrella of hybrid warfare.

On the Narratives Warfare front, in the evolved environment where social media plays a dominant role in shaping opinion, the most important thing is to construct a narrative that is appealing and attractive enough to bring change in people’s thinking. The significance of a workable narrative that is proactive in its essence and based on sound footing aimed at unsettling the opponent’s objectives. Understanding narrative warfare is a necessary precondition for both comprehensive state policy and an informed public debate on issues, particularly security.

At the moment, Pakistan is not only facing the risks of a possible default but also going through the highest inflation within the region as compared to Afghanistan, India, and Bangladesh. Obviously, it appears as if Pakistan has not been able to convince the donor agencies and the friendly countries to assist them at this difficult time, perhaps due to a weak narrative about its efforts toward peace and progress in Afghanistan. This is certainly very alarming because no country has suffered more than Pakistan in its efforts to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, by design, Pakistan is being pushed to a stage where we may be asked to choose between food and nukes. It seems the evil designs worked very well. It happened with Ukraine too, at the time of getting independence from the former USSR, it was a nuke state with an abundance of nuking weapons, nuke capabilities, nuke laboratories, nuke factories, and an abundance of nuke scientists. But was pushed into an economic crisis and then offered financial assistance in return for denuclearization. Its nukes were shifted, factories closed, research abandoned, nuke human resources dismantled, and turned into a state where they could not gain nukes in the future.

Recently, IMF has asked Sri Lanka to cut the size of its military up to half, and Egypt to cut its Army by one-third. It is not sure, what will be IMF conditions to Pakistan in the next stage. God for bid, if Pakistan is asked to cut its Army, its security may be compromised as India is an aggressive and traditional rival of Pakistan. Since independence, India has not accepted Pakistan from the core of its heart and always trying to damage and destroy it. Especially, since PM Narendra Modi has hijacked power in India his extremist policies are more aggressive and a permanent security threat not only t Pakistan but to its all neighbors. India has disputes with all its neighbors, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

The US is supporting India to counter China and wanted all its neighbors to accept Indian supremacy. Pakistan is facing huge pressure from the US to accept Indian hegemony.

Current political and economic instability is dangerous and may lead to disasters. There might be internal or external conspiracies, but, it is the people of Pakistan, who should stand up and take the right decisions. Our fate cannot be in the hands of a few internal or external conspirators. It is time, for the whole nation to unite and think smartly, formulate a comprehensive policy to confront the challenges being faced. Early elections and a government with a heavy mandate can take bold measures. The current PDM is more engaged in politics of power and taking steps to counter PTI only. Their energies are wasted on non-productive issues and less effort is on national issues. The new government, backed by the public may rescue the nation.

Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Founding Chair GSRRA, Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, and Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization). (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).

By the numbers: The de-dollarization of global trade

Data suggests that US dollar reserves in central banks are dwindling, as is the influence of the US on the world economy. This presents a unique opportunity for regional currencies and alternative payment systems to enter the vacuum.

January 13 2023

Photo Credit: The Cradle

By F.M. Shakil

The imposition of US trade restrictions and sanctions against a number of nations, including Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, and Syria have been politically ineffectual and have backfired against western economies. As a result, the US dollar has been losing its role as a major currency for the settlement of international business claims.

Because they do not adhere to the policies of the US and other western powers, over 24 countries have been the target of unilateral or partial trade sanctions. These limitations, nevertheless, have turned out to be detrimental to the economies of the Group of Seven (G7) nations and have begun to impact the US dollar’s hegemony in world trade.

In its space, a “new global commercial bloc” has risen to the fore, while alternatives to the western SWIFT banking messaging system for cross-border payments have also been created.

Geopolitical analyst Andrew Korybko tells The Cradle that the west’s extraordinary penalties and seizure of Russian assets abroad broke faith in the western-centric paradigm of globalization, which had been declining for years but had nonetheless managed to maintain the world standard.

“Rising multipolar countries sped up their plans for de-dollarization and diversification away from the western-centric model of globalization in favor of a more democratic, egalitarian, and just one – centered on non-western countries in response to these economic and financial disturbances,” he adds.

Dwindling dollar reserves  

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recorded a decline in central bank holdings of US dollar reserves during the fourth quarter of 2020—which went from 71 percent to 59 percent—reflecting the US dollar’s waning influence on the world economy.

And it continues to worsen: Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that the bank’s holdings of dollar claims have decreased from $7 trillion in 2021 to $6.4 trillion at the end of March 2022.

According to the Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) report by the IMF, the percentage of US dollars in central bank reserves has decreased by 12 percent since 1999, while the percentage of other currencies, particularly the Chinese yuan, have shown an increasing trend with a 9 percent rise during this period.

The study contends that the role of the dollar is waning due to competition from other currencies held by the bankers’ banks for international transactions – including the introduction of the euro – and reveals that this will have an impact on both the currency and bond markets if dollar reserves continue to shrink.

Alternative currencies and trade routes

To boost global commerce and Indian exports, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) devised in July last year a rupee-settlement mechanism to fend off pressure on the Indian currency in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and US-EU sanctions.

India has recently concluded agreements for currency exchanges of $75.4 billion with the UAE, Japan, and various South Asian nations. New Delhi has also informed South Korea and Turkey of its non-dollar-mediated exchange rates for each country’s currency. Currently, Turkey conducts business utilizing the national currencies of China (yuan) and Russia (ruble).

Iran has also proposed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) a euro-like SCO currency for trade among the Eurasian bloc to check the weaponization of the US dollar-dominated global financial system.

Mehdi Safari, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for economic diplomacy, informed the media earlier in June last year that the SCO received the proposal nearly two months ago.

“They must use multilateral institutions like BRICS and the SCO to this aim – and related ones, such as currency pools and potentially even the establishment of a new currency whose rate is based on a basket of their currencies, to mitigate the effects of trade-related restrictions,” Korybko remarked.

The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) is being revived as a “sanctions-busting” project by Russia and Iran. The INSTC garnered renewed interest following the “sanctions from hell” imposed by the west on Moscow. Russia is now finalizing regulations that will allow Iranian ships free navigation along the Volga and Don rivers.

The INSTC was planned as a 7,200 km long multimodal transportation network including sea, road, and rail lines to carry freight between Russia, Central Asia, and the Caspian regions.

Ruble-Yuan Payment System

On 30 December, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a video conference in which Putin reported that bilateral trade between the two countries had reached an all-time high with a 25 percent growth rate and that trade volumes were on track to reach $200 billion by next year, despite western sanctions and a hostile external environment.

Putin stated that there had been a “substantial growth in trade volumes” between January and November 2022, resulting in a 36 percent increase in trade to $6 billion. It is likely that the $200 billion bilateral trade target, if achieved by next year, will be conducted in Russian rubles and Chinese yuan, even though the details of the bilateral trade settlement were not specified in the video conference broadcast.

This is because Moscow and Beijing have already set up a cross-border interbank payment network similar to SWIFT, increased their gold purchases to give their currencies more stability, and signed agreements to swap national currencies in several regional and bilateral deals.

In addition, both Russia and China appear to have anticipated a potential US seizure of their financial assets, and in 2014 they collaborated on energy-centered treaties to strengthen their strategic trade links.

In 2017, the ruble-yuan “payment against payment” system was implemented along China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In 2019, the two countries signed an agreement to replace the dollar with national currencies in cross-border transactions and converted their $25 billion worth of trade to yuan (RMB) and rubles.

Independence from the dollar

This shift decreased their mutual reliance on the dollar, and currently, just over half of Russia’s exports are settled in US dollars, down from 80 percent in 2013. The bulk of trade between Russia and China is now conducted in local currencies.

Xinjiang in western China has also established itself as a key cross-border settlement center between China and Central Asia, making it a major financial hub in the region. Cumulative cross-border yuan settlement handled in Xinjiang exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) as early as 2013 and reached 260 billion yuan in 2018.

According to analyst Korybko, significant progress has been made in reducing reliance on the US dollar in international trade, but there is still much work to be done. He notes that the US is not likely to simply accept the challenges to its financial hegemony and is more likely to act to defend it.

“For this reason, it is expected that the US will try to enlist the support of key players by offering them preferential trade deals or the promise of such deals, while simultaneously stoking tensions between Russia, China, India, and Iran through information warfare and possibly threatening to tighten its secondary sanctions regime as ‘deterrence’.”

Eurasian Economic Union

Russia has been working to establish currency swap agreements with a number of trading partners, comprising the five-member Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

These agreements have enabled the Russian Federation to conduct over 70 percent of its trade in rubles and other regional currencies. With a population of 183 million and a GDP over $2.2 trillion, the EEU poses a formidable challenge to western hegemony over global financial transactions.

Iran and the EEU have recently concluded negotiations on the conditions of a free trade agreement covering over 7,500 categories of goods. When the next Iranian year begins on 21 March, 2023, a market with a potential size of 700 billion dollars will become available for Iranian goods and services.

BRICS is driving de-dollarization

The trend towards de-dollarization in international trade, particularly among the BRICS nations, has gained significant momentum in recent years – together they represent 41 percent of the world’s population, 24 percent of its GDP, and 16 percent of its commerce

In 2015, the BRICS New Development Bank, recommended the use of national currencies in trade. Four years later, the bank provided 25 percent of its $15 billion in financial assistance in local currencies, and plans to increase this to 50 percent in the coming years.

This shift towards de-dollarization is an important step for emerging economies as they seek to assert their role in the global economic system and reduce their reliance on the US dollar. While the adoption of de-dollarization may present some challenges and uncertainties, it is an important step towards a more diverse and balanced global economy.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

الصين في أوكرانيا وروسيا تقاتل دفاعاً عن حدودها الإيرانية أيضاً

السبت 3 كانون الأول 2022

محمد صادق الحسيني

صحيح أن تسونامي، أو أمواج عاتية، من التحليلات والتعليقات التي تدور حول موضوع مناورة القاذفات الاستراتيجية الروسية الصينية المشتركة، التي جرى تنفيذها في أجواء بحر الصين الشرقي وبحر اليابان يوم امس الاول، الاربعاء ٣٠/١١/٢٠٢٢، إلا أن أهمية الحدث تجعل من الضروري الإضاءة، بشكل افضل، على جوانب وأبعاد أكثر عمقًا وأوسع تأثيراً من المناورة الاستراتيجية، التي تم تنفيذها بنجاح كامل، ودون ان تقوم هذه القاذفات العملاقة، وما يرافقها من مقاتلات اعتراضية روسية، من طراز سوخوي ٣٠ وسوخوي ٣٥، ومقاتلات اعتراضية صينية ، بمخالفة القوانين الدولية او اختراق المجال الجوي لأي من دول المنطقة، على الرغم من قيام اليابان بتنفيذ خطوة استعراضية، عندما أطلقت مقاتلات يابانية، من طراز إف ١٦ لمرافقة التشكيلات العسكرية الروسيه الصينية المشتركة، عن بعد طبعاً.
إذن، وبالنظر الى أهمية تفاصيل هذه الطلعة الجوية الاستراتيجية، التي تحمل العديد من الرسائل للغرب الجماعي، وليس فقط للولايات المتحدة، فإننا نرى ان من بين اهم الرسائل التي حملتها هذه التدريبات المشتركة، هي:

عملية هبوط القاذفات الاستراتيجية الروسية في قاعدة جوية صينية، في اقليم شي جيانغ / ، وهي القاعدة التي لا تبعد سوى خمسمئة كيلومتر عن عاصمة الجزيرة الصينية المنشقة، تايوان، وهبوط القاذفات الاستراتيجية الصينية في قاعدة: اوكراينكا / الجوية الروسية، الواقعة في مقاطعة آمور في جنوب شرق روسيا، على بعد ٢٨ كيلومتراً من مدينة: بيليغورسك / الروسية.

ومن الجدير بالذكر أن هذه القاعدة الجوية الروسية هي أكبر القواعد الجوية، المخصصة للقاذفات الاستراتيجية القادرة على حمل أسلحة نووية، وهي مجهزة لاستيعاب اربعين قاذفة استراتيجية في الوقت نفسه.

كما لا بد من الاشارة الى ان هذه القاعدة تقع بالقرب من مدينة روسية، في اقليم آمور (نسبة الى نهر آمور الذي يجري في تلك المقاطعة، وهي مقاطعة حدودية مع جمهورية الصين الشعبية، التي تتشارك مع روسيا الاتحادية بحدود يبلغ طولها: أربعة آلاف ومئتين وتسعة كيلومترات.
ثانيا: إذاً، وبالنظر الى مواقع القواعد الجوية، الروسية والصينية، المستخدمة في عمليات الهبوط المتبادل، للقاذفات الاستراتيجية من البلدين، فلا بد من النظر الى ان مثل هذه العمليات تستدعي تنسيقاً فنياً عملياتياً متقدماً جداً، يشمل عمليات التزود بالوقود وما يمكن أن يلزم من عمليات صيانة وتجهيز وتذكير، لهذه القاذفات العملاقة.

أي أن الأمر لا يقتصر على زيارة مجاملة، بل هو يضع الأسس لعملية تنسيق وتكامل استراتيجي، بين القوات الجوفضائية الاستراتيجية لكلا البلدين، خاصة أن مواقع القواعد الجوية التي استخدمت في هذه العملية هي قواعد جوية قريبةً من مسرح العمليات في بحار الصين، الجنوبي والشرقي وصولاً الى بحر اليابان، القريب من اليابان نفسها وما فيها من قواعد عسكرية اميركية، جوية وبحرية، وكذلك بقربها من جمهورية كوريا الديموقراطية (الشمالية)، وما يعنيه ذلك في ضمان الاستقرار الاستراتيجي ليس فقط لهذه المنطقة وإنما لكامل منطقة جنوب شرق آسيا وصولاً الى بحر الفلبين وغرب المحيط الهادئ، حيث تقع القواعد الجوية والبحرية الاميركية في جزيرة غوام.

ولا بد، في هذا السياق، من الاشارة الى قرب دخول القاذفة الاستراتيجية الصينية، من طراز الى الخدمة الفعلية، وهي القاذفة التي تتمتع بميزات عالية ليس آخرها المدى الذي يمكنها الوصول إليه والبالغ عشرة آلاف كيلومتر، وما لذلك من تأثير في تعزيز قدرات الردع الاستراتيجي، للدول الرافضة للهيمنة الأميركية، في منطقة جنوب شرق آسيا وفي العالم أجمع.

ثالثا: وعليه، فإن جمهورية الصين الشعبية وجمهورية روسيا الاتحادية قد أقامتا خط دفاع جديداً ضد الهيمنة الاميركية، في جنوب شرق آسيا، اضافة الى خط الدفاع الاول، في وجه الغرب الجماعي، الذي تتولى الدفاع عنه القوات المسلحة الروسية، على الجبهة الغربية لمنطقة أورو آسيا، اي على الجبهة الاوكرانية.

كما أن هذا التدريب الجوي المشترك، للقاذفات الاستراتيجية الروسية الصينية، يشكل رسالة غاية في القوة للغطرسة الاميركية في جنوب شرق آسيا، والتي تجلت مؤخراً في تنفيذ سلاح الجو الاميركي مناورات جوية مشتركة، مع عملائه في كل من اليابان وكوريا الجنوبية، شاركت فيها مئات الطائرات الحربية، من البلدان الثلاثة، ليجيء الرد الروسي الصيني بالقاذفات الاستراتيجية، تعبيراً عن استعداد موسكو وبكين، للذهاب الى أبعد الحدود، في الدفاع عن مصالحهما المشتركة، في تلك المنطقة وفي العالم أجمع.
وهذا ما يدحض المزاعم الغربية حول موقف الصين، من المواجهة الروسية الاطلسية على الجبهة الغربية (اوكرانيا) والتي تزعم وجود خلافات بين الصين وروسيا، في ما يتعلق بتلك المواجهة.

رابعا: كما لا بد من الاشارة الى ان هذا التعاون الاستراتيجي، بين موسكو وبكين لن يقتصر على منطقة جنوب شرق آسيا فقط، وانما سيشمل ايضاً تعاوناً مماثلاً سيصل الى منغوليا وكازاخستان، على حدود الصين الشمالية والشمالية الغربية، وغيرها من دول آسيا الوسطى، التي تتكامل مع الجمهورية الإسلامية الإيرانية، التي تخوض مواجهة استراتيجية مع قوى الإرهاب الدولي، المموّل والموجه من واشنطن وتل ابيب، والذي يستهدف في ما يستهدف ايضاً، فتح جبهة جنوبية ضد روسيا، يتطلع الغرب الجماعي في ما يتطلع، الى استنزاف القدرات العسكرية الروسية من خلالها، وصولاً الى تغيير موازين القوى الميدانية الاستراتيجية، في مسرح العمليات الأوكراني، حيث تواصل القوات المسلحة الروسية الإمساك بزمام المبادرة الاستراتيجي هناك، وتدير المعركة بحِرَفية عالية جداً، وتستنزف قدرات الغرب الجماعي، المالية والعسكرية، الأمر الذي يؤكد فشل المخططات الغربية، في استنزاف القدرات الروسية، الاقتصادية والعسكرية، وإخضاع روسيا والسيطرة على مقدراتها وإعادة عجلة التاريخ الى الوراء.

عالم القطبية الأحادية يتهاوى ويرحل رويداً رويداً.

بعدنا طيّبين قولوا الله…

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DPRK fires ballistic missile, vows ‘fiercer’ military response

November 17, 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English 

DPRK launches a short-range ballistic missile on Thursday, according to Seoul’s military.

A woman watches a TV broadcasting a news report on DPRK firing a ballistic missile off its east coast, in Seoul, S. Korea. (Reuters)

The latest in a series of launches aimed at downplaying western provocations and threats, DPRK launched a short-range ballistic missile on Thursday, according to Seoul’s military, as Pyongyang threatened a “fiercer” military response to the US and its regional allies.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the military had “detected around 10:48 am (0148 GMT) one short-range ballistic missile fired from the Wonsan area in Kangwon province.”

“The military has stepped up monitoring and guard and is maintaining utmost readiness in close coordination with the US,” it added.

On the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, US President Joe Biden spoke with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping earlier this week about DPRK’s recent spate of missile tests.

The awaited #G20 summit is set to kick off tomorrow in #Bali, #Indonesia. pic.twitter.com/fwLawFHTrp

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) November 14, 2022

After a series of missile launches fuelled concerns that DPRK would soon conduct its seventh alleged nuclear test, the US President urged China to exert pressure on its ally. Biden also spoke Sunday with the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol and Fumio Kishida, to discuss ways to counter the threat posed by DPRK’s “unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs,” according to the White House.

Read next: DPRK launches 4 short-range ballistic missiles: Reports

DPRK’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Choe Son Hui, slammed Thursday those talks, saying they were “bringing the situation on the Korean peninsula to an unpredictable phase.”

“The US bolstered offer of extended deterrence and the daily-increasing military activities of the allied forces around the Korean peninsula are foolish acts,” Choe said in a statement reported by state news agency KCNA. 

The more efforts Washington will make to fortify its security pact with Seoul and Tokyo, “the fiercer the DPRK’s military counteraction will be,” Choe said.

According to experts, the launch of the missile on Thursday was timed to coincide with the Foreign Minister’s statement from Pyongyang.

DPRK “fired the missile after releasing the statement hours earlier in an attempt to justify the launch to send its message to the US and Japan,” Cheong Seong-chang, a researcher at the Sejong Institute told AFP. 

UN gridlock

DPRK launched numerous missiles earlier this month, including a barrage on November 2 that included 23 missiles, more than it did in 2017, the year of “fire and fury” in which Kim and the US President at the time, Donald Trump, traded insults

Hundreds of US and South Korean warplanes, including B-1B heavy bombers, took part in joint air drills, which have long sparked strong reactions from DPRK.

Read next: US, Japan conduct joint drills amid DPRK missile launches

Experts claim DPRK is seizing the opportunity to conduct “prohibited” missile tests, confident of avoiding additional UN sanctions due to the Ukraine-related gridlock at the UN.

China, Pyongyang’s main diplomatic and economic ally, joined Russia in May in vetoing a US-led bid at the UN Security Council to tighten sanctions on DPRK.

DPRK warns US, allies of proportional response to bolstering US extended deterrence

DPRK Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui warned the US and its regional allies on Thursday that Pyongyang will respond proportionally to Washington’s strengthening of extended deterrence and intensification of provocative military activities in the region.

“The keener the US is on the ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence to its allies and the more they intensify provocative and bluffing military activities on the Korean peninsula and in the region, the fiercer the DPRK’s military counteraction will be, in direct proportion to it, and it will pose a more serious, realistic and inevitable threat to the US and its vassal forces,” the Foreign Minister said in a statement, as quoted by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Read next: DPRK rigorously warns US and South Korea amid Vigilant Storm drills

The Minister noted that “staged large-scale war drills” of the US and its allies in the region not only failed to contain Pyongyang but also “resulted in increasing their security crisis.”

“The US ‘bolstered offer of extended deterrence and the daily-increasing military activities of the allied forces around the Korean peninsula are foolish acts that will bring more serious instability to the US and its allies,” the Minister said.
Since the beginning of 2022, DPRK has conducted over 30 missile tests. Pyongyang launched more than 20 missiles of various types on November 2.

Pyongyang maintains that DPRK’s military activities are in response to provocations by South Korea and its allies, the United States and Japan.

Pyongyang passes legislation that declares the country a nuclear-weapon state, giving its leader, Kim Jong-un, sole authority over nuclear decisions.

September 9, 2022 

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English 

Flag of the DPRK (Reuters)

DPRK passed legislation that declares the country a nuclear-weapon state, giving its leader, Kim Jong-un, sole authority over nuclear decisions, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap, citing Pyongyang’s state media.

The 7th Session of the DPRK’s 14th Supreme People’s Assembly approved a decree titled Nuclear Weapons Policy on Wednesday, as per the Korean Central News Agency.

The law, which included 11 paragraphs, governs the use of nuclear weapons.

The new law stipulated that North Korea could use nuclear weapons under these conditions: the imminent threat of an attack on North Korea by an enemy country using nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, an attack on the leadership and command of North Korea’s nuclear forces, and an attack on the country’s strategically vital facilities.

The third paragraph, titled “command and control of nuclear weapons,” states that Kim Jong-un has the sole authority to dispose of nuclear arsenals and “makes all nuclear weapons decisions.”

In the event that North Korea’s nuclear command and control system is threatened by a hostile attack, KCNA stated that a nuclear strike would be launched immediately to destroy the hostile forces and their command.

In the same context, the DPRK’s leader Kim Jong Un said Friday that his country will never abandon nuclear weapons needed to counter the United States, which he accused of trying to weaken Pyongyang’s defenses and eventually bring his government down.

“The aim of the US is not only to eliminate our nuclear weapons but to completely destroy our nuclear power to force us to give up the right of self-defense, to weaken us to overthrow our regime at any time,” Kim Jong-un told the 7th Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, as quoted by the Yonhap news agency.

During a speech at Supreme People’s Assembly, the Korean leader said that ” “the purpose of the United States is not only to remove our nuclear might itself but eventually forcing us to surrender or weaken our rights to self-defense through giving up our nukes so that they could collapse our government at any time.”

No sanctions, he added, will force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

“This is the [US] misjudgment and miscalculation… You can impose sanctions for a hundred days, a thousand days, ten years, a hundred years. We are not going to give up the right to survival and the right to self-defense, on which the country’s security and its people depend. And no matter how difficult a situation we find ourselves in, we, who have to deter an even bigger nuclear power, the United States that has created this political and military situation on the Korean Peninsula, can never give up nuclear weapons.”

N Korea Passes Law Allowing It to Conduct Preventive Nuke Strikes

September 9, 2022 

By Staff, Agencies

North Korea has passed a law, declaring itself a nuclear weapons state and enshrining the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself.

The Supreme People’s Assembly, the North’s legislature, lent its blessing to the law on Thursday, legislating the country’s status as a nuclear weapons state, the official news agency KCNA reported on Friday.

The law determines the occasions on which the country is supposed to deploy its nuclear weapons, including when attacked and also in order to protect its strategic assets.

“If the command and control system of the national nuclear force is in danger of an attack by hostile forces, a nuclear strike is automatically carried out immediately,” the law says.

Experts say the country is to resume testing nuclear weapons, noting that the legislation paves the way for the prospect.

Ruler Kim Jong-un said the legislation made the country’s status as a nuclear weapon state “irreversible.”

“The utmost significance of legislating nuclear weapons policy is to draw an irretrievable line so that there can be no bargaining over our nuclear weapons,” Kim said in a speech to the parliament.

The legislation, therefore, bars any talks on its denuclearization.

Kim said the US and its allies maintain “hostile policies” such as sanctions and military exercises that undercut their messages of peace.

“As long as nuclear weapons remain on earth and imperialism remains and maneuvers of the United States and its followers against our republic are not terminated, our work to strengthen nuclear force will not cease,” Kim said.

US President Joe Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump took unprecedented steps towards apparently fraternizing the North by initiating several rounds of dialog with it, and even walking a number of steps into the country alongside Kim.

However, Washington blew, what Pyongyang called, a “golden opportunity” at mending the situation by insisting too much on denuclearization.

Nuke-Armed Nations Spent $82.4bn on Weapons in 2021

June 15, 2022

By Staff, Agencies

The world’s nine nuclear-armed countries spent $82.4bn upgrading their atomic weaponry in 2021, eight percent more than the year before, a campaign group has said.

The biggest spender was the United States, which accounted for more than half the total spending, followed by China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons [ICAN] said in its annual report on nuclear spending.

“Nuclear-armed states spent an obscene amount of money on illegal weapons of mass destruction in 2021, while the majority of the world’s countries support a global nuclear weapons ban,” the group said in its report. “This spending failed to deter a war in Europe and squandered valuable resources that could be better used to address current security challenges, or cope with the outcome of a still raging global pandemic. This corrupt cycle of wasteful spending must be put to an end.”

ICAN noted that nuclear weapons producers also spent millions lobbying on defense, with every $1 spent lobbying leading to an average of $256 in new contracts involving nuclear weapons.

“The exchange of money and influence, from countries to companies to lobbyists and think tanks, sustains and maintains a global arsenal of catastrophically destructive weapons,” the report said.

On Monday, the Stockholm International Peace Research [SIPRI] warned that all nine nuclear-armed countries were increasing or upgrading their arsenals, and that the risk of such weapons being deployed appeared higher now than at any time since the height of the Cold War.

ICAN estimates North Korea spent $642m on nuclear weaponry in 2021 even as its economy struggled under United Nations sanctions and the pandemic-linked closure of borders.

Pyongyang walked away from denuclearisation talks after the collapse of a summit with then-US President Donald Trump in 2019, and has carried out a record number of missile launches this year. There are concerns it is preparing for its first nuclear weapons tests since 2017.

There is no official confirmation on the amount North Korea spends on nuclear weapons or its arsenal. SIPRI estimates it has as many as 20 warheads.

Western Foreign Policy Created Ukraine Crisis, is Creating Crisis with China

June 09, 2022

From Brian Berletic on New Eastern Outlook

https://journal-neo.org/2022/06/08/western-foreign-policy-created-ukraine-crisis-is-creating-crisis-with-china/

Two recent events, both overshadowed by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, help illustrate how the same problematic aspects of Western foreign policy driving the Ukrainian conflict are hard at work in provoking conflict with yet another global power, China.

Western complaints about an alleged naval base China is accused of building in Cambodia and an altercation between Chinese and Canadian patrol aircraft in the North Pacific reflect growing tensions between an inflexible and declining Western unipolar order and a rising China that increasingly refuses to subordinate or explain itself to the West upon the global stage.

While peaceful coexistence would not only be possible but preferable in regards to global peace, stability, and prosperity, the US-led “rules-based international order” has openly declared its intentions of inhibiting China’s rise and has demonstrated just how far in terms of disrupting global peace, stability, and prosperity the US and its allies are willing to go to achieve this.

China’s “Secret Navy Base” 

The Washington Post in an article titled, “China secretly building PLA naval facility in Cambodia, Western officials say,” would claim:

China is secretly building a naval facility in Cambodia for the exclusive use of its military, with both countries denying that is the case and taking extraordinary measures to conceal the operation, Western officials said. 

The Washington Post already reported that:

The establishment of a Chinese naval base in Cambodia — only its second such overseas outpost and its first in the strategically significant Indo-Pacific region — is part of Beijing’s strategy to build a network of military facilities around the world in support of its aspirations to become a true global power, the officials said.

The unnamed Western officials failed to point out just how far China actually has to go to become a “true global power” in terms of building military installations abroad. A 2021 Al Jazeera article titled, “Infographic: US military presence around the world,” noted that, “The US controls about 750 bases in at least 80 countries worldwide and spends more on its military than the next 10 countries combined.”

The notion that China’s activities in Cambodia are “secret” is also questionable. Both China and Cambodia are surely aware of the full extent to which China is or isn’t involved at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base. Neither nation is required to provide an explanation to the United States whose own shores are located thousands of miles away.

While the Washington Post accuses China of using  “a combination of coercion, punishment and inducements in the diplomatic, economic and military realms,” to “bend” nations to Beijing’s interests, it is actually the United States who threatens not only Cambodia, but nations throughout Southeast Asia, all of whom seek to cultivate constructive ties with China.

Late last year, according to AP in their article, “US orders arms embargo on Cambodia, cites Chinese influence,” Cambodia was openly penalized simply for its growing ties with China. The article would claim:

Beijing’s support allows Cambodia to disregard Western concerns about its poor record in human and political rights, and in turn Cambodia generally supports Beijing’s geopolitical positions on issues such as its territorial claims in the South China Sea.

The construction of new Chinese military facilities at Cambodia’s Ream Naval Base is a point of strong contention with Washington.

Clearly, US claims about Chinese foreign policy is pure projection. The US would be pressed to cite specific “punishments” China has dispensed to nations simply for cultivating ties with the US. The US, on the other hand, not only imposed various economic penalties on Cambodia’s government, Washington has also sponsored opposition forces who openly aim to overthrow the current Cambodian government.

In a 2017 Phnom Penh Post article titled, “Sokha video producer closes Phnom Penh office in fear,” a senior Cambodian opposition leader – Kem Sokha – would be quoted as saying:

“…the USA that has assisted me, they asked me to take the model from Yugoslavia, Serbia, where they can change the dictator [Slobodan] Milosevic,” he continues, referring to the former Serbian and Yugoslavian leader who resigned amid popular protests following disputed elections, and died while on trial for war crimes. 

He would also claim:

“I do not do anything at my own will. There experts, professors at universities in Washington, DC, Montreal, Canada, hired by the Americans in order to advise me on the strategy to change the dictator leader in Cambodia.” 

If Cambodia, whose constitution prohibits the presence of foreign military facilities on its territory, is willing to risk public backlash for allowing China to construct a “secret base” there, it might be as a means of preventing the country from becoming the next Ukraine.

Canada’s “Global Jurisdiction” vs Chinese Sovereignty 

Also in the headlines recently is a row growing between China and Canada over the latter’s air patrols “monitoring” North Korea.

A Reuters article, “China warns Canada over air patrols monitoring North Korea sanctions busting,” would claim:

China’s foreign ministry warned Canada on Monday of potential “severe consequences” of any “risky provocation,” after Canada’s military last week accused Chinese warplanes of harassing its patrol aircraft monitoring North Korea sanctions busting.

“The UN Security Council has never authorized any country to carry out military surveillance in the seas and airspace of other countries in the name of enforcing sanctions,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said at a media briefing. 

And indeed, the UN has not authorized Canada or any other nation to fly air patrols to enforce sanctions on North Korea. The Canadian patrol aircraft are so far from Canada’s own territory, they are actually based in Japan throughout the duration of these “monitoring” missions.

The United States’ self-appointed role as arbiter of who can and cannot construct military bases around the globe and Canadian patrol aircraft assuming global jurisdiction including off China’s own shores and around its neighbor’s shores, are illustrations of American exceptionalism (and by extension, the exceptionalism of their closest allies).

This exceptionalism led to the crisis in Ukraine which followed the US overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government in 2014.  The US began a process of militarizing the nation which shares a substantial border with the Russian Federation. Whereas the US was allowed to send its military to Ukraine to train forces for an eventual war with Russia, the US and its allies decried Russian military deployments within Russia’s own territory to put in check the growing threat Ukraine was being transformed into.

Whereas the US was able to interfere deeply in Ukraine’s internal political affairs, Russia was accused of backing separatists in the Donbas region and thus of fuelling the 8 year war that precipitated ongoing military operations in Ukraine today.

Likewise, the US is able to maintain hundreds of military bases around the globe, including those constructed as part of illegal wars of aggression and subsequent occupations. China, however, is apparently “wrong” for the potential use of part of an existing Cambodian naval facility, with Cambodia’s consent.

US allies like Canada are able to fly “patrol aircraft” thousands of miles from their own shores to “monitor” territory near Chinese shores and those of their neighbors, but China is unable to scramble its own aircraft to intercept and monitor these “patrols.”

In the past, this exceptionalism went unchecked. Because of China’s rise, there is a growing sense of balance being reintroduced into what has been until now a unipolar world order. While the US government and the Western media will complain about China’s growing ties both economically and militarily throughout the Indo-Pacific region, there is little the US can do to stop it. Its increasingly coercive and aggressive policies to punish nations seeking to do business with China may disrupt whatever balancing act many nations have been performing between East and West, driving them deeper into partnership with China and thus only succeed in isolating the US itself.

Only time will tell if the US continues down this increasingly destructive path, Ukraine being only the most recent victim of American exceptionalism, or if the US begins finding a constructive role within the emerging multipolar world.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Hegemon USA’s History of War Crimes

April 7, 2022

Russia’s Sputnik News reported examples of US war crimes post-WW II.

My own examples follow below. First Sputnik’s:

The July 1950 No Gun Ri massacre occurred one month after Truman’s war of aggression on nonbelligerent, nonthreatening North Korea.

Covered up for nearly half a century, what happened took the lives of around 300 men, women and children.

From December 1968 – May 1969, US forces indiscriminately massacred thousands of North Vietnamese civilians in so-called “free-fire zones” during Operation Speedy Express — to cause maximum numbers of casualties.

In February 1991 near end of Operation Desert Storm in Iraq, civilians and fleeing combatants were massacred along the so-called Highway of Death.

In May 1999 near Korisa, Kosovo, US terror-bombing massacred civilian refugees — ones who unsuccessfully sought shelter out of harm’s way.

In the second battle of Fallujah in November 2004 — during the Second Persian Gulf War — US and UK forces terror-bombed Iraqis with banned weapons, including white phosphorous, incendiary bombs, and radiological weapons.

Thousands were massacred in cold blood, largely civilians.

In October 2015, US forces terror-bombed a Kunduz, Afghanistan hospital on the phony pretext of targeting Taliban fighters.

Dozens were killed, dozens more injured.

During the siege of Mosul, Iraq in 2017, an estimated 40,000 Iraqi civilians were massacred on the phony pretext of combating US created and supported ISIS jihadists. 

Similar mass slaughter occurred in the same year against Raqqa, Syria civilians.

US genocides began by mass-exterminating countless millions of Native America to expand the nation from sea-to-shinning sea — by stealing their land, livelihoods and lives.

In his book titled, “A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present,” Ward Churchill explained that the nation’s indigenous population was reduced to at most 3% of its original numbers before it all began — by butchery and other forms of brutality.

During the infamous Middle Passage transatlantic slave trade — the African holocaust — millions perished en route in extreme discomfort.

Around 100 million human beings arriving in America were sold like cattle.

Describing the centuries-long horror, historian Howard Zinn said the following:

US slavery was “the most cruel form in history.”

It reflected a “frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human status by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.”

Post-WW II US genocides occurred against North Koreans, Southeast Asians, Central and Latin Americans, Africans, other Asians, Yugoslavs, Afghans, Yemenis, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians and others.

With no end of it in prospect, unparalleled genocide has been ongoing by kill shots throughout the West and elsewhere since December 2020 — the human toll unknown because of coverup and denial.

If continues longterm, billions may perish out of sight and mind — unwanted people that US/Western dark forces want exterminated to more greatly empower and enrich the privileged few at their expense.

During America’s dirty 1898 – 1902 Spanish-American War against Spain to cede control of the Philippines, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos were brutally slaughtered.

US cutthroat killer general Jacob Smith ordered his troops to:

“Kill and burn.”

“This is no time to take prisoners.”

“The more you kill and burn, the better.” 

“Kill all above the age of ten.”

Then “turn (the country into) a howling wilderness.”

Few people anywhere suffered longer, more horrifically with anguish than Haitians for over 500 years and still counting.

They endured genocidal oppression, slavery, despotism, colonization, reparations, embargoes, sanctions, deep poverty, starvation, untreated diseases, unrepayable debt, and natural calamities unprotected.

Along with strategic bombing to destroy an adversary’s economic and military might, US terror bombings targeted civilians to break their morale, cause panic, weaken an invented enemy’s will to fight, along with inflicting mass casualties and punishment.

Geneva and other international laws prohibit it. 

The Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (1907 Hague IV Convention’s Article 25 states:

“The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or building which are undefended is prohibited.”

Fourth Geneva protects civilians in time of war.

It prohibits violence of any kind against them and requires treatment for the sick and wounded. 

The 1945 Nuremberg Principles forbid “crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity.” 

These include “inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war,” including indiscriminate killing and “wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.”

In virtually all US wars of aggression against invented enemies, the above and similar war crimes occur with disturbing regularity.

During the firebombing of Dresden, Germany in February 1945 — when what Russia calls its Great Patriotic War was virtually won — the US and UK gratuitously incinerated around 100,000 city residents.

The morally indefensible high crime was repeated against Tokyo the same month in similar fashion after virtual surrender by imperial Japan was rejected by Franklin Roosevelt. surrendered and accepted defeat.

In August 1945, Harry Truman gratuitously destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear immolation.

When WW II was virtually over, hundreds of thousands were killed.

To this day, future generations were scarred with birth defects and other serious health issues. 

During the post-WW II period, countless millions more were massacred during US imperial wars — accountability for the highest of high crimes never forthcoming.

Genocidal wars were waged against nonbelligerent North Korea, North Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and worldwide against unwanted people.

US use of chemical, biological, radiological and other banned weapons is well-documented throughout US history.

From smallpox infected blankets against Native Americans to chlorine gas during the US Civil War to today’s chemical, biological, radiological and other banned weapons, anything goes has been official US policy throughout its history.

Deadly dioxin-containing Agent Orange and nerve gas were used by US forces in Southeast Asia.

So were other terror weapons in all US wars of aggression.

It’s not a pretty picture. 

The self-styled indispensable state’s history is pockmarked with virtually every type crime imaginable at home and worldwide.

They’ve gone on by endless wars of choice against Native Americans to the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli to the present day at home and abroad worldwide — with no end of them in prospect.

Israeli fear of Tehran laying hands on Pyongyang missiles showcased

Jan 09 2022

Source: Israeli Media

By Al Mayadeen Net

An article on The Jerusalem Post by its intelligence analyst Yonah Jeremy Bob showcases Israeli concerns of DPRK hypersonic weapons being delivered to Iran.

An image provided by the DPRK showing the missile test launch on January 5

North Korea’s latest missile test on Wednesday sparked concerns in “Israel” that the country’s hypersonic missile technology would find its way to Iran.

Since Israelis themselves weren’t able to independently confirm if this was indeed a hypersonic missile test, analysts have already begun to study the implications of the launch (the DPRK says it is indeed a hypersonic missile). Moreover, the timing of the launch, amid the ongoing Vienna Talks, has Israeli analysts fearing possible messages in support of Iran and against the US.
 
An article on The Jerusalem Post by Israeli intelligence analyst Yonah Jeremy Bob reveals that Israeli fears stem from the fact that ballistic missiles would be easier to shoot down if they were launched from Iran (although this becomes less true in the case of Lebanon). 

However, hypersonic missiles are a different thing altogether, since they are “much faster and take a different flight path than a regular ballistic missile, flying part of its journey lower to the ground where it is harder to detect by radar and is also considered more maneuverable.”
 
“Put simply, a hypersonic missile is much harder to shoot down,” he adds.

Iran getting a transfer of hypersonic missile technology from the DPRK, aside from Israeli fears of Iran growing closer to nuclear weapons (which the latter has denied on multiple occasions), would elevate the ballistic missile threat posed by the Islamic Republic on the Israeli occupation. 

As for the message the analyst thinks North Korea may be trying to deliver to Iran (other than the one it is delivering to the US), “Kim could be signaling to the Islamic Republic that it does not need to negotiate or play ball with the West.”

Though a lot of this is analytical guesswork, as not much is known about the test, the intelligence specialist says that whatever the answers, “none of them are good news for the US or Israel.”

Meaning of Self-Defence 2021

December 24 2021

Meaning of Self-Defence 2021

Source: Al Mayadeen

Kim Hoon

Through sacrifice and hard work, the people of The DPRK managed to achieve peace and stability, assuring a bright future for its citizens under the protections of military hardware produced locally despite all sanctions.

Last October, in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), the Defence Development Exhibition, named Self-Defence 2021, opened in the presence of Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs.

What did the exhibition that attracted the attention of the world’s military experts and media organs show?

Eye-Opening Development

The military hardware on display struck the visitors with wonder. What was most wonderful was their advanced and modernized level.

All the weapons such as various small arms and soldier’s personal gear, tanks of a new generation, armor-piercing weapons, self-propelled gun howitzers, super-large multiple launch system, various electronic weapons, drones, means of reconnaissance, submarine- and land-launched ballistic missiles of the Pukguksong series, medium-ranged and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) of the Hwasongpho series and anti-aircraft missile systems were of world level.

Especially, the new-type gigantic missile carried on an 11-axle transporter-erector-launcher vehicle displayed during the military parade, held in October last year to mark the 75th founding anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, fully demonstrated the ultra-modernity and striking capability of the country’s strategic forces.

In other words, it showed that the military hardware equipped by the Korean People’s Army are the source of the irreversible strategic power and war deterrent, which could cope with any opponent and war.

The period and speed of their upgrading were also amazing.

The displayed military hardware were all developed and produced over the past five years, demonstrating their rapid upgrading period and speed.

As the world already observed, the  DPRK  successfully test-fired ground-to-ground IRBM Hwasong-10 at the first launch, and only one year later, successfully test-fired ground-to-ground IRBM Hwasong-12, whose tactical and technical specifications and technical features had been remarkably improved, two months later, a new-type of ICBM Hwasong-14 was successfully test-fired, followed by ICBM Hwasong-14, test-fired by simulating its maximum firing range, over 20 days later. In November 2017 a new-type of ICBM Hwasong-15, whose tactical and technical specifications and features were far superior to Hwasong-14 as it can be loaded with super-sized nuclear warheads, was successfully test-fired. What was more surprising was the fact that all the military hardware was developed and its serial production was achieved by the country’s own efforts and technology.

All the military hardware displayed in the exhibition hall was a brilliant fruition born of the line of self-reliance in national defence which the country has consistently maintained, of the solid foundations of the munitions industry laid for more than 70 years after its founding and of the efforts made by the large contingent of promising scientists in the defence science sector, who carried out unfailingly the intentions of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Prospects of the Defence Industry

 The exhibition also gave a hint as to the prospects of the development of the defence industry of the DPRK.

   The prospects were clearly expressed in the core plans and were qualified as important strategic tasks of the five-year plan period, laid out at the Eighth Congress of the WPK in January this year.

   At the Congress, the WPK put forward tasks in order to improve the  military equipment so that it would become intelligent, precise, unmanned, high-performed, and light as a core target for the munitions industry, and would help  developing a nuclear technology of a higher level and improving nuclear weapons for various tactical purposes, promoting continuously the production of super-sized nuclear warheads, attaining an advanced capability for launching a pre-emptive and retaliatory nuclear strike by further raising the level of precision to the point that a strategic target within a range of 15 000 kilometers can be hit and destroyed with pinpoint accuracy, developing nuclear submarine and underwater-launch nuclear strategic weapons, developing and introducing hypersonic gliding flight warheads, securing a reconnaissance and information-gathering capability based on the operation of a military reconnaissance satellite, and developing reconnaissance drones and other means of reconnaissance capable of precisely reconnoitering over distances of up to 500 kilometers, and rapidly developing the Korean People’s Army so that the army of a conventional type would turn into an elite hi-tech force.

Accordingly, the Academy of Defence Science conducted a series of test-fire missiles with upgraded combat performances, like test-fire of a new-type tactical guided missile in March 2021, test-fire of a newly-developed long-range cruise missile in September, inspection firing drill of a railway mobile missile regiment, test-fire of a newly-developed hypersonic missile of Hwasong-8 type, and test-fire of a newly-developed anti-aircraft missile.

During a speech delivered at the exhibition, Kim Jong Un declared: Our self-defence will continue to enhance the Korean army; we will achieve even more brilliant successes in carrying out our just and patriotic cause. In the course of doing this, we will build up a more perfect, more complete, and more powerful war deterrent; in other words, we will create a strategic power that will guarantee the security and the future of our country and people.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

More tectonic developments taking place

September 30, 2021

First, there is the crazy behavior of Germany.

Rather than repeat it all here, I will simply point you to Andrei Martyanov’s article about this here: https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2021/09/drifting-apart.html

===>>>BTW I recommend to all my readers to check Martyano’v blog every day!<<<===

Then here is this: the DPRK is testing a hypersonic missile

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/N-Korea-at-crossroads/North-Korea-claims-test-of-defense-busting-hypersonic-missile

and

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2021/09/29/asia-pacific/north-korea-hypersonic-missile/

Some western “experts” have declared that the test “might” have been a failure.  Make of that what you wish.

Personally, I do not have access to top secret DPRK documents (which I could not read anyway!) or some special insights into hypersonic missile technology (I am not a missile engineer).  I did ask Andrei Martyanov, whose expertise I do trust, and he expressed his doubts about the veracity/reliability of these reports.

So let’s make a very middle of the way assumption here: the DPRK is working on a hypersonic missile, and what was launched was was part of a test missile.  Fair enough?

That would put the DPRK pretty close (if not on par with) the USA’s own (long suffering) hypersonic missile program.

So far, only Russia and China have fielded real, fully functional, hypersonic missiles (not quite true, there were some intermediate range missiles which flew at high speeds in the past, but they were not what we would call a modern, maneuvering, hypersonic missile).

The DPRK has made some very real strides on all sorts of technologies which this “officially” backward and primitive “Commie Monarchy” should never have been able to develop, not even with Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese help (official, covert or even individual).  But they did, didn’t they?  They even have some nukes (though probably not a good delivery systems (yet?).

Of course, the DPRK is still very far from developing the kinds of weapons systems the US undeniably has (for example submarines, both SSNs and SSBNs in which the USA is still at the top level and decades ahead of any DPRK subs).  But considering the level of corruption of the US MIC combined with a new “inclusive” ideology (which basically denies the need for STEM education) things are clearly changing and only God knows what things will look like in, say, 5 years or so?

Next,

The US Congress is going even more insane than usual and put our entire planet at risk!

By now the “notorious” telephone calls of the CJCS to his Chinese and, apparently, Russian counterparts are now considered high treason.  Now let’s remember the context, the US was going through a mass hysteria following the “elections” and it was totally reasonable to assume that both China and Russia would be very concerned about what might happen next.  To call them and say that “our nukes are under control and no matter what political troubles we currently have will not affect that” is not high treason, but only very WISE common sense.  The fact that, apparently, they did that without consulting or even getting an order from the President is absolutely very problematic and those questioning this have a very good point.  But there is a saying in Russian which I like very much “rules are for the end goal (дело) and not the other way around”.  As military officers the men responsible for this action had to chose between the proper chain of command and the risk of the Russians and Chinese increasing their level of readiness which, in turn, could have been interpreted by the (incompetent and mainly idiotic) US “experts” as a sign that the evil Russkies or Chink Commies were about to use the opportunity created by the internal chaos in the USA to try a first strike (does that stupid theory not sound like exactly the kind of crap civilian US ‘experts’ love to scare people with?) and would then, in turn, force the USA to got a step up in readiness, thereby confirming any possible Russian and/or Chinese suspicions.

Frankly, I wish that the top officers of all three countries spoke to each other on a daily basis, regardless of what political tensions might be occurring in the USA, Russia or China.

So what the CJCS did, at the risk of his career, is to prevent that kind of mutual escalation of distrust and fear from happening in a very dangerous times.  So, imnsho, he deserves both a official blame for AND a secret medal for what he did.

But, of course, the two equally insane parties in Congress don’t understand that, because they simply don’t understand nuclear war and nuclear deterrence, a topic which civilians ought to not discuss unless they first study it in some depth (which I did at length in graduate school).

But the terminally moronic US members of Congress are now making it sound like even talking to Russia or China about, say, counter-terrorism cooperation is some unspeakable act of treason and a pact with the devil.

To put it bluntly, these imbeciles are putting our entire planet at risk with such nonsense!

The Anglo media sinks even further into lunacy

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/16275278/vladimir-putin-attractive-translator-g20-trump-book/

I wish I had the time to translate and post the Russian reactions to this latest paranoid hysteria: the Russian are laughing their heads off and typically say “she just looked like every other 2nd Russian young woman”, which might sound incredible to gender fluid freaks and other “spokespersons” of the US administrations, but which is self-evident nonsense for anybody who has ever visited Russia.

And to imagine that Putin would select an interpreter or deliberately cough to scare Trump also triggers only another burst of laughter.

Just for the record, that interpreter finished a real interpretation school and is fluent in German and English.

Also, in Russia woman are allowed to be smart AND good looking.  In fact, most are 🙂

What will they do next?

Only God knows 🙂

Andrei

Political Declaration adopted during the first ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, New York, September 23, 2021

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4865844

1. We, representatives of Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, and Venezuela, met at the ministerial level, in New York, on the sidelines of the High-Level Week of the 76th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, in order to undertake an assessment of recent developments in the international arena, including of challenges and threats to the Charter of the United Nations, which underpins multilateralism, and to exchange views on existing, new, and emerging issues of collective concern and common interest.

2. We recall the declaration adopted on 06 July 2021, in New York, at the ambassadorial level, and reaffirm that the Charter of the United Nations and its purposes and principles remain timeless, universal, and that they are all indispensable not only for preserving and promoting international peace and security, the rule of law, economic development and social progress, as well as all human rights for all, but also for achieving a more peaceful, prosperous, just and equitable world, and a system based, precisely, on the rules contained in that universal and legally binding instrument that constitutes an exceptional achievement for humankind and a true act of faith on the best of humanity.

3. We vow to spare no effort in preserving, promoting and defending the prevalence and validity of the Charter of the United Nations, which, in the current international juncture, has a renewed and even more important value and relevance. In this regard, we express our resolve to expand the work of our Group of Friends beyond the United Nations Headquarters, in New York, particularly at the Offices of the United Nations in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna, as well as at the Headquarters of other UN Specialized Agencies, in order to advance our joint efforts for ensuring the respect and adherence to the Charter of the United Nations, in both its letter and spirit.

4. We express our serious concern at the growing resort to unilateralism, in detriment not only of multilateralism, but also of international cooperation and solidarity, which must be deepened now more than ever, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to forge collective, inclusive and effective solutions to the common challenges and threats of a 21st century of interconnectedness. Hence, while renewing our firm commitment with a reinvigorated multilateralism that shall have the United Nations at its centre, we convey our support to nations and peoples subjected to unilateral and arbitrary approaches that violate both the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the basic norms of international law, and renew our call for the full respect to the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination, as well as the territorial integrity and political independence of all nations.

5. We invite those members of the international community that are committed with the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, with the prevalence of legality over force, with the values of dialogue, tolerance and solidarity, as well as with an effective and inclusive multilateralism, in which all regions and all size of States are equal and engaged alike, to consider joining our Group of Friends and/or endorsing this Declaration at their earliest convenience, as part of our common efforts to advance our common agenda and to ultimately keep delivering on the promise of the Charter of the United Nations and ensuring that no one is left behind.

New York, 23 September 2021

A little less conversation, a little more action

May 20, 2021

by Pepe Escobar and first posted at Asia Times

So Sergey Lavrov and Tony Blinken met for nearly two hours at the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, on the sidelines of the ministerial session of the Arctic Council.

Frosty? Not really. Even if the get together may not have been a throwback to a Reagan-Gorbachev funfest in the good old Cold War days. After all, there was a NATO warship parked right outside the windows of Harpa Hall – like a prop in a Marvel blockbuster.

Self-described “amateur guitarist” Blinken may have been relatively swayed by the charms of the 1968 Elvis stunner A Little Less Conversation.

Well, at least there was some conversation. As for “a little more action”, as Elvis sang it, it remains to be seen. A good sign is that they addressed each other as “Sergey” and “Tony”. Blinken even attempted a “Spasiba”.

Let’s start with Lavrov – who routinely dwells in the Valhalla of diplomacy, unlike average apparatchik Blinken.

We agreed to continue our joint actions, which are developing quite successfully, on regional conflicts where the interests of the United States and Russia coincide. This is the nuclear problem of the Korean Peninsula, and the situation with efforts to restore the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on the Iranian nuclear program. This is Afghanistan, where the expanded troika consisting of Russia, China, the United States, Pakistan is actively working. We discussed how at this stage we can make all our joint actions more effective.

So there was “a very useful conversation” (Lavrov again) on what they do coincide (revival of the JCPOA), don’t coincide (Afghanistan) and hardly coincide (North Korea).

More than useful, actually: “constructive”. Lavrov again: “There is an understanding of the need to overcome the unhealthy situation that developed between Moscow and Washington in previous years.”

Lavrov made it very clear what we are at a stage of mere “proposal” to “start a dialogue, considering all aspects, all factors affecting strategic stability: nuclear, non-nuclear, offensive, defensive. I have not seen a rejection of such a concept, but experts still have to work on it.”

So Blinken did not reject it. The devil is how the “experts” will “work on it”.

Those pesky “laws of diplomacy”

It’s quite useful to compare what they said to each other – at least according to what was leaked.

Lavrov stressed discussions must be “honest, factual and with mutual respect”. Most important area of cooperation is “strategic stability”. He crucially invoked the “laws of diplomacy” – something that the Hegemon has not exactly been fond of lately: they “call for reciprocity, especially when it comes to responding to any kind of unfriendly action.” Implied is Moscow’s willingness to solve problems “inherited from previous US administrations.”

Blinken said the US wants a predictable and stable relationship: “It’s our view that if the leaders of Russia and the United States can work together cooperatively, our people, the world can be a safer and more secure place.” Areas where interests “intersect and overlap” include battling Covid-19 and climate change, apart from Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea.

“Russian aggression” though could not simply be thrown into the Arctic Sea: “If Russia acts aggressively against us, our partners, our allies, we will respond… not for purposes of escalation, not to seek conflict, but to defend our interests.”

So “experts” will have a field day – actually, days, weeks and months – figuring out how which brands of “Russian aggression” attack “our interests.”

As it stands, it looks like the bilateral Putin-Biden summit next month in a “European diplomatic capital” – as rumors swirl in Brussels – may be a go. To hope that it would take place, for instance, in Nursultan – the diplomatic capital of Eurasia – is a long shot.

Lavrov: “We will prepare proposals for our presidents both on these issues [the work of diplomatic missions] and the matters related to our dialogue on strategic stability.”

It’s quite enlightening to consider two parallel developments to Reykjavik.

The State Dept. confirmed it will waive sanctions against the Swiss-based company overseeing the construction of Nord Stream 2. And SWIFT confirmed to the Russian Central Bank that business continues as usual, and Moscow won’t be cut off from the system.

These may be interpreted as goodwill gestures ahead of the possible June summit. Afterwards, no one knows.

It’s also enlightening to note what Lavrov and Blinken did not discuss: vaccine diplomacy.

Sergey Naryshkin, the director of the SVR foreign intel, is now on the record saying that the registration of Sputnik V vaccine at the EU is being stalled by “signals from the corridors of power” in Brussels – something I confirmed weeks ago with relatively independent diplomats. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) still sustains that the vaccine may be registered before the end of the month.

And then there are glaring cases like Brazil, the target of tremendous pressure by Washington to prevent Sputnik V’s approval. Sputnik V has been registered by 61 nations, overwhelmingly in the Global South.

Let’s assume that Cold War 2.0, in theory, may have been put on hold. Now it’s time then for a “little more action”. Will it come to the point that Sergey and Tony will agree on “a little less fight, a little more spark” and dance to the rhythm of “all this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me”?

Related

• Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s opening remarks at a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting, Reykjavik, May 19, 2021

Japan’s prime minister visits Washington this week and will face questions about confronting China. “نيويورك تايمز”: اليابان تواجه ضغوطاً أميركية لمواجهة الصين

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Japan’s prime minister visits Washington this week and will face questions about confronting China.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan will arrive in the United States on Thursday.Credit…Sadayuki Goto/Kyodo News, via Associated Press

TOKYO — As he visits Washington this week, it would seem as if Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan could take a victory lap.

Mr. Suga is the first foreign leader to be invited to the White House by President Biden, who has vowed to reinvigorate alliances. Japan already had the distinction last month of being the first international destination for the new U.S. secretaries of state and defense. And Mr. Suga will not have to contend with threats of higher tariffs or the need for constant flattery that drove Mr. Biden’s mercurial predecessor.

But even as relations between the two countries are calming, Japan faces a perilous moment, with the United States prodding it to more squarely address the most glaring threat to stability in Asia: China.

The second White House invitation to a foreign leader, not coincidentally, went to President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, who is expected to visit in May, Mr. Biden’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said on Thursday.

The meetings with both leaders, Ms. Psaki said, will emphasize “shared coordination and cooperation” on China policy, as well as the mutual “commitment to the denuclearization of North Korea” and other issues of regional security.

The meeting with Japan’s leader is a step in a now-familiar dance between the two nations. Ever since the United States forged an alliance with Japan during its postwar occupation, Tokyo has sought reassurance of protection by Washington, while Washington has nudged Tokyo to do more to secure its own defense.

For decades during the Cold War, the pre-eminent threats seemed to come from Europe. Now, as Mr. Suga goes to Washington, Japan confronts encroaching dangers in its own backyard.

“We’re in a completely new era where the threat is focused on Asia, and Japan is on the front line of that threat,” said Jennifer Lind, an associate professor of government at Dartmouth College who is a specialist in East Asian international security.

“The U.S.-Japan alliance is at a crossroads,” Ms. Lind said. “The alliance has to decide how do we want to respond to the growing threat from China and to the Chinese agenda for international order.”

China has repeatedly ignored diplomatic or legal efforts to contain its aggressive actions in both the South China and East China Seas, and some say Japan needs to be more specific about what it might do in the event of a military conflict.

Perhaps the biggest risk is in the Taiwan Strait, where China has been dispatching warplanes to menace the democratic island, which Beijing considers a rogue territory.

— Motoko Rich and Glenn Thrush

JAPAN-U.S. RELATIONS

Read the full article about what to watch as Japan’s prime minister visits Washington.

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“نيويورك تايمز”: اليابان تواجه ضغوطاً أميركية لمواجهة الصين

الكاتب: موتوكو ريتش وغلين ثراش

المصدر: نيويورك تايمز اليوم 16-4-2021

تميزت اليابان الشهر الماضي بكونها الوجهة الدولية الأولى لوزيري الخارجية والدفاع الأميركيين الجديدين.

رئيس الوزراء الياباني يوشيهيدي سوغا قبل توجهه إلى الولايات المتحدة الخميس

قالت صحيفة “نيويورك تايمز” إن رئيس الوزراء الياباني يوشيهيدي سوغا يزور وانشطن هذا الأسبوع، وهو أول زعيم أجنبي يدعى إلى البيت الأبيض من قبل الرئيس الأميركي جو بايدن الذي تعهد بتنشيط التحالف بين الدولتين. 

وقد تميزت اليابان بالفعل الشهر الماضي بكونها الوجهة الدولية الأولى لوزيري الخارجية والدفاع الأميركيين الجديدين. ولن يضطر السيد سوغا إلى مواجهة التهديدات بفرض رسوم جمركية أعلى أو الحاجة إلى الإطراء المستمر كما كان الحال مع سلف بايدن الزئبقي، الرئيس دونالد ترامب.

وأضافت الصحيفة أنه فيما تصبح العلاقات بين البلدين أكثر دفئاً، تواجه اليابان لحظة محفوفة بالمخاطر حيث تضغط الولايات المتحدة على السيد سوغا للتعامل بشكل أكثر صراحة مع الصين، الذي تعتبره التهديد الأوضح للاستقرار في آسيا.

وقالت المتحدثة باسم بايدن، جين ساكي، يوم الخميس، إن دعوة البيت الأبيض الثانية لزعيم أجنبي، وليس من قبيل الصدفة، ذهبت إلى الرئيس الكوري الجنوبي مون جاي إن، الذي من المتوقع أن يزوره في أيار / مايو المقبل.

وقالت السيدة ساكي إن الاجتماعات مع الزعيمين ستركز على “التنسيق والتعاون المشترك” بشأن سياسة الصين، فضلاً عن “الالتزام المتبادل بنزع السلاح النووي لكوريا الشمالية” وقضايا أخرى تتعلق بالأمن الإقليمي.

ويعد اجتماع الرئيس الأميركي مع زعيم اليابان خطوة مألوفة الآن بين البلدين. فمنذ أن أقامت الولايات المتحدة تحالفاً مع اليابان أثناء احتلالها بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية، سعت طوكيو إلى إعادة التأكيد على الحماية من قبل واشنطن، بينما حضت واشنطن طوكيو على بذل المزيد من الجهد لتأمين دفاعها الخاص عن نفسها. فعلى مدى عقود خلال الحرب الباردة، بدا أن التهديدات البارزة تأتي من أوروبا. الآن، بينما يذهب السيد سوغا إلى واشنطن، تواجه اليابان مخاطر عدوانية في فنائها الخلفي.

وقالت جينيفر ليند، الأستاذة المشاركة في الشؤون الحكومية في كلية دارتموث والمتخصصة في الأمن الدولي لشرق آسيا: “إننا في حقبة جديدة تماماً حيث يتركز التهديد على آسيا، واليابان على خط المواجهة في مواجهة هذا التهديد”.

وأضافت ليند أن “التحالف بين الولايات المتحدة واليابان على مفترق طرق. فعلى هذا التحالف أن يقرر كيف يريد أن يرد على التهديد المتنامي القادم من الصين وعلى الأجندة الصينية للنظام الدولي.”

وزعمت “نيويورك تايمز” أن الصين قد تجاهلت مراراً الجهود الدبلوماسية والقانونية لاحتواء أفعالها العدوانية في كل من بحر الصين الجنوبي وبحر الصين الشرقي، وأن البعض يقول إن اليابان تحتاج أن تكون أكثر تحديداً حول ما يمكن أن تفعله في حال حدوث نزاع عسكري.

وقد يكون الخطر الأكبر في مضيق تايوان حيث ترسل الصين طائراتها الحربية فوقه لتهديد الجزيرة التي تعتبرها الصين منفصلة وتطالب بعودتها إلى سيادتها.

وقالت الصحيفة إن الاقتصاديين يتوقعون أن تعلن الصين أن اقتصادها نما بنسبة بين 18 و19 في المائة في الأشهر الثلاثة الأولى من هذا العام 2021، مقارنة بالفترة نفسها من العام 2020، مشيرة إلى أن ذلك رقم مذهل يُظهر الطفرة الملحوظة في الاقتصاد الصيني بعد تفشي الوباء.

نقله إلى العربية: الميادين نت

Whose interests are really being served with US anti-China alliance?

By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor -March 28, 2021

NEO – Building an anti-China Alliance is the Last US Bid for Political Survival in Asia & the Pacific

by Salman Rafi Sheikh, …with New Eastern Outlook, …and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a research institution for the study of the countries and cultures of Asia and North Africa.

[ Editor’s Note: Is this Biden reinventing Trump’s unipolar power dominance via a two step Biden unipolar power move in Asia with allies in tow, so they are available for cannon fodder use when deemed necessary to keep US trade fluctuations down?

What is important in this Biden plan story is to take a broad overview. By pulling allies into a coalition, he is positioning them for bullet magnets in case of hostilities. So one has to ask, why would they want this exposure when they can just be trade friendly countries with China and sit on the sidelines during a war?

China has no real invasion capability at this point, and has been spending its military money on a defensive navy as protection against the massive US navy firepower. It is also building a strong retaliatory defense as a first strike deterrent. If you want to talk about a threat, that is an undeniable one.

Within this context, to call China’s Navy expansion a threat is just hoaxing the American people to support an aggressive policy by the US to move into a first strike decapitation capability to threaten China.

As for why our own government would want to create a Neo Cold war against someone, the answer is the usual one. The uber wealth interests, who have their hooks deep inside our government, can see themselves making a shit load of military funding money ‘confronting China’, and also Russia, if the peacetime economy is looking dim for them.

NATO is doing a similar move pushing up to the Russian border via Ukraine. Then we have the US wanting the EU to be more dependent on US energy, not for their own security, but so we can have that advantage over them in a time of need.

And, there is the not discussed item that for Biden’s much hyped infrastructure spending to create high paying jobs here, US products based on such will be much less marketable overseas.

Biden needs a cover to always have sanctions put on China so Americans can’t buy Chinese, even if it is better, because sanctions run up the costs.

Economists have always warned that such contrived market moves fail in the long run.

But for countries with a huge military and unlimited borrowing power, which the super rich love, a slow peacetime trade market can always be replaced by a profitable war time market in a jiffy. Think false flag. You just have to press the right buttons… Jim W. Dean ]

First published … March 25, 2021

While the recently held QUAD summit-meeting did not mention China directly, there is little gainsaying that the basic thrust of the group is against China.

Although there are internal disagreements on whether to tackle China through military means or otherwise, or whether to keep this grouping strictly anti-China or not, the Biden administration has no doubts.

For them, the QUAD is a ‘Asia Pivot 2.0.’ and that the very survival of the US in Asia & the Pacific depends on selling a ‘China threat’ and subsequently placing itself as the primary bulwark against it; hence, the hurriedly done arrangements to hold QUAD’s first ever summit level meeting.

In other words, at the heart of Biden’s “China Strategy” is the imperative of rebuilding ties with allies in Asia & the Pacific, especially those frustrated by Trump’s policies, and then assembling a grand anti-China coalition.

Therefore, while the QUAD summit did not mention China as the rival, the so-called “The Spirit of the QUAD” is more than categorically specific about establishing a US led regime of rules governing Asia & the Pacific.

“The spirit” is about making the QUAD “strive for a region that is free, open, inclusive, healthy, anchored by democratic values, and unconstrained by coercion.” As such, while the summit did not mention China, it still addressed China directly. Indeed, this was more about making China “hear.”

The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently told a US Congress House Foreign Affairs Committee that

“the more China hears not just our opprobrium, but a course of opprobrium from around the world the better the chance that we’ll get some changes. We have a number of steps we have taken, or can take, going forward to include for those directly responsible for acts of genocide, gross human rights violations – sanctions, visa restrictions, etc.”

Again, while the QUAD summit was not overtly anti-China, the Biden administration’s follow up visits to Asia & the Pacific are very much focused on building and cementing anti-China alliance.

For instance, the US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday March 13 that he was traveling to Asia to boost military cooperation with American allies and foster “credible deterrence” against China, adding that “China is our pacing threat” and that “Our goal is to make sure that we have the capabilities and the operational plans and concepts to be able to offer credible deterrence to China or anybody else who would want to take on the US”

Criticising the Trump administration’s ambivalent policies that concerned themselves with ‘trade war’ and ‘deal making’, Austin said while the US competitive edge has eroded, “We still maintain the edge and we’re going to increase the edge going forward.”

The key to increasing the edge is through alliances. It is the alliances that, as Austin emphasised, “give us a lot more capability and so one of the big things the Secretary of State and I want to do, is begin to strengthen those alliances — great alliances, great partnerships to begin with.” This will be the key to furthering US interests in Asia & the Pacific against China.

Accordingly, Austin’s visits to Japan and South Korea are most likely to focus on repairing the damaged done to their ties by the Trump administration.

While Japanese officials are sure to seek assurances from Austin that the US military would come to Japan’s aid in the event of a conflict with China over the Senkaku Islands, his time in Seoul is expected to be consumed with the question of whether to resume regular large-scale military exercises with South Korea, which Trump had abruptly cancelled. 

Already, the two countries have reached a cost-sharing agreement for stationing American troops in South Korea, a presence that Trump had also threatened to end.

Austin’s full-scale visit to Asia & the Pacific also includes India, another QUAD member and a country at its lowest point in relations with China in decades after deadly clashes last year. Austin’s visit, therefore, will be particularly focused on utilizing the existing tensions between India & China to the US’ advantage.

The US, as it stands, cannot let these opportunities un-utilized; for, such opportunities allow them [the US ] to inject themselves in conflict zones in ways that, instead of de-escalating tensions, serve US interests first and foremost. If the US needs India as an ally against China, it needs to convince the Modi regime that India’s survival against China demands partnership with the US.

Again, the fact that the Trump administration stood virtually aloof in the last year India-China border skirmishes did a great deal of damage to India’s belief about the extent to which it could rely on the US. Austin’s mission will be, first and foremost, focused on rebuilding India’s belief and assuring the Indian government of the inevitability of the US support for their survival against China.

There is little gainsaying that the core focus of the Biden administration’s foreign policy is China. This is evident not only from the first ever summit level meeting of the QUAD, but also from Lloyd Austin’s first ever overseas mission as the Pentagon Chief.

What it shows is that the Biden administration, which is still less than two months into the presidency, is in no hurry to change of the course of tense relations with Chain set by the Trump administration.

In fact, the Biden administration is not only building on the same tensions, but is also utilizing its relatively more “responsible”, more “democratic” and more “stable and predictable” outlook as compared to the previous administration to woo their somewhat estranged allies into a sort of “global coalition” that Mike Pompeo had sought, and failed, to build and lead.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

BIOGRAPHY

Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor

Managing Editor

Jim W. Dean is Managing Editor of Veterans Today involved in operations, development, and writing, plus an active schedule of TV and radio interviews. 

Read Full Complete Bio >>>

Jim W. Dean Archives 2009-2014https://www.veteranstoday.com/jim-w-dean-biography/jimwdean@aol.com

Which nation will US Democrats try to destroy in the next 4 years?

Wednesday, 20 January 2021 2:09 AM 

File photo of protesters outside the Capitol

Ramin Mazaheri is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

by Ramin Mazaheri (@RaminMazaheri2) and cross-posted with The Saker

John Kennedy’s “Camelot” was a magical time for US leftists. Too bad its promise was not fully realized – his attempted armed overthrow of the Cuban Revolution failed to return Washington’s fascist allies to power.

It’s so interesting how Lyndon Baines Johnson was brought down by mass protests which were not equaled until Donald Trump. The difference is that the anti-LBJ protests were completely anti-imperialist and internationalist in nature – against his continuation of Kennedy’s war on the Vietnamese people – whereas the “never-Trump” movement is totally self-absorbed in Americanism and vitally concerned with immediately reasserting American dominance and prestige.

Coinciding with the current installation of Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter is being whitewashed (again) in a popular new movie called “Rock & Roll President”. His creation of the Taliban, looking the other way on death squads of progressive clergy in El Salvador and Guatemala and his attempted destruction of the Iranian Revolution are all apparently less important to his legacy than his taste in music.

Bill Clinton was the first Baby Boomer president and he certainly changed things. He totally rolled back the Reagan-Bush Cold War policy of not attacking socialist nations by bombing Yugoslavia into an unstable fragmentation which persists 30 years later.

Barack Obama deserved his Nobel Peace Prize for perhaps as long as five minutes into his presidency – then he bombed seven Muslim countries, increased the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and armed horrific wars in Libya, Syria and Ukraine to advance US interests.

It is fairly said – given the wars on American Indians – that Donald Trump, for all his fomenting of instability in the few nations courageous enough to openly oppose US imperialism, was actually the least belligerent president since Thomas Jefferson. During Trump’s tenure US Democrats drew gapes around the world with the way they virulently criticised Trump for his reluctance to extend Obama’s military conflicts and to start new ones.

But why such surprise at the warmongering of today’s Democrats? Listed above is the post-WWII legacy of Democratic leaders, and it is consistently refreshed by non-American blood.

Joe Biden is about to take the reins of foreign policy, and a bigger creation of the totally anti-internationalist, fake-leftist Democratic establishment could not be found. History shows we need to be prepared, so it’s worthwhile to look at the countries which Biden is likely to try and destroy.

After all, Democrat presidents always try to destroy somebody.

Countries too strong to be invaded, but whom Biden will try to provoke into war

North Korea: Pity the families still devastated by the last remnant of the Cold War: the US-divided Korean Peninsula. A united Korea would almost certainly create a hyper-competitive, top-5 global economy. That’s why Japan and the US won’t allow it – fear of Korean strength. Biden is certain to reverse Trump’s negotiations – despised across the US mainstream – for a minor detente. But victory in war here is impossible – it was tried and it failed, and despite perhaps the most horrific US war crimes ever.

Iran: Due to 70 years of sanctions North Korea is the performance straggler in East Asia, but in the Muslim World Iran is the performance leader despite decades of murderous sanctions. Fear of Iranian strength is the reason why Biden isn’t likely to spectacularly reverse US policy Iran. Washington and Tel Aviv will not consent to see two things: Iran as a thriving, peace-promoting regional leader in the Middle East, and a thriving, progressive Muslim republic anywhere. Biden will likely rejoin the JCPOA but merely return to Obama’s policy: not honoring it, intentionally subverting it and yet publicly claiming the opposite. This time-wasting is unfair for Iranians but very useful for Pentagonians and lobbyists, who have only ever had one policy: to implode Iran’s revolutionary government. There won’t be a military attack on Iran because it would only end in disaster – it’s the same as with North Korea, but Iran doesn’t need a nuclear bomb: they are the Muslim World’s performance leader.

China: For all his anti-China rhetoric Trump wasn’t as belligerent militarily as Obama was – his “pivot to Asia” proved that US-China detente was over. One simply cannot compare a trade war to a Cold War and remain credible, after all. Biden will only ramp up these provocations, as Washington simply cannot tolerate a competitor which rejects the neoliberal form of capitalism in favor of “mutually-beneficial cooperation” in business. The US lost the war against China long ago – now they are losing the battle for global political-cultural attention: China was the only major economy to grow in 20202, and one of the few to defeat the coronavirus. Biden will continue to uselessly beat America’s head against the wall here, and also try to force US allies to uselessly do the same.

Russia: US military supremacy is not only excluded from the Iranian waters of the Persian Gulf but also in the skies – Russia’s involvement in Syria proved that. Fomenting war in poor, neighboring Ukraine was proof that the US knows that direct involvement in Russia is totally unwinnable. The only way that Washington can keep detente – the only solution between equals – off the table is to hysterically and pathetically insist that Russian operatives (such as Trump) are destroying America from within. Absurd, but America is still fighting a Cold War, one must remember: the fight for everyone to accept the American Dream.

Both US parties in disarray after stunning elections
Both mainstream parties in the United States are profoundly shaken by the election results from November 3rd.

Countries which Biden may attempt to destroy so they can live the American Dream of ‘stability for the 1%’

Cuba: Far-right Latin-American immigrants (from Cuba, Venezuela and elsewhere) have entered their second and even third-generations in the US. The 2020 election showed their essentially reactionary natures shining through – they were credited as being the force which swung Florida in favor of Trump. In order to turn Florida blue we could see Biden building on Trump’s appalling increase of the US-led blockade on the Cuban people. The vagaries of the circus which is US politics may demand a reboot of Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs attack, as useless as that would be against an almost supremely-united Cuban people whose political intelligence is among the best in the world.

Venezuela: Venezuelan strength is always underestimated in Western media, but there is no indication Biden has any intention of pulling back on Washington’s longstanding “Monroe Doctrine”, which declares Latin America to be Washington’s backyard. Iran and Venezuela keep bravely enriching the obvious ideological ties between the two socialist-inspired nations with commercial ties – could Biden force the US Navy to intervene? Trump showed a reluctance for open war, but did Biden ever vote against a war?  

Mali: Defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria – whither Washington’s two-decade war on the Muslim world? Could the US reverse its longstanding policy of ceding West Africa to French imperialism and open up a new front on the opposite end of the Muslim world? France invaded Mali in 2013 without UN approval but there is now unprecedented grumbling about their own “endless war”: If any Western nation could possibly elect a semi-leftist president it would be France, and that could happen in 2022. Surely Biden is open to ideas here, given how many of his cabinet were involved in the destruction of Libya. Are we really wise to imagine Biden will peacefully pull out of the Muslim world? He has certainly promised nothing of the sort.

The United States: This is not an unnecessarily provocative addition. Biden, whom I refer to as “Corporate Joe” due to his half-century of turning his home state of Delaware into perhaps the world’s biggest tax haven for big business, already helped destroy Main Street in order to pay for bailouts of Wall Street during the Great Recession. The economic catastrophe in 2021 is going to be even worse for Main Street than it was in the awful 2020, so the path for America is crystal clear: massive economic redistribution and Roosevelt-era levels of government-controlled investments. Of course, those two things are totally anathema on both sides of the aisle in the US, but they say the times make the man: Just like Obama, Biden has the same chance to break with the failed decades of “trickle-down”, economic right-wing ideology – will “Corporate Joe” admit how spectacularly wrong he has been for so long? On a cultural level, Biden has not condemned the hysterical, vengeful, McCarthy-era tactics being shockingly threatened against 75 million Trump voters – will Biden foment civil discord as a way to distract from even more neoliberal, far-right economic policies that will surely prove unpopular? Is “never-Trumpism” never-ending?

Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism wasn’t a cult of personality (2/2)
For Americans who believe that their system is actually capable of reform it would be nice if Trumpism was merely a cult of personality, but the 2020 non-presidential election results prove it truly is more than that.

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Related

Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (1/2) – November 5, 2020

Results are in: Americans lose, duopoly wins, Trumpism not merely a cult (2/2) – November 6, 2020

4 years of anti-Trumpism shaping MSM vote coverage, but expect long fight – November 7, 2020

US partitioned by 2 presidents: worst-case election scenario realized – November 9, 2020

A 2nd term is his if he really wants it, but how deep is Trump’s ‘Trumpism’? – November 10, 2020

CNN’s Jake Tapper: The overseer keeping all journalists in line (1/2) – November 13, 2020

‘Bidenism’ domestically: no free press, no lawyer, one-party state? (2/2) – November 15, 2020

Where’s Donald? When 40% of voters cry ‘fraud’ you’ve got a big problem – November 17, 2020

The 4-year (neoliberal) radicalisation of US media & Bidenites’ ‘unradical radicalism’ – November 22, 2020

80% of US partisan losers think the last 2 elections were stolen – December 3, 2020

Trump declares civil war for voter integrity in breaking (or broken) USA – December 5, 2020

Mess with Texas via mail-in ballot? States secede from presidential vote – December 8, 2020

Biden won? 2016-2020 showed what the US does to even mild reformers – Dec 18, 2020

Alleged Nashville bomber not Muslim: Western media disappointed – January 2, 2020

This week in the US: The ‘model nation’ for no nation anymore – January 7, 2020

Biggest threat to global leftism returns to power: US fake-leftism (1/2) – January 8, 2021

US post-Capitol: Armed, hysterical, depressed and yet out for blood – Jan 13, 2021

Zone B exists, thus there is hope, I promise you!

Source

The Saker

Today it appears that the triumph of our adversaries is total. I want to post this column saying that I don’t believe for one second that this is true. All I want to do today is explain why. Thus, just to make clear to those alternatively gifted, this is not a comprehensive analysis and I will be leaving many things out.

So, here we go:

First, notice how totally paranoid our adversaries are! Depending on how you count and whom you ask, they had 25k to 65k folks in arms “defending” them. Of course, the primary goal of this nonsense is to make it appear as if there was a terrible domestic terrorist force out there, ready to take over DC and open Gulags for minorities. This, in turn, will make it easier to sell a massive crackdown on civil liberties under the guise of “protecting” the (supposed but, in reality, already defunct) “democracy”. But the fact that they had to engage into a witch hunt even to carefully vet every national guardsman (and probably even more people) shows that they are truly afraid. I think that they are wrong, there is no credible domestic terrorist threat in the USA, other than the government itself, of course. But what matters here is not what I think, but what they think, and they seem to have developed a serious case of paranoia.

Second, while I don’t believe in the existence of US domestic terrorists, I do believe that millions of US citizens are convinced that the vote was stolen. These people are understandably disgusted and angry. Many might be desperate or even despondent. Let’s call them the “deplorables” and consider it a badge of honor. Well, these deporables won’t take DC by force, but they will never trust a Dem or GOP politician again, and neither will they ever trust the corporate media. One of the blessings in disguise of this stolen election is that the GOP and Fox News have shown their true faces, and their faces are evil, stupid and ugly. 4 years ago millions of US citizens did not so much vote for Trump as much as they voted against Hillary whom they (correctly) saw as a symbol and metaphor for the entire “deep state”, or “swamp” or “ZOG” or whatever other expression you prefer. These deplorables first trusted Obama (“change we can believe in”) and, later, Trump (MAGA). Now they know that both sides are equally evil and false.

In the past, both factions of the Big Money Party had safety valves (Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Rand Paul, Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, etc.). I think that now the two parties are literally standing naked and boy is that an ugly sight!

Third, and this point I primarily address to my readers in the USA and that will force me to make a sidebar primarily directed at them:

[Sidebar: the planet can be divided into 2 rough parts: ZONE A full controlled by the AngloZionist Empire and, ZONE B, which includes everybody else. The vast majority of Americans are only really aware of Zone A. Why? For the following reasons:

• Most Americans have never traveled outside Zone A.
• Those Americans who have traveled outside Zone A typically did so without speaking the local language, thus cutting themselves off the locals and the local media.
• Most Americans get their news from US-based outlets, often combined with a few from elsewhere in the Anglosphere (UK, AUS).
• US media outlets lie even more about what happens in Zone B than they lie about Zone A.
• US schools have pretty much stopped teaching history, and when they do, it is all propaganda about the “city on the hill” and all the rest of the imperialist claptrap about how exceptional the US is. As a result, when most Americans are exposed to factoids about Zone B they are not equipped to understand their meaning or importance.
• Most Americans simply assume that people in Zone B are very similar to those in Zone A. Most Americans also assume that most governments in Zone B are even more evil than Uncle Shmuel.
• Most Americans also believe in what I call the “immigration fallacy”: the belief that people come to the USA from all over the planet because they prefer the USA to their home country and people. Anybody living in the USA and speaking Spanish knows that totally false this belief is, of course. But few non-Hispanic Americans ever speak in Spanish to the Hispanics in the USA (FYI – I do). Anglos generally seem to have a hard time with languages…
• Sadly, most Americans are not educated by their parents, their religious leaders, their communities, or their schools. Most Americans get most of their education from watching TV. Since all the US TV channels offer almost the exact same mix of vulgar entertainment, propaganda and commercials, this “education” resulted in a huge amount of massively dysfunctional families and communities. This addiction to a flickering screen (be it the Idiot Tube or You Tube – same difference) gives them a very short attention span and a limited ability to process large amounts of written information, which is what is needed to be able to analyze a situation]

As a direct consequence of these factors, most Americans live in a “mental space” where Zone B simply does not exist, and when it is mentioned, it is invariable in the “same old clichés” mode.

Finally, considering all of the above, it is truly a miracle that the deplorables completely ignored a massive brainwashing campaign (waaaay worse than anything the Commies or the Nazis ever came up with!) against “Trump the New Hitler” and still voted for him twice, both in 2016 and 2020! It really goes to show that most Americans quietly but passionately hate the regime in DC and that they use every opportunity they get to at least to try to change their country and their lives by means of voting. Makes you wonder what these “disobedient” deplorables will do the next time around now that voting became clearly a waste of time, don’t it?]

Now here is the good news: Zone B does exist! In fact, it is huge, rich, truly diverse and it has long figured out that both the AngloZionist Empire and even the USA as we knew them have basically died, all that’s left from it is some residual momentum and many bad habits by ignorant, arrogant and delusional US politicians.

Why is that so important?

Because if we allow the Great Satan (actually a very good and exact expression, I think that it fits the new regime perfectly, I will use it more often) to convince us that reality is all contained in Zone A, we could really fall into despair. Yeah, the USA is screwed, and so is all of the EU. As for US colonies like AUS or NZ, not only are they screwed (say by siding with the USA against a much, MUCH more powerful China), they also seem to have a morbid desire to outstupid even the USA in terms of crazy laws and insane ideological positions (say on COVID, for example). But all this in ONLY true inside Zone A. Very few people in Zone B still believe that the USA matters a great deal. Most of them already know otherwise, even if this is never reported by Zone A media.

There is even more good news: neither the (rump) AngloZionist Empire nor the (rump) USA represent any credible threat to most countries in Zone B. Oh sure, US politicians can call Russia a “gas station masquerading as a country” or a “regional power”, the truth is that the united West has completely failed to break, or even meaningfully hurt Russia, despite 46 sanction packages (that’s just by Trump, not counting the “change we can believe in” crook). Heck, even COVID only marginally hurt Russia (which, unlike the flag-waving pseudo-patriotic crap spewed by western politicians took COVID seriously, very seriously in fact, as early as March and prepared the country for no less than two major outbreaks, both which happened, and both which Russia successfully dealt with; this is why the EU is now in full COVID-hysteria mode, while Russia does not bother to impose any lockdowns at all!).

Now let’s place two US propaganda items side by side and take a look, ok?

1. The USA has the most powerful economy on the planet.
2. Russia is the #1 adversary of the USA (at least according to the Dems, the GOP places China as #1 and Russia only as #2)

Do you see the problem?

If the USA is so powerful, how is it that it failed to crush Russia? What about Iran? Or, in extremis, Venezuela? Yet, even the the last case, the “best” this supposed World Hegemon did was send a few clueless ex-special ops to get caught and give case of hysterical laughter to the entire Latin American continent!

And these folks want to take on China or Russia?!

Peuhleeze!

So here is the other very good news: Zone A presents no real threat to Zone B!!!

Yes, of course, the USA can still nuke China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela or some other country. But let’s look at the consequences of such a strike:

• Against Russia: the USA simply vanishes as a country. Completely and forever.
• Against China: the USA as a society completely collapses for a very long time.
• Against Iran: the USA gets stuck in a major regional war it can only lose with massive geostrategic consequences (still, the new regime might try to pull this one off, never say never, no matter how stupid this idea can seem to you – always remember that the ignoramuses in DC are as delusional as they are ignorant!)
• Against the DPRK: the USA gets stuck in a major regional war it can only lose with massive geostrategic consequences.
• Against Venezuela: the USA gets stuck in a counter-insurgency war it can only lose. The comprador regime in Bogota will not survive such a war and Colombia will also “fall”.
• Against any other Zone B country: the US successfully nukes this/these country/countries only to find itself being treated like a pariah by the entire planet (including quite a few US colonies), including the real military powers. NATO and the EU will also collapse is that happens (the US being their cornerstone).

The bottom line is that while the US triad is still fully functional and capable of waging a full-scale nuclear war against any adversary (including Russia and, even more so, China), the truth is that all this triad really achieves is making it impossible for another nuclear power to use nukes against the USA. Which is not minor or irrelevant, the problem here being that the US nuclear triad provides with with exactly zero help when trying to deal with any adversary not using nukes (either because this adversary choose not to use nukes due to the effective deterrence of the US nuclear triad or simply because it has no nukes in the first place).

As I have mentioned in the past, the US submarine force is, along with the nuclear triad, the other truly effective and powerful force which the US can count on in case of war. However, other than launching large numbers of outdated and, therefore, easily countered cruise missiles there is little this force can do to assist a US ground (or, for that matter) air operation against anything but a very weak adversary. The problem with so-called “sub-peer” adversaries is that they have relatively few lucrative targets to strike with cruise missiles (think Venezuela here). Most of these subpeer adversaries do not have the air defenses needed to deal with any halfway determined US missile and bomb attack and the US can quickly destroy whatever air defenses such “sub-peer” countries have. So yes, I admit it. If tomorrow the USA wants a “short and triumphant war”, say to boost morale or distract from internal problems, they could still attack countries like, say, Antigua and Barbuda or Santa Lucia, but such a farce will hardly would qualify as “brilliant victory” of the “best armed forces in the galaxy”, now would it? Or maybe would, who knows? Ff the united propaganda machine wants to present that as a triumph for US forces, like they did with the Grenada invasion (one of the worst military operation in history!) they can do that, of course. But that would only serve to further ridicule that propaganda machine since 2021 is not 1983, there are now millions of deplorables out there who will never buy this kind of silly nonsense.

Besides, considering how the joint efforts of the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia (the “Axis of Kindness”) completely failed to deal with the Houthis, my money would not be on any US invasion force in the Caribbean (with the possible exception of a re-invasion of Haiti or the Dominican Republic, but these are already US protectorates, what would be the point?!).

Why does all that matter so much?

Because the Dems are clearly up to no good. Next, not only will we see a wave of repression against free speech internally, but the Dems are already making noises about, you guessed it, China and Russia (again!) and, when that inevitably yield exactly zero results, they will turn to “hate on” Iran and Venezuela again. But even these comparatively weaker countries are now very much capable of making Uncle Shmuel pay an immense price in blood and hell to pay in terms of political blowback on to many fronts to count.

The “power” of a nation (or a coalition of nations) can be measured using very many different type of metrics, but the three most common ones would probably be: economic power, military power and political power. If we use those three to compare Zone A to Zone B, it would be reasonable to posit the following:

• Economic power: more more or less equal, with Zone A quickly going down and Zone B quickly rising. Zone A still has A LOT of comprador regimes willing to defend it not only at the UN, but in most international bodies (including non-government ones like the IOC for example, or WADA).
• Military power: Zone A very much weaker than Zone B (just think RU+CN+IN for starters!)
• Political power: Zone A still stronger, but that is also changing fast. You can say that most world rulers are still serfs for Zone A, but most people worldwide have long switched their support for Zone B countries. The recent triumph of the people of Bolivia over their oppressors is a very telling sign of this trend.

And here is the key factor to keep in mind: there is nothing, absolutely nothing, the Biden/Harris Admin can do to change these trends. It is simply too late and when the initiation of the internal collapse of the USA, these trends will only accelerate.

Yes, the bad guys did win, but only over Trump and his clueless pseudo-allies (did they betray him faster than he betrayed them, or was it the other way around?), but they only won one a battle against the deplorables and they have won exactly nothing against Zone B.

The Dems are now busy with vengeance in all its forms. They also relish in humiliating Trump and those who dared to support him. This is the political equivalent of torturing people in basements, not winning glorious battles. But they don’t realize that, they are too vain, too ideologically hateful, and too cowardly to understand that.

Still, brainwashing, like torture (including mental torture!), is real. In this case, this is a battle for the minds of the deplorables who now have to be beaten down into a catatonic state of total submission and compliance. The Dems are using lies, their favorite weapon, but their assault is real, nonetheless. And this is the battle which we, those who opposed imperialism, have to fight – the battle for the minds of the people in Zone A: we need to show them that the pseudo-reality of Zone A has no real existence outside the Idiot Box and the vapid rhetoric of US decision makers.

We have to mentally prepare for a sharp increase in the amount and scope of the lies the US propaganda machine will be telling us (if you thought the last 4 years were bad, prepare for much, much worse; good example here). And, of course, expect LOTS of false flags, especially to demonstrate the reality of the alleged danger coming from the “domestic terrorists”. That will all go down against a background of a full-spectrum attack on free speech, dissent and any form of actual (as opposed to pretend) thought, really.

The irony is, of course, that the coming witch hunt (it will be way worse than Salem or McCarthy) will be waged in the name of diversity and ostensibly against “hate”. In reality, of course, what the regime wants is to crush real diversity because the leaders of the US Nomenklatura absolutely hate everything besides their sorry selves. Like all ideologues, what these folks want is 1) total power and 2) total uniformity. All those rejecting these modern dogmas will be branded has criminals, terrorists, heretics, racist and, of course, Russian and Chinese agents.

And that is why this regime will also fail.

Conclusion: diversity WILL win. The REAL diversity, of course!

Our planet is wonderfully diverse, especially outside the uniformity sector of Zone A. There IS a Zone B out there, and the leaders of Zone A will be defeated by our real common and shared humanity (and their hatred for us!). Somewhere between Obama and Trump, the world has moved on, and it is now very busy dealing with the immense challenges and opportunities facing it in Zone B. And no, neither Russia nor China is busy trying to sabotage or undermine the USA – US leaders are doing that much better job of that than any Russian or Chinese ever could. So why even bother (and nevermind the risks!)?

We cannot predict what will happen next, there are simply too many variables to do that. But what we can do is predict with a great degree of confidence that the new regime in power in DC will do no better than all the other regimes which came to power by means of color revolutions in the past couple of decades. There is no hope left for the Empire, as for the USA, there will be plenty of hope left for them, but only after a long and painful process of collapse and rebirth (both of which are inevitable by now). The truth is that US is not that unique as empires go, sorry, it is just your typical arrogant and narcissistic empire which will collapse just as all the other arrogant and narcissistic empires in history have collapsed, mostly under their own obscene weight. And those poor souls who sincerely believe that China (or Russia) want to replace the USA simply don’t understand that these two countries already have been empires, it was a disaster, thank you very much, and they have no desire to repeat their past mistakes. This desire for non-exceptionalism and normalcy will, with time, also become the object of a large social consensus in the USA. And, with time, the USA will finally be welcomed into a truly free Zone B or, should I say, a Zone-free world.