Pax Americana industry, nuclear ‘madmen’, and the umbrella illusion

June 30, 2023

Source: Al Mayadeen English

By Hussein Assaf

After NATO was formed and after deploying part of its nuclear arsenal in Europe, the US became the guarantor of the security of its NATO allies, and the “US nuclear umbrella” was born.

In 1945, Pax Americana emerged as the dominant global power, with Washington aiming to assert its authority on the world stage.

To showcase its strength and deter potential challengers, the United States made a bold statement by choosing Hiroshima, Japan, as a symbolic demonstration of its military might.

The devastating atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 marked the beginning of an era where defying American would come with severe consequences. It was a defining moment that illustrated the immense power and resolve of the United States in shaping the post-war world order.

It was the day when the first and, thus far, the only nuclear bomb was deployed, causing unimaginable devastation and resulting in the loss of nearly 70,000 innocent Japanese lives.

On August 9, 1945, Nagasaki, Japan, became the second target of a devastating nuclear attack. The United States, seeking to assert its power and send a clear message to the world, unleashed another destructive force, resulting in widespread destruction and the loss of approximately 40,000 lives.

The massive mushroom cloud that enveloped Nagasaki served as a chilling symbol of the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons and the immense human suffering they cause.

On May 19, 2023, 78 years later, Japan hosted a meeting for the G7 leaders and chose Hiroshima as the summit location. US President Joe Biden arrived at the meeting destination, becoming the first American to land his feet on the radiated city.

During the G7 summit in Hiroshima, the Japanese Prime Minister aimed to initiate discussions on nuclear arms and encourage leaders to commit to a framework regarding the use of nuclear weapons. However, the final statement issued by the group primarily focused on condemning China’s nuclear weapons, which was no surprise to observers.

The Western world applauded the resolute declaration, perceiving it as a deterrence against Beijing’s nuclear “threat to humanity,” despite the fact that China has not been involved in any military conflicts beyond its own borders, while the countries endorsing the statement have themselves waged numerous wars in the past decades.

From left, President of the European Council Charles Michel, Italy’s Premier Giorgia Meloni, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, U.S. President Joe Biden, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visit the Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island in Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima prefecture, western Japan, Friday, May 19, 2023 (Kenny Holston/Pool Photo via AP)

It indeed appears as a tragicomedy or a surreal theatrical production. The image of the American nuclear bomber alongside the Japanese victims, accompanied by former colonizers and the colonized, serves as a warning to the world about the perceived “global threats” posed by China and Russia’s military capabilities. The irony and contradictions within this scenario are hard to overlook. 

The observation of this theatrical display paves the way to the realization that the statements made by the leaders hold some truth, despite the ironic and contradictory nature of the situation. While it may be unsettling, there are elements of reality within their assertions.

In the intricate web of global affairs, a world dominated by Washington and its proxy nations finds itself facing a profound threat.

The very foundations of this order, woven through institutions tainted by notions of genocide, such as the IMF and the World Bank, and bolstered by the military might of NATO and its war coalition, stand on shaky ground.

Emerging on the horizon are the pillars of multipolarity, heralding an alternative world order.

The collective uprising of the Global South and the rise of BRICS, the SCO, and the Eurasian Economic Forum (among others), as well as Beijing’s dissemination of a new economic and political paradigm, present a formidable challenge to the established norms.

The tides of change are shifting, and the winds of multipolarity are blowing, ushering in a new era where power is shared and a different vision of global governance takes shape.

Pax Americana: Sole owner of war and peace

Since the advent of the nuclear era in 1945, the nature of the conflict between the United States and its perceived adversaries has undergone significant transformations.

In the realm of Pax Americana, a grand tapestry of power, profits, and resources was woven through a blood-soaked ideology and unabashed hubris.

This hegemonic force, fueled by military might, gave birth to a multidimensional industry that reaped fortunes for the colossal corporations of the era. Within the fabric of this empire, social structures were shaped and molded, with the United States and its satellites standing as both beneficiaries and captives of this all-encompassing enterprise.

The prosperous post-World War II economy in the United States, fueled in part by the government’s sales of arms to the fighting parties, spurred the emergence of a new way of life in the country. This economic success became a driving force behind the nation’s quest for hegemonic expansion, aiming to secure vital resources and trade routes essential for any superpower seeking unipolar dominance.

Indeed, the belief during that time was that a wealthier society could attain military superiority over adversaries with lesser industrial wealth. This assumption, however, underwent a significant shift with the introduction of atomic weapons into the equation of warfare.

The destructive power and indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons rendered the traditional metrics of military superiority based on economic wealth and industrial capabilities less relevant. The presence of atomic weapons introduced a new level of danger and mutually assured destruction, altering the dynamics of military strategy and emphasizing the importance of nuclear deterrence.

Globalization within this context was promoted by the United States – just like the notion of democracy – for decades as the highest form of the growing interconnections of world nations.

Of course, globalization is indeed a natural outcome of the progress and scientific breakthroughs that took place, with regard to communications, transportation means, and the advancement of industrialization systems.

However, while the United States pushed for adopting the concept on a global scale under the pretext of connecting countries economically and culturally, it aimed to establish market and trade integration only as a means to further extend its hegemony and economic control. (Take as an example Washington’sn real intentions from inviting China to join the WTO for long years.)

Indeed, following World War II, there were policymakers in Washington who advocated for the growth of the US nuclear arsenal. Figures like Henry Kissinger and Walt Rostow believed that a robust nuclear arsenal would be essential in maintaining American dominance and furthering its expansion in a world still reeling from the war’s aftermath.

The proponents of this approach argued that possessing large and advanced nuclear weapons would serve as a deterrent factor against potential adversaries and solidify American superiority. They believed that the possession of such weapons would not only ensure national security but also provide leverage in shaping global affairs according to US interests.

This perspective was rooted in the belief that nuclear weapons represented a significant shift in the balance of power, offering a unique form of military might that could secure dominance in international relations. As a result, the United States pursued the development and deployment of nuclear weapons as a key component of its defense strategy during this period.

A Polaris missile was fired from the nuclear submarine, USS George Washington, at Cape Canaveral, Fla. on July 20, 1960, in the first test firing of a missile from underwater (AP)

As such, the United States’ nuclear doctrine was born: it is not only about deterring potential rivals but also a means to establish and enforce total hegemony over global countries, economies, and markets. This transformation positioned the US as the sole decider of war and peace.

The nuclear race that ensued can be attributed mostly to the example set by the United States. As the first country to develop and use atomic weapons, the US demonstrated the immense destructive power and geopolitical leverage that these weapons could provide. Pax Americana here prompted other nations to acquire their own nuclear arsenals as a means of deterrence and self-defense.

The pursuit of nuclear weapons or hosting them from allied countries has then become a means for certain anti-hegemonic states to protect their sovereignty and territorial integrity against perceived threats from US-led Western campaigns.

The history of military interventions and regime changes carried out by Western powers, often in pursuit of strategic interests or access to resources, has created a sense of vulnerability and the need for self-defense among these states.

The development and proliferation of nuclear weapons created a new paradigm in warfare, where the destructive power of these weapons exceeded the capacity of any state to withstand their impact. This realization led to a mutually assured destruction (MAD) scenario, in which engaging in a full-scale nuclear war would result in catastrophic consequences for all parties involved, including Americans themselves.

Nuclear ‘madman’

The post-World War II era witnessed the emergence of a new paradigm in which the manufacturing of public anxiety and the creation of existential enemies played a significant role in shaping nuclear power dynamics. This approach was fueled by the desire to justify and perpetuate a massive war machine, primarily controlled by a few powerful military-industrial complexes.

By crafting and amplifying fear, political leaders and those with vested interests in the military-industrial complex sought to maintain public support for substantial defense expenditures and the expansion of military capabilities. Portraying external threats as existential enemies helped in justifying the continued development and deployment of advanced weaponry, including nuclear weapons.

During the Cold War, the United States government engaged in extensive psychological operations (psyops) aimed at influencing public opinion and shaping perceptions, both domestically and internationally. These psyops were part of a broader strategy to counter the influence of the Soviet Union and its allies.

A famous example of such psyops was the Committee on Present Danger. The committee, formed in the 1950s and comprising prominent figures from the government, military, and academia, was tasked with spreading terror among the masses of communism and Soviet expansionism.

The propaganda group employed various strategies, including media campaigns and public speeches, to generate fear and rally support for US policies and military spending.

By creating a horrified public, in which the government appears as the sole protector, the state was in full control. 

But add nuclear weapons to the equation, the matters become more serious.

Throughout history, there have been instances where American decision-makers and policy planners employed psychological tactics to enhance nuclear intimidation.

One notable example is the concept of “nuclear brinkmanship”, which involves deliberately escalating tensions and pushing the limits of nuclear confrontation to gain leverage in negotiations or intimidate opponents. This approach was famously employed during the Cold War, particularly by presidents John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

In October 1969, during the Vietnam War, Washington devised a secret plan, dubbed Operation Duck Hook, during which the US would appear to threaten Hanoi with an imminent nuclear attack.

The cover page to the Navy’s Duck Hook plan for mining Haiphong Harbor, developed in July 1969 at the request of President Nixon and national security adviser Kissinger (US National Security Archive, The George Washington University)

According to Harry Robbins “Bob” Haldeman, White House Chief of Staff in Nixon’s administration, the basis of the tactic was to make the US leader appear “psychologically unstable,” unpredictable, and with no limits to the measures he would take.

Haldeman revealed, quoting Nixon as telling him, “They’ll believe any threat of force that Nixon makes because it’s Nixon. I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war.”

And while this was not the first time, nor the last time, that a country resorted to the “madman” approach to deter its opponents, the line separating genuine threats from bluffs remained very thin.

In 1959, the Strategic Air Command (SAC) introduced a war plan titled Atomic Weapons Requirements Study. The document was later updated in 1961 following the Berlin Crisis.

However, one significant aspect was that one of the potential targets was China, although it would not test its first nuclear weapon until 1964 nor it was in direct conflict with the US. According to the plan, 49 to 78 Chinese cities would be hit with US atomic bombs, with prospected fatalities of around 67 million and 107 million.

But plans and proposals to launch a “preventive” or “preemptive” nuclear strike against the USSR were rapidly toned down when the Soviets developed a serious retaliatory capability, including the most powerful atomic bomb produced and tested: “Tsar Bomba”.

Russia’s nuclear parity with the US made Nixon believe that the nuclear umbrella was no longer sustainable.

The concept of “massive retaliation” adopted by the United States to justify its nuclear buildup became afterward an outdated strategy and was replaced by the concept of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD); a necessary doctrine to protect countries from America’s war machines.

The intensification of hostilities between Russia and the United States set the stage for a high-stakes, zero-sum game in any potential armed conflict, compelling the United States to reevaluate its approach and adopt a more cautious stance. This pivotal shift in strategy ultimately laid the foundation for the Cold War.

Two-way annihilation

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, its nuclear infrastructure was dissolved, while its nuclear warheads were removed from the country and deployed in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. 

One of the American nuclear scientists that participated in joint Soviet-US efforts to end Moscow’s nuclear power was Professor Siegfried Hecker, who then served as a director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

According to Hecker, when the USSR collapsed, the nature of the nuclear threat to the US changed: it was not one of mutual annihilation anymore.

The United States later made Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine sign the Lisbon Protocol to the START agreement, committing the newly independent states to transfer the former Soviet nuclear arsenals to Russia and to join the NPT as nonnuclear-weapons states.

Meanwhile, the US funded the denuclearization process in the three countries bordering Russia with billions of dollars and ended the nuclear programs, destroying over 6,800 nuclear warheads along the way.

But the American PR campaign to turn the world into a “safer place” was later exposed.

In the subsequent years, disregarding numerous warnings from influential global figures and Moscow, the US-led NATO persisted in its expansion toward the Russian borders, violating a previous agreement between the former Soviet Union and Washington that stipulated no further countries would join the military coalition.

Last March, just over a year following the start of the war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow will be deploying some of its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Putin then explained that the measure will be similar to the United States’ deployment of some of its nuclear arsenal in Europe (and Asia), further noting that Russia’s action does not violate the nuclear nonproliferation agreements NPT.

The Russian leader thus revived the “mutually assured destruction” policy and placed it back on the table for the world to see.

His announcement triggered a fervent response in Western countries, issuing warnings about the potential escalation. Nonetheless, the strategic move has thus far achieved its intended objectives.

Since then, the inclusion of the possibility of a Russian tactical nuclear attack in the plans of European leaders and American officials when engaging with Moscow has become a prevalent factor.

Putin stressed that the deployment of atomic in Belarus is of a deterrent nature for those oblivious in the West who assume they can inflict on Russia a strategic defeat.

While NATO’s agenda remained centered around its eastern expansion, the changing circumstances led to a moderation of fervent rhetoric in the West after a year of advocating to “end Russia”.

From Europe’s perspective, the haunting memories of both world wars have made them acutely aware that the continent would inevitably become the epicenter of any conflict between Russia and the West. And even if it declared a neutral stance, Europe understands that it would likely become the battleground in any confrontation between Moscow and the United States.

Washington, in light of Russia’s advancements in nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles and long-range naval vessels capable of launching nuclear warheads, has become increasingly cautious when considering any direct escalation with Moscow. The realization that these technologies pose a significant challenge to interception systems has compelled Washington to exercise greater restraint in its approach toward Russia.

In this image taken from a video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on May 28, 2022, a new Zircon hypersonic cruise missile is launched by the frigate named “Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov” of the Russian Navy from the Barents Sea (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

“Nuclear weapons have been made to ensure our security in the broadest sense of the word and the existence of the Russian state, but we…have no such need [to use them],” Putin said.

“Just talking about this (the potential use of nuclear weapons) lowers the nuclear threshold. We have more than NATO countries and they want to reduce our numbers. Screw them,” he added said.

As did DPRK’s leader Kim Jong Un, the Russian President also was promising imperialist powers “mutual annihilation”.

The nuclear umbrella of illusion

The US, through its proxy war in Ukraine, sought to amplify the bloc mentality on a larger scale, utilizing its influence and resources to hinder a potential Eurasian uprising and redirect Europe’s foreign policy toward disengaging from China and Russia. This strategic maneuver aimed to consolidate American power and disrupt the growing connections between countries in Eurasia.

As part of Washington’s neo-bloc strategy, political integration is closely intertwined with hyper-militarization.

This approach not only entails the presence of direct, yet limited US forces but also compels allies to substantially increase their defense spending to unprecedented levels. The objective is to create a framework where political and military cooperation aligns, solidifying American influence and promoting a sense of collective security among allies.

Following the establishment of NATO and the deployment of a portion of its nuclear arsenal in Europe, the United States assumed the role of security guarantor for its transatlantic allies, giving rise to what is commonly referred to as the “US nuclear umbrella.”

The deployment of American nuclear weapons in Europe during the 1950s served multiple purposes, one of which was maintaining control over allied nations.

While the primary goal was to counter the perceived Soviet threat during the Cold War, the presence of nuclear arms also played a role in exerting influence and control over its transatlantic allies. 

The concept of the US nuclear umbrella created a perception of safety and protection for its allies. By positioning itself as the guarantor of their security, Washington fostered a sense of dependence and reliance on its nuclear capabilities.

This allowed the United States to justify its own retention and modernization of nuclear weapons, citing the need to maintain a credible deterrent to protect its allies. In doing so, it effectively used the nuclear umbrella as a justification to evade or delay its disarmament commitments, arguing that the security of its allies depended on its nuclear arsenal.

This approach allowed Washington to maintain a significant nuclear presence and influence on the global stage, while also preserving its strategic interests and exerting control over the disarmament agenda.

The US-led NATO’s increasing control over Europe’s security, particularly in the aftermath of the Ukraine conflict, has resulted in an unprecedented level of influence and dominance. Through years of fearmongering and portraying Moscow as a threat, NATO has successfully consolidated its grip on the region.

The concept of “extended deterrence” has played a crucial role in this process, as the deployment of US nuclear weapons in allied countries acts as a symbolic and tangible demonstration of American power and commitment to their defense.

By positioning itself as the ultimate authority, Washington effectively solidifies its influence to the extent that its directives are regarded as virtually constitutional. This further reinforces the hegemonic control of the United States and its ability to shape the security policies and decision-making of its allies.

This blind faith in the postulations of Deterrence Theory has established what anti-nuclear advocate and international security expert, Professor Nick Ritchie, called the “regime of nuclear truth” and denominated “nuclear absolutism”.

In January 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol raised the possibility of developing independent nuclear weapons as a response to the DPRK’s growing power. However, this proposal was met with disapproval from the White House, which expressed its opposition and implied potential consequences if South Korea were to pursue such a policy.

Despite publicly acknowledging the nuclear threat posed by DPRK to South Korea, the United States maintained its opposition to Seoul’s proposal of developing its own nuclear weapons.

Paradoxically, in April, the United States agreed to deploy nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea for the first time in decades and involve Seoul in its nuclear planning operations. This contradictory stance by Washington raised questions about its true intentions and strategic objectives in the region.

Mainly, this means that South Korea is officially under US “extended deterrence” program, and therefore, the Americans are forced as per the agreement to come to its aid in the event of an attack.

The deal between Washington and Seoul was met with skepticism by the South Korean public, as reflected in polls.

There were concerns about whether the United States would truly uphold its commitments, given its history of uncertainties and wavering policies in international relations.

This skepticism highlighted the importance of trust and transparency in such agreements, as the South Korean public sought reassurances regarding the reliability and consistency of the United States as a strategic partner.

Here, an age-long question reemerged: “Would Washington risk San Francisco for Seoul in the event of nuclear war?” Of course, the question here is completed by another one: “What are the odds of completely losing what’s left of the country’s sovereignty and marginal decision-making ability by hosting US nuclear arms, and eventually being sold out by Washington?”

But the fear of fully entrusting in the United States is not a new phenomenon and has been a recurring theme for decades.

In the 1960s, French General Charles de Gaulle was highly skeptical of America’s nuclear security guarantees, particularly after the Soviet Union developed ICBMs that can reach the US mainland.

De Gaulle’s skepticism led him to ask then-US President John F. Kennedy if he would be willing to risk New York for Paris.

Eventually, the lack of confidence in American assurances was the reason behind establishing the “French nuclear deterrent force,” which allowed Paris to ensure its own safety and avoid overdependence on NATO.

History says no

A South Korean demonstrator holds a placard at a rally against South Korea and US policy on DPRK in front of the Foreign Ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, April 26, 2011 (AP/Ahn Young-joon)

The 2022 US Nuclear Posture Review notes that “extended nuclear deterrence contributes to U.S. nonproliferation goals by giving Allies and partners confidence that they can resist strategic threats and remain secure without acquiring nuclear weapons of their own.”

The debate among US allies about the level of trust they can place in their American partners reached a new level of intensity with the assumption of former US President Donald Trump’s “America First” policy.

This was further amplified when Trump openly questioned Washington’s commitments to its NATO obligations and even suggested the possibility of withdrawing US troops from Europe. The fears and concerns of European nations were heightened as they witnessed a more self-preserving and protectionist stance taken by Washington, raising doubts about the extent to which the United States would defend the continent despite its grand promises.

A recent CSIS study explored four potential future scenarios in which the United States would have to navigate a world where adversaries possess substantial nuclear arsenals. The study’s findings revealed a consistent credibility challenge for the US in assuring its allies about their protection and the safeguarding of their interests.

Commenting on the Nuclear Posture Review of 2022, the Washington-based think tank said fundamental trust in the United States’ ability to secure collective defense [bloc alliances] “is far from guaranteed.”

“A cohesive and confident alliance network backed by credible extended deterrence [nuclear umbrella] guarantees U.S. strategic interests,” the study added, stressing “that the United States will need to continue to rely on nuclear weapons for extended deterrence purposes.”

One of the core suggestions of the study is that the United States, while adopting a bloc-alliance policy, should seriously consider further nuclear deployment in allied countries, especially those in close proximity to states considered by Washington as “strategic national security threats”: China and Russia.

But American “extended deterrence” that extends over a set of allied countries also generates concerns regarding the rationality behind trusting a bloc’s security under Washington’s nuclear umbrella.

If US adversaries feel an existential threat, will decision-makers in said countries consider states hosting American nuclear weapons a factor of deterrence or military targets? Will the nuclear bloc mentality subject its members to collective punishment, regardless of the actual interests of each country separately? 

This perspective sheds light on an important observation: while the United States presents itself as a guardian of allies and a promoter of global stability, its actions often involve consolidating the military capabilities of its partners and prioritizing American interests above all else.

This approach reflects one of the many forms of unipolarity, where Washington’s influence and dominance shape international dynamics to a large extent.

Within this framework, nuclear umbrellas can be perceived as sources of insecurity rather than genuine protection and deterrence for their host countries.

Within this framework, nuclear umbrellas can be realized as the foundations of insecurity for their hosts rather than protection and deterrence, and their costs outweigh their benefits under a unipolar world order governed by the White House and America’s industrial complex.

Historically, military alliances based on shared assistance and mutual defense have proven to be only circumstantial empty promises.

So, in short, history says that no, the United States will not risk San Francisco for Seoul, nor New York for Paris, and the US nuclear umbrella remains an illusion designed by unipolarity and employed for imperialistic drives that will be extremely marginalized in the rising multipolar world, but this is a discussion for another article.

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The Complete Destruction of Ukraine is Unavoidable (Douglas Macgregor)

December 09, 2022

The Globalist’s Race Against Time

May 26, 2022

Source

By Eamon McKinney

A Great Reset will happen, just not the one intended by the Globalists. They may have to settle for the Great Decoupling instead.

The green economy, de-industrialisation, digital health passports, Central Bank digital currencies, these are all core components of the Globalists’ plan for the Great reset. The WEF has painted a picture of their proposed future via Klaus Schwab and his acolytes. “We will have nothing, own nothing and be happy”. The main obstacle to this grand vision is that not surprisingly very few countries wish to go along with it. The Globalists know their game is coming to an end and the Great Reset is their way of ensuring that the same financial cabal that has brought the world to its current lamentable state will continue to rule over all in the next world order. The most prominent objectors to this insidious plan are of course Russia and China. Unlike their western counterparts both have strong leaders who enjoy popular support, have strong economies and are optimistic about future prospects for growth. Neither intends to sacrifice their countries so that Western elites can maintain their control over the Global economic system and impose their self-serving will on weaker nations. Which in its simplest terms is why both countries need to be destroyed, at least economically before the Great Reset can be imposed on the world. Time, however, is not on the Globalists’ side, recent events have demonstrated that they are aware of this and are accelerating their timelines.

The Great Reset and its stated objectives have been in the planning for several years, those plans however are now seriously behind schedule. The election of Trump in 2016 wasn’t supposed to happen. He was to Washington the ultimate “Black Swan” event. An outsider without the backing of a political party and with seemingly the entire mainstream media against him, his victory was considered all but impossible. Yet win he did, and it seemed he spent the entire four years of his presidency battling against the Globalist faction, both internationally and within America. Washington felt cheated, not only was Trump an “outsider” he was also a disrupter. Opinions on the divisive Trump aside, he was indisputably an “America First Nationalist”, he was anti-NATO. and a vocal anti-Globalist. There would be no Great Reset under Trump, he was an obstacle to the agenda and had to be removed. Which in 2020 in a blatantly fraudulent election he was. Should Trump run again in 2024 and all indications are that he will, he would likely win an honest election in a landslide. The return of Trump would provide another major obstacle to the Globalist agenda. Expect that all efforts will be expended to prevent another Trump presidency. With an angry populace and increased electoral scrutiny next time around, they may have to turn to other measures to foil a Trump return. Should Trump re-enter the White House in 2024, the notoriously vindictive Trump is expected to seek accountability against those who he believes robbed him of his rightful election. Nerves are frayed in Washington and they know the clock is ticking.

Trump set the agenda back four years and they are now playing against the clock to make up for lost time, all evidence suggests that they are getting increasingly desperate. The recent invitations issued to Sweden and Finland to “fast track” NATO membership is yet another provocation to Russia. Putin wants to end the Ukraine conflict on his own terms and withdraw, he doesn’t not get bogged down in a quagmire that would drag on for years. NATO wants exactly that. Wooing Sweden and Finland is their attempt to ensure years of conflict and tension. Putin understands this all too well. As they lurch from one bad idea to another, attention should be paid to the indecent haste in which they are moving. It appears they are making things up as they go along, all without any obvious sense of consequence.

The prospect of Trump 2.0 is not the only time sensitive issue facing the Globalists. The global economy is on the brink of implosion. Sri Lanka has recently defaulted on its international debts. This will immediately create at least a $500 billion hole in the global economy. Alarmingly, according to the World Bank more than 70 other countries are in a similarly perilous economic condition. For most their debts are un-payable, and the IMF solution of structural adjustment (austerity) privatisations, and cuts to government services, would consign these countries to generations of deprivation and social unrest. Or, they could repudiate the debt completely and abandon the Western banking model. Both China and Russia have alternatives to SWIFT and welcome countries who want to escape the neo-liberal financial plantation. Both offer investment for development, non-interference and respect for countries’ sovereignty. All things valued by every country, but unachievable under Western domination. Decisions will very soon be made by countries throughout the Global south about who they want to align their futures with.

A new proposal being put before the UN on May 22nd essentially requires all nations to surrender their sovereignty to the WHO in the event of another pandemic. That they would even think that post-Covid the WHO enjoys that level of confidence, is delusional. This transparent power grab is easily recognised for what it is, in the unlikely event that it gains enough traction, expect another pandemic to follow shortly after. The cabal still has the tools to cajole, bribe and threaten countries to submit, and doubtless it will try, but outside of the captured western countries, such a desperate move will garner scant support. Covid failed to usher in the Great Reset but it unleashed a wave of destruction on the global economy that may take generations to repair. Many questions on the criminal mismanagement of Covid remain unanswered. There are few nations that don’t harbour deep resentment towards the notoriously corrupt and inept WHO and its genocidal Sugar Daddy Bill Gates. The sheer audacity of the proposal stinks of desperation. The upcoming vote is likely to give the Globalists another stark reminder of its waning power and influence.

A Great Reset will happen, just not the one intended by the Globalists. They may have to settle for the Great Decoupling instead. As Western influence continues to diminish at a rapid pace the trend of countries flocking to the China/Russia orbit is bound to increase. The NWO that they have been lusting after for generations is likely to be restricted to Western Europe and North America, or about 15% of the World’s population. The effects of the disastrous Ukraine provocation and the failed sanctions will soon become undeniable. Food and energy shortages together with uncontrollable inflation, will make even this smaller NWO harder to control. The Emperor has no clothes, as all can now see, their game is old, tired and predictable, and they have no new ideas. The Globalists may not have to worry about a Trump return in 2024. It is highly likely that the clock will have run out on them by then. It could happen any day.

Gonzalo Lira – “Why The Western Elites Are Foolish and Amoral”

March 25, 2022

As a graduate from two top US universities, the School of International Service – SIS – from the American University and the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies – SAIS – from Johns Hopkins University, I can confirm that every word spoken by Gonzalo Lira are true and spot on.  Listen to the man, every word he says is 100% true!

Andrei

Politics of the Ukraine – Past and future possibilities

February 28, 2022

Source

by Straight-Bat

1. Introduction

It would be quite unusual for any thinking person to remain calm and quiet under the current geopolitical environment across the Eurasian landmass. Hence, I couldn’t resist myself from delving into the origin, causes, and future possibilities of the so-called ‘Ukraine problem’.

The very first thing that comes to my mind is how the phrase ‘Ukraine problem’ came into limelight. Does the origin of this phrase has something to do with things purely Ukrainian or for that matter, even Russian? Not really! The ‘problem’ identified with ‘Ukraine’ has its origin in the global geopolitics – more specifically, it has everything to do with the concept of ‘geopolitics’ defined by the academicians, strategists, economists who did the bidding of Zionist-Capitalist globalists during past one and half centuries. It was the experts like Mackinder (Heartland Theory – “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland, Who rules Heartland commands the World-Island, Who rules the World-Island commands the World”), Spykman (Rimland Theory – “Who controls the Rimland rules Eurasia, Who rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world”), Brzezinski (Grand Chess Board Theory – “Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s most advances and economically productive regions. The control over Eurasia would almost automatically entails Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. Since Eurasia is too big to be politically one. It is the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played”), who for reasons unknown to any peaceful social person, wanted ‘Eurasia’ to be the indispensable piece of landmass that must be controlled by the Zionist-Capitalist globalist clique permanently. (There are a great many regions across six continents and five oceans where there are humongous deposits of fossil fuels, minerals, forests, and water resources – Eurasian heartland is just one of the many).

1. The Geopolitical Plot in Eurasia: The Role of Zionist-Capitalist Globalists

I would quote from a piece written by me earlier in this blog-site [link 🡪 http://thesaker.is/bridging-chinas-past-with-humanitys-future-part-2/%5D lest the key geopolitical issue about the ‘Ukraine problem’ is forgotten by the readers:

“ With the setting up of Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland in 1930, the disputes and tussle among the most prominent Jewish and Anglo banker families (like Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, Lazard, et al.) over type of business, geographical region of influence, and share of banking sector operations got resolved. The Zionist-Capitalist elites were fully united in words and deeds notwithstanding the occasional rivalry and difference of opinion between followers of two camps: Rothschild and Rockefeller. The long-term objective of the Zionist-Capitalist Deep State clique (representing primarily the Jewish, Anglo, Dutch, French, German oligarch and aristocrat families who had accumulated wealth and have been engaged in business in banking-land-industry-trading) after WW-I has been to establish a hegemonic world order which would:

1. own ‘political process and power’ in every society/country on the earth
2. own ‘economic process and wealth’ in every landmass/country/ocean on the earth
3. control ‘socio-cultural process and population’ in every region/country on the earth

I find it difficult to consider that, ‘winning’ political power anywhere in the world, has ever been an objective of the Deep State – they want to ‘own’ the process through which any political party may be made to ‘win’ or ‘loose’ power depending on short-term and long-term interest of the Deep State.

The Zionist-Capitalist Deep State crystallized in its existing form when WW-II started in 1936 (with signing of anti-communist pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan). Expectations of the Zionist-Capitalist Deep State were destruction of powerful societies (non- Anglo/Jewish/Dutch/French) who had potential to develop advanced economy, and expansion of the Zionist-Capitalist Empire:

1. combatants Fascist Germany and Communist Soviet Union decimating each other’s (i) military forces, (ii) physical infrastructure, and (iii) population across entire Eurasia;
2. combatants Fascist Japan and Nationalist China decimating each other’s (i) military forces, (ii) physical infrastructure, and (iii) population across entire East Asia;
3. stages (a) and (b) would be followed by occupation of whole Europe and Asia by the ‘benevolent’ Anglo-American military who would claim that they have ‘liberated’ these ancient civilizations from the ‘authoritarian dictatorships’ of fascism and communism;
4. stage (c) would be followed by establishment of ‘liberal democratic capitalism’ version of the empire as against (the older) ‘colonial extractive capitalism’ version in whole Europe and Asia to continue plunder of wealth in maximum possible way “

Unfortunately half of the objectives remained unfulfilled in the WW-II that was over by 1945 – because of two political parties: Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) and Communist Party of China (CPC) whose top leadership mobilised their countrymen in collective patriotic spirit, Soviet Union and China didn’t capitulate but their direct adversaries (Germany and Japan) were trounced. Phase II became a necessity for the Deep State.

Phase II of WW-II was initiated as soon as phase I was over. ‘Operation Unthinkable’ was planned by most ardent imperialist Churchill in order to launch a surprise attack on Soviet Union to achieve the original objectives that Hitler failed to achieve, but dropped. Realising that a military block consisting of all societies that join together as Zionist-Capitalist Deep State, would be more effective to demolish:

(a) morally and militarily supreme power like Soviet Union which recuperated economically,

(b) new power like Communist China (where by January’1949, Peoples Liberation Army already won three major campaigns in last strongholds of Kuo Mintang party in east and south regions of China),

NATO was formed in April’1949.

To achieve the long-term objective of hegemonic world order as well as the four WW-II objectives, the Deep State displayed creativity in designing and deploying diplomatic, political, economic, cultural tools and methods that proved to be highly durable and extremely effective:

1. UNO and its key sister organizations were established to control the international political incidents in all regions across the globe
2. Through WBG, IMF, ADB global banking and financial companies spread its tentacles to every region of the world to control natural resources and economy
3. US Dollar as the foreign currency exchange basis across the globe – not only the gold backing was withdrawn from Dollar in 1971 by USA government, but the hegemon also manipulated the Arab rulers to use Dollar as currency for most crucial commodity trading (of petroleum)
4. Trade pacts like GATT, WTO, and similar other pacts driven by USA-West Europe-Japan were implemented so that the hegemonic power maintains their hold over global trade
5. Promotion of ‘periodic election’ plus ‘market economy’ plus ‘private ownership’ masquerading as ‘Democracy’ across the globe
6. Promotion of literature-cinema-fine arts that revolves around sex-drug-commercial duplicity in all major languages across the globe
7. Promotion of mainstream media for broadcasting and publishing round-the-clock propaganda on the above mentioned tools (i) to (vi) in all major languages across the globe
8. Promotion of academic institutions and intellectual for propagating curriculum on the above mentioned tools (i) to (vi) in all major languages across the globe
9. Promotion of religious fundamentalist groups (male chauvinists with belief in illusory past glory from society which profess religious faiths like Sunni Islam, in Catholic Christianity, in Puritan Christianity, Brahmanical Hinduism etc.) as well as ethnic fundamentalist groups (believing superiority of his/her ethnicity) in all regions across the globe
10. Development of highly complex computerised system and other industrial technology to replace human labour in every sphere of productive work as much as possible

…
The Deep State operatives were very successful in their original plan of wrecking Soviet Union from within. In the beginning of 1980s two leaders got into powerful political positions in the Soviet block – Yuri Andropov became top leader of CPSU and Lech Walesa became top trade union leader in Poland, Such high-ranking anti-socialist leaders quickly made inroads into state structure and policies in Soviet Union and Poland. After Andropov handpicked Gorbachev to lead CPSU, it was only a matter of time for the Deep State to wrap-up the socialist experiment what was known as USSR. Gorbachev and his so-called reformist clique systematically incapacitated Soviet economy, and also actively promoted downfall of governments in every east European country which were led by socialist party aligned with CPSU. This clique was helped by professionals from USA and west Europe. They also pinned hope that CPC leader Zhao Ziyang will become the ‘Gorbachev of China’ to bring down the government ruled by CPC – however this was a complete failure as Zhao himself confided with Gorbachev that ‘Deng was the top leader’ in a meeting when Tiananmen Square protest was raging in Beijing in 1989. Without a single gun-shot being fired by the military wings of Zionist-Capitalist cabal, the Soviet Union dissolved itself between 1990 to 1991 CE – the phase II of WW-II came to an end. Instead of serious introspection and course correction among ruling party officials and government departments to design policies keeping pace with socio-economic changes and technological changes, all these (Soviet) ‘reformist’ leaders decided that the best way to (personal?) growth was to join hands with Zionist-Capitalist world order after bringing down the governments ruled by their own party communist/socialist party.

By 2020 whole Europe and half of Asia had been occupied by the ‘benevolent’ Anglo-American NATO military who claimed that they guarantee ‘independence’ of those ‘liberated countries’ from the clutch of ‘authoritarian’ communism and they also ensure that ‘liberal democratic capitalism’ version of empire will suck the land and citizens dry. No wonder, Soviet WW-II war memorials and monuments have been systematically destroyed in east Europe – how long the Deep State would tolerate anti-Zionist anti-capitalist flag hoisted by Soviet Red Army in Europe with immense sacrifices and sufferings by Soviet leaders, soldiers and people?

Concomitant with the complete control of all political parties (across the wide spectrum of their professed ideology) on both sides of the Atlantic: North America, South America, Europe, the discerning Zionist-Capitalist cabal maintains a complex cobweb connecting all key members and rotating them from one role to another. Thus a retired Director of intelligence department of USA will occupy the chair of Chairman of a big financial investment firm as well as the role of a university Professor! The cabal maintains a carefully constructed façade where professionals from different spheres of society jointly appear as a highly educated, experienced and intelligent wing – industrialists, bankers, politicians, bureaucrats, military officials, business managers, legal and media professionals, academicians, NGO managers, cinema directors and artists all walks of life are present…”

In spite of the planning and execution of the imperialist capitalist designs on Eurasia as mentioned above, the Zionist-Capitalist clique found, to their utter dismay, that by 2020 a resurgent nationalist Russia and a nationalist communist China are successfully spearheading a sort of global movement for multipolar geopolitical and geo-economic world order. Not only the gains at the end of WW I, WW II, and Cold War have been seriously undermined by the ‘evil-duo’ of Russia and China, but the basic primacy of the Zionist-Capitalist Deep State in global affairs are being seriously contested by these countries (and Iran). The final objectives of the Zionist-Capitalist Deep State is to wreck the current Russian and Chinese society and economy, create disorder that will eventually break the states of Russia and China into 3 – 5 smaller states, leaders of which will source their legitimacy and strength from the global oligarchy (the high priests of Zionist-Capitalist Deep State).

1. Brief Political History of the East Slavs

For any serious discussion on geopolitics and geo-economics of a country/region, historical development of political entity and society must be seriously and objectively carried out. Instead of writing long paragraphs, I thought it prudent to be economical and put information in tabular format. According to the traditional account presented in The Russian Primary Chronicle (originally authored by Nestor, a monk in Kievan Rus of the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev who lived between 1056 and 1113 CE), the kingdom of Kievan Rus was founded by Rurik, the Varangian /Viking ruler of Novgorod who reigned between 862 CE and 879 CE. The next chief Oleg who ruled between 879 CE and 912 CE expanded the territory by expelling the Khazars from Kiev, and established the new capital at Kiev – the location was chosen with an eye to controlling the trading with the Byzantine Empire through Dnieper. And, it was instrumental for the prosperity of Kievan Rus (that controlled the trade route from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea through which furs, wax, honey, slaves were moved). The kingdom was expanded eastward and westward by Igor who ruled between 912 CE and 945 CE, and by Olga (who ruled as regent between 945 CE and 964 CE) southward. Vladimir I ruled between 978 CE and 1015 CE – his reign was noteworthy because he got converted into Orthodox Christianity in 988 CE thereby selecting Orthodox Christianity as the state religion for east Slavic society. Yaroslav the Wise (reigned 1019 CE to 1054 CE) promulgated the first East Slavic law code (Rus’ka pravda). Both Vladimir I and Yaroslav challenged the Khazarian Empire for the entire space over which the Khazarian kingdom was built.

Encyclopaedia Britannica noted “The East Slavs had no significant tradition of supra-tribal political organization before the coming of the Varangians, who themselves, until well into the 10th century, had little interest in institutions more elaborate than those necessary for the exploitation of their rich, new territory. The territory of Rus, moreover, was immense and sparsely settled. The scattered towns, some probably little more than trading posts, were separated by large primeval forests and swamps.” Even though any staunch nationalist from the current Rus society would like to scoff at this quotation, reality of Rus society before Mongol invasion was nearer to this statement rather than further. After the death of Yaroslav the Wise in 1054 CE, there was a major break-up within the Rurik dynasty as a result of which the kingdom of Kievan Rus got split into multiple principalities each of which was ruled by a member of the Rurik family. The princes frequently fought among themselves, forming alliances with outside groups such as the Poles, and Hungarians. With Kievan Rus kingdom in decline, Novgorod principality became strong. A local oligarchy ruled Novgorod; a town assembly elected a prince as the city-state’s military leader. It benefited tremendously from the trading relations with other trading towns of the Hanseatic League. In the 12^th century Novgorod had its dedicated archbishop as a sign of political independence. Also, by the 12^th century, the combined principality of Vladimir-Suzdal became a major power – in 1169 CE the army under Prince Andrey Bogolyubskiy sacked the city of Kiev. Political power shifted to the northeast, away from Kiev region. In 1299 CE the metropolitan of the Orthodox Church moved to the city of Vladimir thereby raising the status of Vladimir-Suzdal’ as the religious centre of east Slavic society. To the southwest (of Kiev), the principality of Galicia-Volhynia developed mature trade relations with Polish, and Hungarian neighbours and emerged as another successor to Kievan Rus’. In 1199 CE Prince Roman of Volhynia, invited by the Galician noblemen ascended the throne in Halicz and united Volhynia and Galicia in 1200 CE. .

Briefly the political and territorial trajectory of Eurasian landmass (with more stress on the western edge of Eurasia) has been mentioned below:

Region	Description
8th century BCE to 2nd century CE
Carpathian Mountains in the west to Ordos Plateau in the east	The first Central Asian nomadic empire was built by the Scythians.Between 2nd and 4th century CE the Scythians were overwhelmed and dominated by the Sarmatians, Alans, Huns, and Goths.
4th century CE to 9th century CE
Between upper Volga and upper Don (currently west Russia)	Settlements of five Volga-Finnic groups of the Merya, Mari, Muromians, Meshchera and Mordvinians.
Around lower Volga and lower Don (currently west Russia), Caucasus, and lower Dnieper (currently Ukraine)	Settlements of Bulghars, Khazars, and Kipchaks; a team of Bulghars migrated towards coast of Black Sea, another team migrated to upper Volga; Khazars became a strong kingdom between Dnieper and Ural rivers, and it extracted tributes from non-Khazars living within their jurisdiction.
Coast of Baltic Sea, currently west Belarus, Gulf of Finland, lake Ladoga, White Sea	Settlements of two East Balt (Indo-European) groups: Latvians, Lithuanians and four Finnic groups: Vepsians, Estonians, Karelians, and Chuds.
Space between Dniester – upper Vistula in the west to Ural mountains in the east (currently Ukraine, Belarus, west Russia)	Entire region except the space occupied by the 3 above mentioned communities was occupied by the east Slavic tribes. Apparently, remnants of the old Scythian and Sarmatian communities had been assimilated and absorbed by the early east Slavic society.
860 CE to 1240 CE
The watersheds of the Volga, Don, Dnieper, Dniester, Neman, Western Dvina, Vistula	By the 7th century CE the east Slavs became the dominant ethno-linguistic group in the Eurasian plain. Between 862 CE and 1054 CE the kingdom of Kievan Rus (east Slav society ruled by Varangian aristocracy) was on ascendency, it reached its zenith as the first ‘state’ of the east Slavs with significant geopolitical weight.
From east to west:(i) Vladimir-Suzdal,(ii) Ryazan,(iii) Novgorod,(iv) Smolensk,(v) Chernigov,(vi) Polotsk,(vi) Kiev,(viii) Galicia-Volhynia	Between 1054 CE and 1240 CE, the kingdom of Kievan Rus slipped into a path of chaos, independent strong principalities arose who were engaged in internecine wars among themselves. There is a view among a section of the European academicians who would like to negate the entire Kievan Rus chapter. Jaroslaw Pelenski mentioned in ‘The Contest for the Legacy of Kievan Rus’, “The ‘Riurikide’ dynasty and the ruling elite … attempted to impose on their highly diverse polity the integrative concept of russkaia zemlia (‘the Rus’ land’) and the unifying notion of a ‘Rus’ people’. …But ‘Kievan Rus” was never really a unified polity. It was a loosely bound, ill-defined, and heterogeneous conglomeration of lands and cities inhabited by tribes and population groups whose loyalties were primarily territorial…”
1240 CE to 1547 CE
Golden Horde empire included:According to notable Russian scholars A.P.Grigorev and O.B.Frolova, Golden Horde had 10 provinces:(i) Khiva or Khorazm,(ii) Desht-i-Kipchak,(iii) Khazaria,(iv) Crimea,(v) the Banks of Azov,(vi) the country of Circassians,(vii) Bulgar,(viii) Walachia,(ix) Alania,(x) Russian lands (mostly vassal states like (a) Grand Duchy of Lithuania,(b) Republic of Novgorod,(c) Republic of Pskov,(d) Principality of Smolensk, and(e) Grand Duchy of Muscovy)	Between 1237 CE and 1242 CE, forces of Mongol Empire overran most of the regions which were once part of the kingdom of Kievan Rus’. After sacking the city of Kiev in 1240 CE, the Mongol army moved into Poland and Hungary.Crimea, Itil, New Sarai (near modern Volgograd) were the towns which became the commercial and administrative centres of the so-called ‘Golden Horde’ (Mongol family of Jochi, son of Genghis Khan). Control of the Slavic society and land was exercised through the local princes (who acted as vassals), and through agents charged with overseeing the fiscal levies.As the time progressed, different branches of Mongol ‘Golden Horde’ in charge with different regions (Tatar Khanates) of the empire clashed among them. Finally, in 1395 CE, Timur’s central Asian army destroyed the Golden Horde’s power centres at Sarai, Azov, and Kaffa. The Golden Horde never recovered fully, but they continued their tribute collection system till 1480 CE when Grand Prince Ivan III of Muscovy Principality denied payment of tribute (called as ‘Great Stand on the Ugra River’). Thereafter, few comparatively small sized ‘khanates’ arose in few places (across the erstwhile empire) that were run by the Mongol warlords and vied for political space (increasingly cornered by Muscovy Rus).
Grand Duchy of Lithuania(Kingdom of Poland and Duchy of Lithuania were united by Union of Krewo, a personal union of the rulers in 1385 CE; Union of Lublin in 1569 CE was a pact between Poland and Lithuania that united the two countries into a single commonwealth state)	Lithuanians created one of the strongest political entities of medieval Europe, Grand Duchy of Lithuania that covered their traditional tribal space on Baltic Sea as well as the principality of Polotsk (one of the break-away regions of Kievan Rus that was invaded by Lithuanians in 1307 CE). It also acquired the northern part of the principality of Kiev between 1240 CE and 1319 CE.Principality of Galicia–Volhynia (1199–1253 CE) was one of the many independent principalities that came into limelight after dissolution of Kievan Rus. Later proclaimed as Kingdom of Ruthenia it became a vassal of the Golden Horde. Polish kingdom annexed the Ruthenian kingdom in 1349 CE. Catholic Polish King Casimir III adopted the title of King of Poland and ruler of Ruthenia.Thus for all practical purposes, western and central parts of present-day Ukraine and Belarus became part of the Catholic Poland-Lithuania during mid-14th century.
Republic of Novgorod	Of the principalities of Kievan Rus’, only Novgorod escaped direct occupation by the Mongols. In fact, Novgorod’s burghers accommodated the invading Mongols – they extended their trading down the Volga and toward the Urals.Alexander Nevsky served as the Prince of Novgorod (1236–56 and 1258–1259), Grand Prince of Kiev (1236–52) and Grand Prince of Vladimir (1252–63) during some of the most difficult times in Rus’ history. He defeated all adversaries (Swedes, Germans, Estonians) approaching from north-west while maintained good relations with Golden Horde by paying them a tribute – probably, such farsightedness saved the Orthodox culture of the then Rus society.Novgorod continued to prosper economically, but its ruling oligarchy was dethroned by the Grand Principality of Muscovy in 1478 CE thereby ending its independence.
Grand Duchy of Muscovy	While towns like Kiev never fully recovered in Mongol times, many other towns made a striking recovery as it happened for the towns in Vladimir-Suzdal region. New regions, such as Moscow and Tver appeared on the horizon within Vladimir-Suzdal region. Alexander Nevsky, clan member of Rurikid dynasty formed the Grand Duchy of Muscovy when in 1263 CE his son Daniel I was appointed to rule the newly-created Grand Duchy, which they ruled until their male line died out in 1598 CE. It started as a vassal state to the Golden Horde Mongol Empire, and soon eclipsed and eventually absorbed its parent Duchy of Vladimir-Suzdal by the 1320s.The Grand Duchy of Muscovy gradually incorporated all left out adjacent smaller duchies. Vasili III who reigned between 1505 and 1533 CE, expanded Muscovy’s borders by annexing Republic of Novgorod (1478 CE), Duchy of Tver (1485 CE), Republic of Pskov (1510 CE), the principality of Ryazan (1521 CE), and Novgorod-Seversky (1522 CE).Moscow’s eventual dominance of northern and eastern Rus’ was in large part attributable to the Mongols. After the prince of Tver joined a rebellion against the Mongols in 1327 CE, Muscovy prince Ivan I joined the Mongols in crushing Tver. By doing so he removed his rival, brought the Russian Orthodox Church headquarters to Moscow, and was granted the title of Grand Prince by the Mongol Empire. Slowly the Muscovy prince became the chief intermediary between the Mongol court and the Rus’ principalities. Golden Horde respected and collaborated with Muscovy Rus. This, in turn, attracted even the Mongol nobles who settled in the secured Muscovy.‘Many Russian boyar (noble) families traced their descent from the Mongols or Tatars, including Veliaminov-Zernov, Godunov, Arseniev, Bakhmetev, Bulgakov (descendants of Bulgak) and Chaadaev (descendants of Genghis Khan’s son Chagatai Khan). In a survey of Russian noble families of the 17th century, over 15% of the Russian noble families had Tatar or Oriental origins.’
1547 CE to 1771 CE
Tsardom of Russia / Tsardom of Muscovy; Russian EmpireAs of 1763 CE, Russian Empire was organised in following divisions:(i) Archangelgorod Governorate(ii) Astrakhan Governorate(iii) Belgorod Governorate(iv) Kazan Governorate(v) Kiev Governorate(vi) Moscow Governorate(vii) Nizhny Novgorod Governorate(viii) Novgorod Governorate(ix) Orenburg Governorate(x) Revel Governorate(xi) Riga Governorate(xii) St. Petersburg Governorate(xiii) Siberian Governorate(xiv) Smolensk Governorate(xv) Voronezh Governorate(xvi) Vyborg Governorate	In 1547 CE, Ivan IV assumed the title of ‘Tsar and Grand Duke of all Rus’ and was crowned by Constantinople Patriarch Jeremiah II thereby turning the Grand Duchy of Muscovy into Tsardom of Russia. Between 1598 CE (when the last Rurik dynasty ruler died) and 1613 CE (when the Romanovs came to power) there was political instability. Thereafter the expansion process of the Tsardom continued. From 1551 to 1700 CE, Russia grew by 35,000 km2 per year. Through a series of victorious military campaigns Tsarist Russia annexed the Khanate of Kazan (1552 CE), the Khanate of Astrakhan (1556 CE), and the Khanate of Sibir (1598 CE) from the former Mongol warlords. Russia annexed the Khanate of Qasim in 1681 CE.In the mid-17th century the tensions between Polish-Lithuanian ruling aristocracy and the Cossacks of the Ukrainian lands increased. The dispute turned into a military conflict in 1648 CE known as the Khmelnitsky uprising. The Cossack leader Bogdan Khmelnitsky, after a few years of war against Polish-Lithuanian, was forced to seek protection from the Russian Tsar. The Pereiaslav union in 1654 CE led to the progressive incorporation of the Cossack parts of the state with the Russian Empire. In 1667 CE (Truce of Andrusovo), Russia and Poland partitioned the Russian and Malorossian territory (ruled by Poland-Lithuania) along the River Dnepr whereby Left Bank remained under Russian control (Smolensk, Left Bank Ukraine, temporary gain of Kiev, Zaphorizhia. In 1686 CE the control over Kiev, Zaphorizhia became permanent. Muscovy secured number of territories that belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania such as the Upper Oka Principalities and Sloboda Ukraine. In 1708, the Oka principalities and Sloboda Ukraine were incorporated into the first Kiev Governorate.Wars against Sweden resulted in victories and territorial gains – in 1721 CE Livonia, Estonia, Ingria, and Karelia were annexed, while in 1743 CE south-west Karelia was annexed by Russia defeating the Swedish kingdom.
1772 CE to 1921 CE
At the start of WW I in 1914 CE, western part of Russian Empire consisted of the following divisions:Principality of Finland governorates:Uleaborg, Vaasa, Abo-Byerneborg, Nyland, Tavastehus, Saint Michel, Vyborg, KuopioBaltic governorates:Estonia, Livonia, CourlandLithuania/Belarus governorates:Kovno, Vilna, Vitebsk, Mogilev,Minsk, GrodnoCongress Poland governorates: Kalisz, Kelets, Lomzh, Lublin, Plotsk, Petrokov, Radom, Suvalki, WarsawRight-bank Ukraine governorates:Kholm, Volhynian, Kiev, PodolianMalorossiya governorates:Chernigov, Poltava, KharkovNovorossiya governorates:Don Cossack Host, Ekaterinoslav, Kherson, Taurida, Bessarabia, Crimea	Through first partition of Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1772 CE, Russia came into possession of the part of Livonia that had remained in Commonwealth control, and of eastern Belarus embracing the regions of Vitebsk, Polotsk, Mstislavl. Only the most Western part (east Galicia) went to Austria. However the territories acquired by Austria did not correspond exactly to those of former Halych-Volhynia – the Russian Empire took control of Volhynia to the north-east, including the city of Volodymyr-Volynskyi. The full official name of the new Austrian territory was the Kingdom of Galicia and LodomeriaRussian empire annexed the vassal state of Crimean Khanate (Crimea, and most of present-day Zaphorizhia, Kherson, south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk, and western Donetsk Oblast) in 1783 CE. Russian empire acquired Southern Bug and Karbadino (in current south Ukraine) and Yedisan (Mykolaiv and Odessa oblasts of current Ukraine) in 1774 CE and 1792 CE respectively after defeating Ottoman Empire both the times.Through second and third partitions that happened in quick succession in 1793 CE and 1795 CE, Russia acquired southern part of current Latvia (south of Riga), most part of current Lithuania including Wilno (Vilnius), most part of current Belarus including Minsk, Pinsk, Brest, most part of Right Bank Ukraine that forms current Ukraine including Lutsk, Rovno, Zhytomyr, Bratslav, and Galicia from Poland-Lithuanian Commonwealth.In 1801 CE Russia annexed the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (modern day eastern Georgia) for which a fierce tussle among Ottoman Empire, Persian Empire, and Russian Empire existed. In 1810 CE the Kingdom of Imereti (western Georgia) was annexed by Russian Empire.Between 1808 CE and 1809 CE, Swedish Empire and Russian Empire fought over the Finnish territory of Swedish Empire. Russian Empire won the war as a result of which the Finnish territory joined Russian Empire with an identity ‘Duchy of Finland’.Bessarabia (two-thirds of which lies within modern Moldova) was taken over by Russian Empire in 1812 CE after winning a war against Ottoman Empire.After Napoleon’s defeat in 1813 CE, the (Polish) Duchy of Warsaw was again captured by the neighbouring empires/kingdoms. Russia gained the central and eastern part of the Duchy of Warsaw, which further extended its boundary into the Polish landsParts of Georgia, Dagestan, parts of northern Azerbaijan, and parts of northern Armenia were annexed from Persian Empire by Russian Empire in 1813 CE. In 1828 CE, Persian Empire ceded Caucasian region (present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan) to Russian Empire after defeat in their last major military conflict with Russia.
Between 1914 CE and 1921 CE, Russian Empire got dissolved, and Bolshevik Russia ascended; following non-east Slavic lands became independent:(i) Principality of Finland governorates(ii) Baltic governorates(iii) Lithuania governorates(iv) Congress Poland governorates	After losing most of the western parts of the Russian Empire due to a defeat by German Empire and the ensuing Brest-Litovsk Treaty in March’1918, Bolshevik Russia regained some parts of the regions that became present-day Belarus, and Ukraine. Treaty of Riga among Poland, Soviet Russia (acting also on behalf of Soviet Belarus) and Soviet Ukraine signed in 1921 CE settled the border with Poland’s gain of west Ukraine and west Belarus.
1922 CE to 1991 CE
At the time of the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 CE, the western and south-western regions of the USSR comprised of the following states:(i) Estonian SSR(ii) Latvian SSR(iii) Lithuanian SSR(iv) Byelorussian SSR(v) Ukrainian SSR(vi) Moldavian SSR(vii) Georgian SSR(viii) Armenian SSR(ix) Azerbaijan SSR	In 1922 CE, Union treaty formally brought Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Transcaucasia into the USSR. Transcaucasia lands were divided in 1936 CE into Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.During the WW II in 1940 CE, Soviet troops annexed Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia in the Baltic Sea region whereas Romania ceded control of Bessarabia and North Bukovina to USSR which incorporated these lands as Moldavian SSR. Soviet troops also seized the west Ukraine and west Belarus lands from Poland.
At the time of the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine consisted of the following oblasts:(i) East: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv(ii) North-east: Sumy, Poltava(iii) South-east: Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Crimea(iv) North-central: Kiev, Cherkasy, Chernihiv(v) South-central: Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odessa(vi) West: Zakarpatska, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk(vii) North-west: Volyn, Rivne, Zhytomyr(viii) South-west: Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia	After formulation of the new constitution of Soviet Union, Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, and Byelorussian regions formed the Union in 1922 CE; other regions joined later on (till WW II when Baltic regions joined).After 1922, territorial architecture of Ukraine was modified 4 times:In 1939 CE, the region of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Volyn, west part of Rivne were added to west and north-west Ukraine (territories from Poland);In 1940 CE, the southern part of Odessa and Chernivtsi were added to south-central Ukraine (territories from Romania);In 1945 CE, the region of Zakarpatska was added to west Ukraine (Ruthenia from Czechoslovakia);In 1954 CE, the region of Crimea was added to south-east Ukraine;On 24 August 1991, Ukraine SSR made the proclamation of its independence. With the dissolution of USSR in December 1991 Ukraine became independent country. But the historical baggage of its territorial expanse never left it.

The most significant observations on the political history of the east Slavic society are (as evident from a critical study of the history of the east Slavic civilization):

1. East Slavic communities spread across the vast expanses of east Europe and Central Asia were politically led by various non-Slavic aristocracies at different points of time (like Varangians, Mongols, Lithuanians, Germans) apart from the comparatively insignificant numbers of political organizations by the local Slavic aristocracy. Thus, the modern east Slavic societies possess the understanding of the political ideas/concepts which were/are prevalent in Europe and Asia as well as the cumulative experience of different styles of state formation, state administration, and warfare
2. Ruling aristocracy in east Slavic land passed through a very interesting metamorphosis – it can be stated with high degree of certainty that, the formation of aristocracy in Slavic society was initiated in the ancient era (may be 2^nd – 4^th century CE) when Scythian and Sarmatian tribes were assimilated in much larger community of east Slavs; during the medieval period, numerically smaller Varangians and Mongols (who settled in the lands of east Slavs) got absorbed within the east Slavic community; the modern era similarly witnessed the assimilation of a limited number of German, Polish, Lithuanian aristocrats within the east Slavic community. It won’t be out of place to mention that such waves of assimilation created a tremendous non-tangible asset in the form of geopolitical ideas and combat acumen among the east Slavs which is unparalleled in the history of humankind
3. It will be historically untrue to portray a picture of the political dynamics in the east Slavic civilization as a dichotomy between Kievan Rus and Muscovy Rus – the author finds that Kievan Rus and Muscovy Rus were two of the most important ‘time-space combinations’ (socio-political-economic formation in a geographic region at a specific historical time period) among (probably) a dozen of such entities. Thus Novgorod, Kazan, Belarus etc. were few other ‘time-space combinations’. And a very interesting fact about these formations was that, the common Slavs and aristocrat Boyars (more often than not, with a mixed ancestry of Slavic and non-Slavic elites) would find a common theme/platform built around a quasi-real quasi-metaphysical set of ideas/concepts to struggle for and establish a principality based on such notions (which, generally, won’t last for long)
4. Ukraine (within its current geographic boundary) never had a ‘state’ formed by a kingdom, or an empire – its boundary has been time and again modified as an administrative region with the USSR. ‘Left-Bank’, and ‘Right-Bank’ had different trajectories of political history, ‘Novorossiya’ on the coast of Black Sea had entirely different history (refer Figure 3.1 and 3.2 given below). All those different historical ‘time-space combinations’ were put together as ‘Ukraine SSR’ within the USSR by Bolshevik Party under two key factors: (i) Bolsheviks struggled from 1917 to 1922 CE against almost the entire world – anti-Bolshevik local groups of kulaks, bankers, middle-class professionals/ burghers, monarchists, senior army officers, politicians like liberals-conservatives-democrats as well as the Menshevik socialists, plus foreign governments run by the Zionist-Capitalists like UK, (its colonies) Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Romania, Czechia, Slovakia, Japan, USA etc. – which fostered a sense of feebleness within Lenin who thought indulging in the nationalist outlook of the regional leaders (with allegiance to Bolshevik Party) could be the only way out for creating the USSR. It can be assumed that, while overruling the objections of the leaders like Stalin and Artyom, Lenin didn’t foresee the dangers of such centrifugal forces which were present in the constitution of the USSR through the clause of secession; (ii) Lenin, and thereafter Stalin created a centripetal force within the USSR by adding regions with ethnic Muscovy Rus and/or encouraging settlements of ethnic Muscovy/Novgorod Rus in other regions (i.e. SSR) – thus Novorossiya was added to Ukraine SSR, Russians were settled in Kazakhstan SSR. Bolshevik leaders thought this centripetal force can balance the centrifugal force of local nationalism, which proved to be a fatal mistake for the ‘Soviet experiment’. Because of the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine found itself in a condition that ONLY physically resembled a ‘state’, but neither the political parties nor the oligarchy of Ukraine recognised as such, rather Ukraine state became just like an institutional means to plunder wealth in order to enrich their business!
5. Reorganization of the administrative zones within the kingdom/empire/union in the east Slavic lands is indeed a very interesting exercise, and probably a favourite pastime for ALL heads of state at different points of time. Few of those were:

(i) A system of territorial units called razryad in 1680 CE (Moscow, Sevsk, Vladimir, Novgorod, Kazan, Smolensk, Ryazan, Belgorod chartered in 1658 CE out of the Kiev Voivodeship, Tambov, Tula, Tobol chartered no later than 1587 CE, Tom, Yenisei Razryads) which were subdivided into uyezd (canton)

(ii) In 1708 CE Tsar Peter the Great issued an edict dividing the empire into eight administrative divisions called guberniyas (Archangelgorod, Azov, Ingermanland, Kazan, Kiev, Moscow, Siberia, Smolensk) which replaced the 166 uyezds and razryads which existed before the reform

(iii) In 1727 CE Catherine I enacted another reform – a total of 166 uyezds was re-established, together with the newly created ones, the Russian Empire had approximately 250 uyezds

(iv) By 1910 CE further restructuring took place, as a result of which 104 administrative governorate units (Oblast and Governorate) existed

(v) After 1917 CE Bolshevik Party undertook a series of restructuring that transformed the earlier architecture of administrative organization

Figure 3.1:

Figure 3.2:

1. Ukraine: Between 1991 and 2021

How Did Ukraine Economy Perform?

Economic parameters of Ukraine show how poorly the Zionist-Capitalist oligarchy and their clientele (i.e. political parties) managed Ukraine for past three decades. The following figures have been taken from Wikipedia

Figure 4.1: [link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Ukraine ]

Ukraine used to be the most advanced union state of the USSR in terms of industrial and agricultural output and productivity. It’s a crying shame that after 25 years of so-called independence the Ukrainian political leaders and the oligarchy couldn’t steer the country’s economy to surpass the GDP (PPP in current value) figure of 1990 CE – around 350 billion USD in 1990 CE as well as in 2016 CE! It not only shows lack of economic planning, and programme implementation, but, more importantly, it also proves complete negligence on part of the ruling oligarchy. The families in 1% oligarchy (businessmen, bureaucrats, political leaders etc.) and 5% upper middle class are anyway sucking the wealth out of Ukraine through mining-manufacturing-agriculture. 80% of the common people are leading a life of destitute and underemployment.

Figure 4.2: [link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Ukraine ]

Apart from a dysfunctional economy, the socio-political environment got vitiated so much that there has been a steady decline of population over the past three decades (refer fig. 4.3 below). There are two primary reasons for such decline: (i) reduction in total fertility rate, (ii) emigration to European and North American countries.

Figure 4.3: [link 🡪 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Ukraine#/media/File:Population_of_Ukraine_from_1950_(untitled).svg ]

How Did Zionist-Capitalist Deep State Moved Into Ukraine?

As I noted, Zionist-Capitalist clique always wanted to destroy potentially strong countries in Eurasian landmass (in fact, anywhere). In an old article in The Saker website I detailed on how two Fascist parties were developed in Germany and Italy after WW I by the Zionist-Capitalist clique in order to destroy the USSR (and those Fascist countries) [ link 🡪 https://thesaker.is/greatest-sin-of-lenin-and-stalin/ ]. During the WW II, Croatian and West Ukrainian fascist leaders and their parties indulged in more brutal and cruel pogroms than even the Nazi party could have ever imagined. Stepan Bandera, Andriy Melnyk and Symon Petliura were products of the fascist movement in west Ukraine.

After 1991 break-up of Soviet Union and Warsaw (Pact) block, USA and NATO leaders have helped rehabilitation of those fascist leaders and their ideas. In parallel the USA and NATO leaders relentlessly pushed NATO frontier – now Russia, Belarus are surrounded by NATO bases with first strike capability. New fissures are being invented across the central Asian countries to create a militant (Wahhabi) Islamic cult within the population. In the Caucasus countries, again the Hegemon is hyper-active to create anti-Russian sentiments. During past two decades ‘colour revolution’ had been applied successfully by the Zionist-Capitalist Deep State twice in Ukraine to install their flunkies in power. Finally, the objective is plain and simple – Russia will get surrounded by NATO countries, NATO military bases with nuclear capable bombers and missiles will be constructed in east European and Caucasian NATO members, Fascist Ukrainian militia backed by NATO armaments and trained by NATO ‘military specialists’ will launch frontal attack on western border of Russia – with incessant missile launching from east European NATO members Russia will not be able to defend border. Zionist-Capitalist clique assumed that Operation Barbarossa by Germany in WW II failed because Nazi Wehrmacht didn’t had any backing of conventional/biological/nuclear missiles – In the present era such issues have been taken care of by the Hegemon.

What Has Been Russia’s Stand in Ukraine?

Russian government has been voicing their discomfort about growing insecurity since past two decades. As usual, Russian concerns continue to fall on deaf ears. In 2014 CE Crimea, Donestsk, Lugansk oblasts (predominantly with Russian-speaking) decided to break away from Ukraine state. While Crimea joined Russia, Donestsk and Lugansk declared themselves as peoples’ republic.

On 17^th December 2021 Russian government presented detailed security demands that include a legally binding guarantee that NATO will give up any military activity in east Europe and Ukraine. On 26^th January 2022 USA sent a written response to Russia’s security demands, wherein it was repeated that NATO will continue to add new members in east Europe and Caucasus. Between 21^st and 24^th February 2022 Russian government recognised the peoples’ republics in east Ukraine and mobilized military to support them. President Putin also asked Ukraine government to demilitarize and denazify Ukrainian society.

1. Ukraine’s Future: Possibilities

To begin with, I have to confess that I don’t believe in ‘future of Ukraine’ – I would rather opt for rephrasing it as ‘future of Eurasia’! I know that educated people and democratic intellectuals all over the world will shudder at my words. For them I would like to put forward a simple question – can anybody show me the trajectory of the ‘Ukraine state’ for a continuous period of at least 300 years in the last millennium during which at least 80% of the contiguous landmass of the current Ukraine was being governed by a political institution like a kingdom or a principality or an empire or a constitutional state? No, they can’t show it because it didn’t happen! A geographical landmass can’t achieve such sobriquet as a ‘state’ only through accidental incidents like dissolution of the USSR!

However, my personal opinion notwithstanding let me list down the possibilities in near future about how ‘Ukraine state’ can continue to function as a socio-political entity. While doing so, I tried to be as realistic as possible. (I haven’t really assessed the impact of current affairs in Ukraine on the countries in the Resistance Camp, which in my opinion, will also be quite substantial that requires a separate study).

Description of Political Possibilities	Impact on Countries Owned by Zionist-Capitalist Clique
Possibility 1 – geopolitics remain firmly centred around the current world order
– Russian forces stay within Ukraine border for say, 1 month, and come back to Russia– Lugansk and Donetsk governments establish their rule over the entire administrative region with the help of Russian forces– Ukraine government, de facto and de jure accepts the new boundary as the 1991 CE Ukraine boundary minus the regions of Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk– Ukraine government signs treaty with Russian government on denazification of the society, demilitarisation to the extent that no army/navy/air-force, and remaining neutral without joining NATO military block– Ukraine government completely reorganise and restructure their country with new constitution that will reflect the new realities	– USA-UK-Australia-Canada-NZ, Israel, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and few other NATO block countries will continue to: (a) sanction Russian banks, mining, energy, and other industries, (b) sanction Russian leadership personally, and(c) undertake even more widespread campaigns to spread outright lies, disinformation and character assassination– None of the European countries can afford to stop flow of natural gas into their country since it is much cheaper compared to sourcing LNG/PNG from West Asia and/or North America– Military-Industrial Complex will get a much larger business from NATO governments, who know that they are lagging behind Russia (and China) in military technology– NATO and EU will increasingly mirror each other, due to which there will be a new paradigm of international relations – geopolitics and geo-economy of Anglo and European countries will show a block-mentality
Possibility 2 – geopolitics of the current world order is in doldrums
– Russian forces stay within Ukraine border for say, 2 months, and come back to Russia– Lugansk and Donetsk governments establish their rule over the entire administrative region with the help of Russian forces– Kharkiv and Kherson people create new peoples’ republic with the retreat of Ukraine army, and seek recognition from Russian government– Ukraine government, de facto and de jure accepts the new boundary as the 1991 CE Ukraine boundary minus the regions of Crimea, Lugansk, Donetsk, but refuses to accept Kharkiv and Kherson as breakaway regions– Ukraine government signs treaty with Russian government on denazification of the society, demilitarisation to the extent that no army/navy/air-force, and remaining neutral without joining NATO military block– Ukraine government remains at loggerheads with Kharkiv and Kherson government, hence a new constitution or administrative actions for serious house-cleaning are impossible	– USA-UK-Australia-Canada-NZ, Israel, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and few other NATO block countries will continue to: (a) sanction Russian banks, mining, energy, and other industries, (b) sanction Russian leadership personally, and(c) undertake even more widespread campaigns to spread outright lies, disinformation and character assassination– None of the European countries can afford to stop flow of natural gas into their country since it is much cheaper compared to sourcing LNG/PNG from west Asia or North America– Military-Industrial Complex will get a much larger business from NATO governments, who know that they are lagging behind Russia (and China) in military technology– NATO and EU will increasingly mirror each other, due to which there will be a new paradigm of international relations – geopolitics and geo-economy of Anglo and European countries will show a block-mentality– NATO and EU will proactively create dozens of far-right ‘militia’ groups within Ukraine that will fight anti-Ukraine peoples’ republics and Russian forces; USA-UK-Israel-Netherlands-France will supply money and military equipment to regular Ukraine army
Possibility 3 – geopolitics churn out a new world order
– Russian forces stay within Ukraine border for longer than 2 months because of further escalation of combat scenarios– Lugansk and Donetsk governments establish their rule over the entire administrative region with the help of Russian forces– Many oblasts bordering Russia and Black Sea (like Kharkiv, Sumy, Zaphorizhia, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Odessa) want to create new peoples’ republic with the retreat of Ukraine army, and seek recognition from Russian government– Ukraine government refuses to accept the de facto reality and maintains its stand internationally that the legal boundary must be as per the 1991 CE USSR border; Ukraine government officially refuses to accept any breakaway region– Ukraine government refuses to sign any treaty with Russian government on neutrality, denazification, and demilitarisation, and actively seek military help from NATO to fight Russian forces– Russian political parties like Communist Party, United Russia and Ukrainian political parties as well as peoples representatives from all walks of life in predominantly Orthodox Christian Russia, Malorossiya, Novorossiya, Belarus, Armenia, and Georgia will come forward with an idea to create a new union that will be a truly Eurasian in letter and spirit– A new constitution is developed where the mistakes of the earlier constitution implemented 100 years back gets rectified. A new union is born this year with a new union treaty, a new peoples’ constitution, and a new capital just beyond the Ural Mountains. The Eurasian Union will be geopolitically and economically aligned with Asia, Africa, South America continents. Jointly with China, the new union will become the beacon of hope for the rest of the humankind against the quest for wealth and power of the existing Zionist-Capitalist world order. – Ukraine will still exist (Right Bank west Ukraine region) with Kiev, Cherkasy, Rivne, Zhytomyr, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Chernivtsi, Vinnytsia Zakarpatska, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Volyn oblasts to continue its historic role as the springboard for fascist forces in east Europe. (It would be an entirely different game if Russian government decides to annihilate this venomous snake for ever from the face of earth.)	– USA-UK-Australia-Canada-NZ, Israel, Netherlands, Belgium, France, and few other NATO block countries will continue to: (a) sanction Russian banks, mining, energy, and other industries, (b) sanction Russian leadership personally, and(c) undertake even more widespread campaigns to spread outright lies, disinformation and character assassination– Military-Industrial Complex will get a much larger business from NATO governments, who know that they are lagging behind Russia (and China) in military technology. Space-based nuclear offensive mechanism and system as well as land-based biological warfare mechanism and system will be developed– NATO and EU will increasingly mirror each other, due to which there will be a new paradigm of international relations – geopolitics and geo-economy of Anglo and European countries will show a block-mentality. Dissenting voices like Hungary and Serbian regions will be punished– NATO and EU will proactively create dozens of far-right ‘militia’ groups within Ukraine that will fight anti-Ukraine peoples’ republics and Russian forces; USA-UK-Israel-Netherlands-France will supply money, military equipment, and military personnel to the regular Ukraine army; battles between Russian army and NATO detachments result in disastrous total rout for NATO– NATO and EU countries try to create without success a new UNO where Russia (and China) will be pushed out from the security council and countries like Germany, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil are lured to join the new institution as ‘key member’ (never mind that only the Zionist-Capitalist Deep State owns and controls the institution)– NATO and EU countries will seek to restrict all types of normal country-to-country relations between Russia (and China) and all other countries in the world; trading, investment, cultural exchange, scientific and educational exchange with Russia (and China) will be discouraged (in case of large/powerful countries) and punished (in case of small/weak countries). EU and NATO countries will be forced to cease any business with Russia (and China), not even energy import.

1. Conclusion

100 years back, right in this Eurasian surreal dreamland, a revolutionary leader and his comrades set out to bring light in the darkness, to bring back morality-justice in the filthy money-oriented world, but the ensuing trail of treachery of the Zionist gangs who wrecked the Bolshevik Party from within (utilising many mistakes of their leaders including Lenin) extinguished the lamp decades ago. Who knows if the people of Eurasia decide to illuminate the lamp again under the able leadership of the current leadership!

As I submit this article to The Saker blogsite, active involvement of NATO has been announced. So, the ‘possibility 1’ discussed above is ruled out. Do you think the ‘possibility 3’ can become a reality?

Do as I say … not as I do

April 19, 2021

By Francis Lee who looks at the politics of development and under-development for the Saker Blog.

I think it was Sir Ian Gilmour (now deceased) who, as one time member of Mrs Thatcher’s first Cabinet in 1979, referred to her economic policy as ‘Clause 4 dogmatism in reverse.’ (1) This was an apt description from a thinking Tory. The notion that there existed a magic panacea which would banish all the problems associated with Britain’s (and the world’s) economic ills, formed the basis of Thatcherism, Reaganism, and the Third-wayism of Clinton and Blair. The so-called ‘supply-side’ revolution consisted of removing all the controls from capitalism which had been painstakingly put in place over the centuries, and simply letting the system rip – and rip it did. The 1970s was the beginning of the interregnum to the new order of the 1980s and beyond, which had ushered in policies of privatisation, deregulation, liberalisation which were the key components of this policy paradigm.

In international terms free-trade and free-markets were of course at the heart of the system – a system which was to become known as ‘globalization’ and/or neoliberalism packaged and sold as an irresistible force of nature. It was considered, by all the people that mattered, that free-trade was always and everywhere the best policy. This view was codified in what was to become known as the ‘Washington Consensus.’ The new conventional wisdom was conceived of and given a legitimating cachet by political, business, MSM and academic elites around the world.

However, many of the elements – if not all – of the Washington Consensus were hardly new, and indeed many date back to the 18^th and 19^th centuries and perhaps beyond. It could be said that the newly emergent mainstream orthodoxy represented a caricature of an outdated and somewhat dubious political economy.

The theory that free trade between nations would maximise output and welfare was first mooted by Adam Smith, but its final elaboration was conducted by David Ricardo in his famous work The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation first published in 1817. Briefly, he argued that nations should specialise in what they do best and in that way world output would be maximised. This policy was called ‘comparative advantage’. The hypothetical example he used was England and Portugal and the production of wine and cloth, where he calculated that England should produce cloth and Portugal should produce wine. It was asserted, though no evidence was ever presented, that all would gain from this international division of labour. The theory is in fact full of unsubstantiated and seductive notions, but its practical application is limited. Because it is based upon so many rigid and static assumptions, it is especially appealing to those of a status quo disposition, including most present- day globalist thinkers.

However, even a cursory glance at economic history, and particularly the transition from agrarian to industrial societies, demonstrates the weaknesses, and indeed, serves to falsify the whole Ricardian trade paradigm. The brute historical fact is that every nation which has successfully embarked on this transition – including the UK – has done so adopting policies which were the exact opposite of those advocated by the free-trade school. In the world of actually existing capitalism, free-trade is the exception rather than the rule. Contemporary world trade is mainly a matter of intra-firm trading, that is, global companies trading with their own affiliates and subsidiaries in different countries, mainly for tax avoidance purposes (see below). Next there are regional trading blocs like the EU or US which erect tariff barriers to non-members. Thirdly there is barter trade where goods and services are exchanged for other goods and services rather than money. Finally, only about 20% at most, can be considered to be free trade, and even here there are exceptions involving bilateral specifications and agreements.

Modernisation and industrialisation, wherever it took place, involved tariffs, infant industry protection, export subsidies, import quotas, grants for R&D, patents, currency manipulation, mass education and so forth … a smorgasboard of interventionist policies whereby the economy was directed from above by the state. For example during its period of industrialisation the United States erected tariff walls to keep out foreign (mainly British) goods with the intention of nurturing nascent US industries. US tariffs (in percentages of value) ranged from 35 to almost 50% during the period 1820-1931, and the US itself only became in any sense a free-trading nation after World War II, that is once its financial and industrial hegemony had been established. In Europe laissez-faire was also eschewed. In Germany in particular tariffs were lower in the US, but the involvement of the German state in the development of the economy was decidedly hands-on. Again there was the by now standard policy of infant industry protection, and this was supplemented by an array of grants from the central government including scholarships to promising innovators, subsidies to competent entrepreneurs, and the organisation of exhibitions of new machinery and industrial processes. In addition, ‘’during this period Germany pioneered modern social policy, which was important in maintaining social peace – and thus promoting investment – in a newly unified country … ‘’(2)

It has been the same everywhere, yet the Ricardian legacy still prevails. But this legacy takes on the form of a free-floating ideology with little connexion to either practical policy prescriptions or the real world. It has been said in this respect that ‘’ … practical results have little to do with the persuasiveness of ideology.’’(3) This much is true, but it rather misses the point: the function of ideology is not to supply answers to problems in the real world, but simply to give a Panglossian justification to the prevalent order of things.

Turning to the real world it will be seen that ‘’ … history shows that symmetric free-trade, between nations of approximately the same level of development, benefits both parties.’’ However, ‘’asymmetric trade will lead to the poor nation specialising in being poor, while the rich nation will specialise in being rich. To benefit from free trade, the poor nation must rid itself of its international specialisation of being poor. For 500 years this has not happened anywhere without any market intervention.’’ (4)

This asymmetry in the global system is both cause and consequence of globalization. It should be borne in mind that the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are suppliers of cheap raw material inputs to the industrialised countries of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia. In technological terms the LDCs find themselves locked into low value-added, low-productivity, low-research intensive dead-end production, where no discernible development or technology transfer takes place. Thus under-development is a structural characteristic of globalization, not some unfortunate accident. Put another way:

‘’ … if rich nations (the North) as the result of historical forces, are relatively well endowed with the vital resources of capital, entrepreneurial ability, and skilled labour, their continued specialisation in products and processes that use the resources intensively can create the necessary conditions for their further growth. By contrast LDCs (the global-South) endowed with abundant supplies of cheap, unskilled labour, by intentionally specialising in products that use cheap, unskilled labour … will often find themselves locked into a stagnant situation that perpetuates their comparative advantage in unskilled, unproductive activities. This in turn inhibits the domestic growth of needed capital, entrepreneurship, and technical skills. Static efficiency becomes dynamic inefficiency, and a cumulative process is set in motion in which trade exacerbates already unequal trading relationships, distributes benefits largely to the people who are already well-off, and perpetuates the physical and human resource under-development that characterises most poor nations.’’ (5)

The cocoa-chocolate industry (hereafter CCI) of the West African nations, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria are a case in point. These countries produce the majority of the world’s raw cocoa beans. But of course the industry as a whole is controlled by western multinationals such as Hershey, Nestlé and Cadbury-Schweppes (now Kraft). The structure of this industry – vertically integrated – is very typical of the relationship between the LDCs and the developed world. The low value-added part of the industry – growing and harvesting the beans – is left to individual farmers in West Africa. Buying agencies, either very close to, or in fact subsidiaries of multinational companies (MNCs), then buy the raw material at prices usually dictated by the MNCs. This asymmetrical relationship between supplier and sole buyers (the African farmers) is termed ‘monopsony’ in the economics jargon. It should be understood that large companies not only over-price their products to the final consumer, but also under-price their purchases from their captive suppliers. From then on, the various stages of the processing supply chain are in the hands of the parent company. From raw beans, to roasting, milling, refining, manufacturing of chocolate or cocoa, shipping, and packaging, branding and advertising – all of these stages add value to the product, value which is garnered by the MNC. The exporting African nations are left with the low or no value-added end of the operation, a technological cul-de-sac.

Nor does it end there. MNCs can avoid much local taxation by shifting profits to subsidiaries in low-tax venues by artificially inflating the price which it pays for intermediate products purchased from these same subsidiaries so as to lower its stated profits. This phenomenon is known as transfer pricing and is a common practice of MNCs – one over which host governments can exert little control as long as corporate tax rates differ from one country to the next. Hypothetically it works as follows:

Take a company called World Inc. which produces a type of food in Africa; it then processes it and sells the finished product in the United States. World Inc. does this via three subsidiaries: Africa Inc. (in Africa Malawi ), Haven Inc. (in a tax haven, British Virgin Islands with zero taxes) and America Inc. (in the United States).

1. Now Africa Inc. sells the produce to Haven Inc. at an artificially low price, resulting in Africa Inc. having artificially low profits – and consequently an artificially low tax bill in Africa. 2. Then Haven Inc. sells the product to America Inc. at a very high price – almost as high as the final retail price at which 3. America Inc. sells the processed product. As a result, America Inc. also has artificially low profitability, and an artificially low tax bill in America. By contrast, however, Haven Inc. has bought at a very low price, and sold at a very high price, artificially creating very high profits. However, Haven Inc is located in a tax haven – so it pays no taxes on those profits. Easy Peasy, no?

Bear in mind also that although the IMF and World Bank enjoin LDCs to adopt market liberalisation policies, they apparently see – or conveniently ignore – the past and current mercantilist practices of developed nations. Agriculture for example is massively subsidised in both the US and the EU. But it really is a question of don’t do what I do – do as I say. This hypocrisy at the heart of the problem represents the elephant in the room. We know that countries which attempt to open their markets when they are not ready to do so usually pay a heavy price (in the 1990s with Russia and the free-market shock-therapy for example). The countries which protect their growing industries until they are ready to trade on world markets have been the successes – even in capitalist terms. The wave of development in the 19^th century and the development of East Asian economies during the 20^th century bears witness to this.

But the object of the free-trade rhetoric and finger wagging posture of the developed world is precisely to maintain the status quo. We should be aware that: ‘’… multinational corporations are not in the development business; their objective is to maximise their return on capital. MNCs seek out the best profit opportunities and are largely unconcerned with issues such as poverty, inequality, employment conditions, and environmental problems.’’ (6)

Given the regulatory capture of the political structures in the developed world by powerful business interests, it seems that this situation is likely to endure for the foreseeable future. Development will only come about when the LDCs take their fate into their own hands and emulate the nation-building strategies of East Asia and in the 19^th century by Germany and the United States. These leaders and leading nations were not to sit back and let the British rule the roost. They acted and they overcame.

Germany: Georg Friedrich List (1789-1846).  He was a forefather of the German historical school of economics and ‘National System of Political Economy’. He argued for the German Customs Union from a Nationalist standpoint. He advocated imposing tariffs on imported goods while supporting free trade of domestic goods and stated the cost of a tariff should be seen as an investment in a nation’s future productivity.

The USA – Alexander Hamilton In the aftermath of ratification, Hamilton continued to expand on his interpretations of the Constitution to defend his proposed economic policies as Secretary of the Treasury. Credited today with creating the foundation for the U.S. financial system, Hamilton wrote three reports addressing public credit, banking, and raising revenue. In addition to the National Bank, Alexander Hamilton founded the U.S. Mint, created a system to levy taxes on luxury products (such as whiskey), and outlined an aggressive plan for the development of internal manufacturing.

The USA – President – Ulysses S Grant

“For centuries England has relied on protection, has carried it to extremes and has obtained satisfactory results from it. There is no doubt that it is to this system that it owes its present strength. After two centuries, England has found it convenient to adopt free trade because it thinks that protection can no longer offer it anything. Very well then, gentlemen, my knowledge of our country leads me to believe that within 200 years, when America has gotten out of protection all that it can offer, it too will adopt free trade.” (7)

Markets have a strong tendency to reinforce the status quo. The free market dictates that countries stick to what they are good at. Stated bluntly, this means that poor countries are supposed to continue with their current engagement in low productivity activities. But engagement in those activities is exactly what makes them poor. If they want to leave poverty behind, they have to defy the market and do the more difficult things that bring them higher incomes – it is as simple as that, and there are no two ways about it.

---

NOTES

(1) Clause 4 was part of the British Labour Party’s early Constitution. But is no longer in any real sense part of the constitution of the contemporary UK Labour Party, setting out the aims and values of the party (New Labour) as it is now called. The original clause, adopted in 1918, called for common ownership of heavy industry, and proved controversial in later years; the then leader, Hugh Gaitskell, attempted to remove the clause after Labour’s loss in the 1959 general election.

In 1995, under the leadership of Tony Blair, a new (revisionist) Clause IV was adopted. This was seen as a significant moment in Blair’s redefinition of the party as New Labour, but has survived and become a centrist party along with sister parties in Europe and the Democratic party in the US beyond the New Labour branding.

(2) Kicking Away the Ladder – Ha-Joon Chang

(3) The Trillion Dollar Meltdown – Charles Morris

(4) How Rich Countries Got Rich and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor – Erik Reinert.

(5) Development Economics – Todaro and Smith

(6) Ibid – Todaro and Smith

(7) Collected Works

New U.S. Foreign Policy Problems (1) إشكاليات السياسة الخارجية الأميركية الجديدة

**Please scroll down for the English Machine translation**

إشكاليات السياسة الخارجية الأميركية الجديدة

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زياد حافظ

ما زالت الضبابية تسود المشهد السياسي الأميركي بعد الانتخابات الرئاسية الأخيرة المثيرة للجدل وما تلاها من أحداث كاقتحام الكونغرس (او غزوة كما يحلو للبعض!) من قبل أنصار دونالد ترامب والتي كانت ضربة قاسية وربما قاضية لهيبة الولايات المتحدة.  لكان بغض النظر عن ذلك الجدل وما يرافقه من تشكيك بشرعية انتخاب جوزيف بايدن واحتمال نقل السلطة بشكل هادئ وولاية حكم طبيعية فهناك غموض حول توجّهات السياسة الخارجية للإدارة الأميركية الجديدة يعزّزها عدم الاستقرار الداخلي البنيوي الذي ظهر مؤخّرا.  وهذا يجعلنا نقول إن زمام المبادرة لم يعد في يد الولايات المتحدة بل في يد المحور المناهض الذي يضم الكتلة الاوراسية بقيادة روسيا والصين ومحور المقاومة وعدد من دول أميركا اللاتينية.  السؤال لم يعد ماذا ستفعل الولايات المتحدة بل ماذا سيفعل المحور المناهض؟ لكن هذه الحقيقة لم يتم استيعابها بعد حتى الآن عند النخب العربية الحاكمة ومن يدور في فلكها.

مقاربتنا مبنية على واقع برز منذ أكثر من عقدين وهو عدم التوازن بين الرغبات/الأهداف الأميركية في الهيمنة على العالم مهما كلّف الأمر وقدراتها الفعلية لتحقيقها. فالأهداف الأميركية للهيمنة تتطلّب قدرات لم تعد موجودة عند الولايات المتحدة.  بالمقابل أصبح لخصومها قدرات تمكّنها من التصدي لها، فردعها، وربما إخراجها من المناطق التي كانت تسيطر عليها.  لكن بالمقابل هناك حالة إنكار بنيوية في العقل الأميركي فيما يتعلّق بدورها في العالم المبني على وهم استثنائيتها ونظرية قدرها المتجلّي لتقوم بما تقوم به دون مساءلة ومحاسبة.  لسنا هنا في إطار طرح حيثيات ذلك الواقع الذي تم تفصيله في أبحاث عديدة بل نكتفي بالتذكير أن هذا اللاتوازن بين الرغبات والقدرات هو ما نبني عليه في مقاربة التوجّهات الممكنة والمحتملة للإدارة الجديدة إذا ما كتب لها أن تدير الأمور بشكل طبيعي.

الجزء الأول: جوهر الإشكاليات

وإذا افترضنا حدّا أدنى من الواقعية السياسية فإن منهجية الإدارة الجديدة ستكون مبنية على محاولة تحييد العلاقة بين الملفّات الخارجية والداخلية.  فالملفّات الداخلية السياسية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية تدعو إلى انتهاج سياسات اقتصادية تقارب الواقع المترهّل للبنى التحتية والضمان الصحي والبيئي وإعادة تمركز القطاع الصناعي في التكنولوجيات التي لا تستدعي الاتكال على الطاقة البترولية والغازية وذلك على سبيل المثال وليس الحصر والقائمة طويلة ومعقّدة ومليئة بالتناقضات.  فعلى سبيل المثال نرى الرئيس الأميركي المنتخب يدعو إلى أن تتحوّل الولايات المتحدة إلى أكبر دولة في صناعة السيارات الكهربائية.  التداعيات على القطاع النفطي ستكون جذرية فكيف سيتعامل القطاع النفطي الأميركي مع ذك؟  والمكوّن النفطي للدولة العميقة لن يقف مكتوف الأيدي تجاه ذلك التحوّل.  فالقطاع النفطي بنى القطاع الصناعي الذي كان قاعدة القوّة الأميركية.  شطب ذلك القطاع تحوّل جذري لن يمرّ بسهولة.

من جهة أخرى، معظم المكوّنات للدولة العميقة من الناحية الاقتصادية كانت وما زالت تدعو إلى العولمة والهيمنة الاقتصادية المباشرة على العالم وبالتالي استمرار التدخل في شؤون الدول لتحقيق مصالح تلك المكوّنات.  فكيف يمكن فصل الملفّ الاقتصادي الداخلي عن الملفات الساخنة الخارجية؟  وأهم من كل ذلك ماذا ستفعل الإدارة الجديدة إذا كان مشروعها الاقتصادي على تصادم مع مصالح الدولة العميقة التي أوصلت الرئيس بايدن إلى الحكم خاصة أن تحالف تلك القوى لم يمكن مبنيا على رؤية مشتركة بل فقط على ضرورة الإطاحة بدونالد ترامب؟  بالمقابل فإن قوّة الشركات العملاقة التي تحوّلت إلى شركات عابرة للقارات والأمم بنت شبكاتها ومصالحها مستندة إلى القوّة الذاتية الأميركية التي كانت حتى بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية منغلقة على نفسها وتكتفي بالتصدير للعالم.  اليوم هذه الشركات توطنت في الخارج وأصبحت تصدّر إلى الولايات المتحدة.  فإذا فقدت الولايات المتحدة مصادر قوّتها الذاتية عسكريا واقتصاديا وماليا ماذا يمكن أن تفعل الدول المستضيفة للشركات العملاقة الأميركية المتوطنّة في بلادها؟

ما نريد أن نقوله إن هناك ضرورة وجودية للولايات المتحدة للتركيز على ترميم الوضع الداخلي.  لكن ذلك التركيز سيصطدم مع مصالح الدولة العميقة في التمدّد الخارجي فيصبح السؤال كيف يمكن التوازن بين مصلحتين متناقضتين؟  والولايات المتحدة لم تعد لها القدرة على التمدّد والهيمنة فكيف ستعمل مكوّنات الدولة العميقة على سد ذلك العجز؟  قد تأخذ الإجابة على ذلك وقتا طويلا عند النخب الحاكمة والسؤال يصبح هل تمتلك الوقت لذلك؟  فمهما تمّت مقاربة الأمور دخلت الولايات المتحدة مرحلة جديدة في تاريخها قد تفضي إلى إعادة النظر الكلّية بتركيبتها. لكن هذا حديث آخر لا داعي لمقاربته الأن. يكفي أن نخلص إلى نتيجة أن قدرة التأثير في الملفّات الخارجية محدودة وهذا قد يساهم في إعادة التوازنات في العالم على قاعدة أكثر عدلا مما كانت عليه في عهد القطبية الواحدة.

هذه الملاحظات كانت ضرورية لفهم الصعوبات كي لا نقول الاستعصاءات التي ستواجه الإدارة الجديدة.  فكيف ستتعامل مع الملفّات العالقة خارجيا؟   معظم التحليلات والمقاربات تعتمد الكتابات خلال الحملة الانتخابية لرموز الإدارة الجديدة ومنها مقال بايدن في مجلّة “قورين افيرز” في ربيع 2020 ومنها كتابات لكل من وزير الخارجية المسمّى انطوني بلنكن والمستشار الأمن القومي جاك سوليفان.  فماذا يمكن أن نتوقّع من الإدارة الجديدة إذا ما كتب لها أن تمارس مهامها في ظل الانقسامات الداخلية في الولايات المتحدة وحتى داخل الحزب الديمقراطي فيما يتعلّق بالملفّات الخارجية وحتى الداخلية.  قد تطفح التناقضات الداخلية في الحزب الديمقراطي لأن القاعدة الشابة للحزب داخل الكونغرس وخارجه على تناقض كبير مع القيادات التقليدية التي ما زالت في مناخات الحرب الباردة. القاعدة الشابة متماهية أكثر مع حيثيات الداخل الأميركي وحتى الخارج ولا تشاطر هواجس القيادة.  فكيف ستتصرّف هذه القاعدة فيما لو أقدمت القيادة على اتباع سياسات في الملفّات الخارجية والداخلية متناقضة مع تطلّعاتها؟  ولا يجب أن ننسى أن “فوز” بايدن يعود إلى حدّ كبير إلى الإقبال الشبابي على الانتخابات تحت شعار “كلنا ضد ترامب” وبالتالي تجاهل هذه الشريحة الأساسية من قبل القيادة قد تكون مكلفة في الانتخابات النصفية القادمة في 2022 وفي الانتخابات الرئاسية في 2024.  المعركتان بدأتا فعلا منذ الآن!  لكن بغض النظر عن هذه الاعتبارات التي ستظل تلقي بظلالها على مجمل القرارات للإدارة الجديدة كيف ستقارب الإدارة الجديدة الملفات الخارجية؟

بعض الإشارات الواضحة تقودنا للاعتقاد أن الإدارة الجديدة ستكون أكثر ليونة وأكثر دبلوماسية وتتجلّى عبر التوازن في التسميات لمناصب رفيعة في الإدارة الجديدة.  فمن جهة هناك “الصقور” التي يمثلهم في الصف الأوّل كل من انطوني بلينكن للخارجية وجاك سوليفان لمجلس الأمن القومي ومعهما كل من كاثلين هيكس كنائب وزير الدفاع ووندي شرمان كنائب لوزير الخارجية وسوزان رايس كرئيسة لمجلس السياسة الداخلية (البعض يعتبر أنها ستكون رئيسة الظل في الإدارة الجديدة) وفيكتوريا نيولند كوكيلة وزارة الخارجية للشؤون السياسية المنصب الذي شغله جيفري فلتمان سابقا.  نذكّر هنا أن فيكتوريا نيولند زوجة روبرت كاغان المنظر الأساسي للمحافظين الجدد. ونيولند كانت بطلة الانقلاب في أوكرانيا ولها مقولات مأثورة في الاتحاد الأوروبي وصلت إلى حد الشتيمة والتحقير.  أما وندي شرمان، فهي من أنصار مادلين اولبريت التي بررت مقتل 500 ألف طفل عراقي خلال الحصار على العراق.  ولشرمان تصريح شهير أن المخادعة هي في الحمض النووي للإيرانيين.  وكانت تحرص على إبلاغ نتنياهو بكل تفاصيل المفاوضات مع إيران في الملفّ النووي كما أوضحه ضابط الاستخبارات السابق فيليب جيرالدي في مقال له نشر على موقع “انفورميشون كليرينغ هاوس في 12 كانون الثاني/يناير 2021.

 ويعتبر أحد خبراء معهد كاتو تد كاربنتر في مقال نشره على موقع “ناشيونال انترست” الذي يضم دبلوماسيين وعسكريين وضباط استخبارات سابقين وجامعيين أن فريق السياسة الخارجية لإدارة بايدن لا يتمتع بالفكر الإبداعي بل التقليدي حيث لا يتوقع إلاّ الدفع بنفس السياسات المتبعة في إدارة باراك أوباما وحتى ترامب ولكن بأسلوب أكثر لطافة.  فتصريح بلينكن في 25 نوفمبر أن الرئيس المنتخب سيكون رئيس مواجهة مع روسيا كما أنه سيعزّز من قدرات الحلف الأطلسي كمنظومة وكما سيدعم الدول الأوروبية المناهضة لروسيا كأوكرانيا وجورجيا ودول البلطيق وبولندا.  ويضيف كاربنتر أن المشكلة ليست بالتفكير الاعتيادي فيما لو كانت السياسات قبل وصول ترامب جيّدة وصاحبة نتائج بل أنها كانت فاشلة.  والوعد بالعودة إلى تلك السياسات يعني المزيد من الفشل!

 بالمقابل فإن تعيين الجنرال لويد اوستين كوزير للدفاع ووليم برنز الدبلوماسي العريق لإدارة وكالة الاستخبارات المركزية (سي أي أيه) يمثل “لاعتدال” في السياسة الخارجية.  هذا التوازن يعود إلى ضرورة إرضاء مكوّنات التحالف الذي أوصل بايدن إلى الرئاسة من جهة وحرص الإدارة الجديدة على إعادة الاعتبار لصورتها التي تصدّعت عند حلفائها خلال ولاية ترامب.  لكن هذا لا يعني التخلّي عن العقيدة العميقة التي تحكّمت بسلوك الإدارات المتتالية بعد الحرب العالمية الثانية في ضرورة قيادة العالم على قاعدة القراءة التوراتية للإنجيل كما تشير مصطلحات “القدر المتجلّي” و”المدينة على الجبل” و”ارض الميعاد الجديدة” في خطابهم عن الولايات المتحدة.  من هنا نفهم التماهي في الشكل والأسلوب مع نشأة دولة الكيان الصهيوني ونشأة الولايات المتحدة.

هنا لا بد من لفت الانتباه إلى عامل جوهري يساهم في فهم الدافع الأساسي لسلوك سياسات عدوانية في العالم عند مختلف الإدارات الأميركية.  فنظرية “القدر المتجلّي” أتت لتغطي جرائم نشأة الولايات المتحدة في إبادة الشعوب الأولى للقارة من قبل المستعمرين الأوروبيين ومن ثمة استعباد الافارقة لتشغيل مزارع القطن، القاعدة الأولى للقطاع الزراعي في المجتمع الناشئ، وذلك لمصلحة المستعمر الإنكليزي.  الجمهورية التي نشأت كاحتجاج على سياسة التاج البريطاني لم تكن لتستقر لولا التوسع الجغرافي.  وعند الانتهاء من التوسع الجغرافي غربا وعبر المحيط الهادئ إلى جزر هاواي ومن بعدها الفيليبين وبعد فشل المحاولات لإيجاد موطن قدم في شمال إفريقيا عبر حروب شاطئ البرابرة في شمال القارة الإفريقية في بداية القرن التاسع عشر، كان لا بد من التوسع الاقتصادي عبر الهيمنة الاقتصادية، فالاقتصاد وسيلة للهيمنة وليست هدفا قائما بذاته.  السياسة دائما قوّامة على الاقتصاد وإن كان للأخير دور في رسم السياسات.

والتوسع عبر المحيط الهادئ اصطدم بمصالح الإمبراطورية اليابانية فكانت الحرب العالمية الثانية.  والتوسع في أميركا اللاتينية اصطدم بمصالح الاسبان فكانت حروب التحرير من الهيمنة الاسبانية التي دعمتها الولايات المتحدة في مطلع القرن التاسع عشر ومع اسبانيا مباشرة في آخر القرن التاسع عشر وبداية القرن العشرين في كوبا والفيليبين.  فالجمهورية إذن مبنية على قاعدة التوسع ونهاية التوسع بكافة اشاكله يعني نهاية الجمهورية.  من هنا نفهم مغزى “حق التدخلّ لمساعدة المضطهدين” في العالم بينما الهدف الحقيقي هو فرض السيطرة تحت رافعة العولمة وذلك لديمومة الجمهورية.  فالمصالح الاقتصادية لقوى العولمة في الإدارة الديمقراطية الجديدة ستصطدم مع مصالح الذين يريدون الاهتمام بالملفات الداخلية كما سنراه في الملف الصيني والاوروبي والمشرق والوطن العربي.

لذلك نعتقد أن السياسة الخارجية ستحكمها الوقائع الداخلية وأن المبادرة في الملفات الخارجية لم تعد في يد الولايات المتحدة. فالاستراتيجية الأميركية ستصطدم بمواقف المناهضة لها وفتور تأييد الدول الحليفة لها لأن إملاءات الولايات المتحدة لم تعد تصب في مصلحة مشتركة عند مكوّنات السلطة أي الدولة العميقة والتحالفات التي نُسجت للإطاحة بدونالد ترامب.  هذا هو ارث ولاية ترامب وليس هناك من دليل عن تراجع في الأهداف بل فقط في الأسلوب والعودة إلى اتفاقات خرجت منها الولايات المتحدة والتي لن تكلّفها أي شيء إضافي.  ولكن هذا الرجوع إلى الاتفاقية لن يغير في اهتزاز الصورة عند الحلفاء كما عند الخصوم حيث المصداقية فقدت.  فأي ضمان أن إي إدارة مستقبلية ستلتزم بما تتعهد به الإدارة الجديدة في البيت الأبيض.  لن تقبل الدول أن تكون رهينة مزاج متغيّر بين إدارة وإدارة وبالتالي المصالح للدول الحليفة ستعود لتتحكّم بأولويات سياساتها الخارجية.

هذه حدود الإدارة والتي لا نتوقع أي تعديل عن السياسات السابقة سواء فقط في الأسلوب واللهجة.  فهي غير قادرة على التغيير وغير قادرة على الاستمرار.  هذا هو مأزقها وليس مسؤولة دول العالم حل المأزق الأميركي.  التحوّلات في الميدان ستفرز الوقائع التي ستحكم السياسة الأميركية التي تصبح يوما بعض يوم غير ذي جدوى.  فلا قدرة لها على شن حروب جديدة وإن كانت رغبتها في ذلك مؤكّدة ولا قدرة لها على تقديم تنازلات لعقد تسويات.  فانفراط الإمبراطورية الأميركية قد تتلازم مع انحلال الجمهورية.  في أحسن الأحوال ما ستقوم به الإدارة الجديدة هو ربط نزاع دون حلول ودون حروب.  في أسواء الأحوال بالنسبة لها مسألة وجودها ككيان لدولة عظمى.  الخطورة تكمن فقط في استمرار حالة الإنكار وارتكاب بالتالي حماقات تسّرع في زوالها وما سيرافق ذلك من خسائر في الأرواح.

*باحث وكاتب اقتصادي سياسي والأمين العام السابق للمؤتمر القومي العربي

New U.S. Foreign Policy Problems

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Ziad Hafez

The U.S. political landscape continues to be blurred after the recent controversial presidential election and subsequent events such as the storming of Congress (or an invasion as some would like!) by Donald Trump’s supporters, which was a severe and perhaps fatal blow to the prestige of the United States.  Regardless of that controversy and the accompanying questioning of the legitimacy of Joseph Biden’s election and the prospect of a quiet transfer of power and a normal mandate, there is uncertainty about the foreign policy directions of the new U.S. administration, reinforced by the recent structural internal instability.  This makes us say that the initiative is no longer in the hands of the United States, but in the hands of the counter-axis, which includes the Eurasian bloc led by Russia and China, the axis of resistance and a number of Latin American countries.  The question is no longer what will the United States do, but what will the anti-axis do? But this fact has not yet been absorbed by the ruling Arab elites and those in their orbit.

Our approach is based on a reality that has emerged for more than two decades: the imbalance between American desires/goals to dominate the world at all costs and its actual capabilities to achieve it. U.S. hegemonic goals require capabilities that no longer exist in the United States.  On the other hand, its opponents have the capabilities to confront them, deter them, and possibly remove them from the areas they controlled.  On the other hand, there is a structural denial of the American mind regarding its role in the world based on its exceptional illusion and the theory of its manifest value to do what it does without accountability.  We are not here to put forward the merits of that reality, which has been detailed in many researches, but merely to recall that this imbalance between desires and capacities is what we are building on in approaching the possible and potential directions of the new administration if it is to manage things normally.

Part 1: The Essence of The Problems

Assuming a minimum of political realism, the methodology of the new administration would be based on an attempt to neutralise the relationship between external and internal files.  The internal political, economic and social files call for economic policies that converge with the lax reality of infrastructure, health and environmental security and the repositioning of the industrial sector in technologies that do not require dependence on oil and gas energy, for example, but not limited to the long, complex and contradictory list.  For example, we see the President-elect calling for the United States to become the largest country in the electric car industry.  The implications for the oil sector will be radical.  The oil component of the deep state will not stand idly by in the face of that transformation.  The oil sector built the industrial sector, which was the base of U.S. power.  Writing off that radical lying sector won’t go through easily.

On the other hand, most of the components of the deep state economically have been and continue to call for globalization and direct economic domination of the world and thus continued interference in the affairs of states in the interests of those components.  How can the internal economic file be separated from external hot files?  Most importantly, what would the new administration do if its economic project were to collide with the deep state interests that brought President Biden to power, especially since their alliance could not be based on a shared vision but only on the need to overthrow Donald Trump?  On the other hand, the power of giant corporations that have turned into transcontinental corporations and nations built their networks and interests based on American self-power, which, even after World War II, was closed to itself and merely exported to the world.  Today these companies have settled abroad and are being exported to the United States.  If the United States loses its own sources of power militarily, economically and financially, what can the host countries do to american giants endemic at home?

What we want to say is that there is an existential need for the United States to focus on restoring the internal situation.  But that focus will clash with the deep interests of the state in the external expansion, so the question becomes how can we balance two contradictory interests?  The United States no longer has the capacity to expand and dominate, so how will the deep components of the state fill that deficit?  The answer to that may take a long time when the ruling elites and the question becomes do you have time for it?  No matter how approached, the United States has entered a new phase in its history that could lead to a total reconsideration of its composition. But this is another conversation that doesn’t need to be approached right now. It is enough to conclude that the ability to influence external files is limited and this may contribute to the rebalancing of the world on a more just base than it was in the arctic era.

These observations were necessary to understand the difficulties so as not to say the difficulties that the new administration will face.  How will you deal with externally pending files?   Most analyses and approaches are based on the writings of new administration figures during the campaign, including Biden’s spring 2020 article in The Foreign Affairs, including those of Secretary of State Anthony Plankin and National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan.  What can we expect from the new administration if it is to exercise its functions in the light of internal divisions in the United States and even within the Democratic Party with regard to external and even internal files.  Internal contradictions in the Democratic Party may be overcome because the party’s young base inside and outside Congress is in great contrast to the traditional leaders that remain in cold war climates.

The young base is more closely identified with the US internally and abroad and does not share the leadership’s concerns. How would this rule behave if the leadership proceeded to pursue policies in the external and internal files that contradict its aspirations? We must not forget that Biden’s “victory” is largely due to the youth turnout for the elections under the slogan “We are all against Trump” and thus ignoring this basic segment by the leadership may be costly in the upcoming midterm elections in 2022 and in the presidential elections in 2024. The two battles began. Already since now! But regardless of these considerations that will continue to cast a shadow over the overall decisions of the new administration, how will the new administration approach the external files?

Some clear indications lead us to believe that the new administration will be softer and more diplomatic, and are evident in the balance in designations for senior positions in the new administration. On the one hand there are the “hawks” represented in the front row by Anthony Blinken for Foreign Affairs and Jack Sullivan for the National Security Council, along with Kathleen Hicks as Deputy Secretary of Defense, Wendy Sherman as Deputy Secretary of State, and Susan Rice as Chair of the Domestic Policy Council (some consider that she will be the shadow chair in the new administration. And Victoria Newland as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, a position previously held by Jeffrey Feltman. We Note here that Victoria Newland, wife of Robert Kagan, is the main theoretician of the neoconservatives. Newland was the hero of the Ukrainian coup and had proverbs in the European Union that amounted to insults and contempt. As for Wendy Sharman, she is a supporter of Madeleine Albright, who justified the killing of 500,000 Iraqi children during the siege on Iraq. Sherman famously declared that deception is in the DNA of Iranians. She was keen to inform Netanyahu of all the details of the negotiations with Iran on the nuclear file, as explained by former intelligence officer Philip Giraldi in an article published on the “Information Clearing House” website on January 12, 2021.

And one of the experts of the Cato Institute, Ted Carpenter, in an article he published on the National Interest website, which includes diplomats, military, former intelligence officers and academics, considers that the Biden administration’s foreign policy team does not have the creative thinking but the traditional, as it is expected only to push the same policies followed in the administration of Barack Obama and even Trump. But in a kinder way. Blinken’s statement on November 25 that the president-elect will be the president of a confrontation with Russia will also enhance the capabilities of NATO as a system and will also support European countries that are anti-Russian, such as Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic states, and Poland. The problem, Carpenter adds, is not in the usual thinking about whether the policies before Trump arrived were good and yielding results, but rather that they were a failure. And the promise to return to those policies means more failure!

On the other hand, the appointment of General Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defence and William Burns, a veteran diplomat to run the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), represents “moderation” in foreign policy. This balance is due to the need to satisfy the components of the coalition that brought Biden to the presidency on the one hand, and the new administration’s keenness to restore respect for its image, which was cracked by its allies during Trump’s term. However, this does not mean abandoning the profound belief that governed the behavior of successive administrations after World War II regarding the necessity of leading the world on the basis of the biblical reading of the Bible, as the terms “Manifest Destiny”, “City on the Mountain” and “New Promised Land” indicate in their speech on the United States . From here we understand the identification in form and style with the emergence of the Zionist entity and the United States.

Here, attention must be drawn to a key factor that contributes to understanding the fundamental motivation for aggressive policy behaviour in the world in various U.S. administrations.The theory of “manifest destiny” came to cover the crimes of the emergence of the United States in the extermination of the first peoples of the continent by European colonialists, and from there the enslavement of Africans to operate cotton plantations, the first base of the agricultural sector in the emerging society, for the benefit of the English colonial. The republic that arose as a protest against the policy of the British Crown would not have been stabilised without geographical expansion. When geographical expansion was completed westward and across the Pacific to the Hawaiian Islands and then the Philippines, and after attempts to find a foothold in North Africa through the barbarian beach wars in the north of the African continent at the beginning of the 19th century, economic expansion was necessary through economic domination, the economy being a means of domination and not a self-contained goal.  Politics is always based on the economy, although the latter has a role to play in policy-making.

The expansion across the Pacific collided with the interests of the Japanese Empire and was the Second World War.  The expansion of Latin America ran into the interests of the Spaniards, and the wars of liberation were spanish domination, supported by the United States at the beginning of the 19th century and directly with Spain at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Cuba and the Philippines.  The Republic is therefore based on the basis of expansion and the end of expansion in all its forms means the end of the Republic.  Hence, we understand the meaning of the “right to intervene to help the oppressed” in the world when the real goal is to impose control under the lever of globalization in order to perpetuate the Republic.  The economic interests of the forces of globalization in the new democratic administration will collide with the interests of those who want to take care of the internal files, as we will see in the Chinese, European, Levant and Arab world.

Therefore, we believe that foreign policy will be governed by by domestic realities and that the initiative in foreign files is no longer in the hands of the United States. U.S. strategy will clash with anti-government positions and the lack of support from allied nations because U.S. dictates no longer serve a common interest in the components of power, namely the deep state and the alliances that have been spun to topple Donald Trump. This is the legacy of Trump’s term and there is no evidence of a decline in targets, but only in style and a return to agreements that the United States has come up with that will cost them nothing more.  But this reference to the Convention will not change the image shake of allies as when opponents where credibility has been lost.  Any guarantee that any future administration will abide by the commitments of the new administration in the White House.  States will not accept to be held hostage to a changing mood between management and administration and therefore the interests of allied states will return to control their foreign policy priorities.

These are the limits of the administration, and we do not expect any modification from the previous policies, either in style or tone. unable to change and unable to continue. This is its dilemma, and the countries of the world are not responsible for solving the American impasse. The transformations on the ground will produce the facts that will govern U.S. politics that will once become some useless day.  It has no capacity to wage new wars, although its willingness to do so is certain and it cannot make concessions for settlements. The break-up of the American empire may coincide with the dissolution of the republic. At best, what the new administration will do is connect a conflict without solutions and without wars. In the worst case for it, the issue of its existence as a superpower.

The break-up of the American empire may go hand in hand with the dissolution of the Republic.  At best, what the new administration will do is to link a conflict without solutions and without wars.  At worst for her, the question of her existence as an entity of a super-Power.  The danger lies solely in the continuation of the state of denial and therefore the commission of follies that accelerate its demise and the attendant loss of life.

*Researcher, political economist and former Secretary General of the Arab National Congress

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Bridging China’s past with humanity’s future – Part 2

Source

June 29, 2020

by Straight-Bat for the Saker Blog

This will be presented in 3 parts and in 3 different blog posts

PART – 1 can be found here

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PART – 2

5. POST-DENG CHINA

Post-Deng China witnessed three variants of socio-economic trajectories associated with three different Leaders. Even though the economic programme of reform initiated by Deng went on unhindered, there were significantly different style of implementation of the same. A brief recapitulation is noted below:

A.  Jiang Zemin (till 2003)

In 1997, after Deng’s departure Jiang Zemin became the paramount leader of China. Both – the economic reforms and the deep-rooted problems of economy – accentuated during Jiang’s stewardship. There was marked increase in political corruption, inter-regional imbalance and inter-class imbalance in growth, rural migration into urban areas, unemployment, inequality and wealth gap, and crime rates across China. During 1998 and 1999, many SOE were privatized with massive lay-offs and asset transfer to private businessmen, many others were restructured to make them profitable. The employee welfare and social welfare system which were embedded in SOE (since the Mao era) were completely dissolved – this also created a low-income urban working class. The government followed a policy of retaining the crucial sectors within state-owned enterprises while small and medium SOW were either privatised or closed down. Crucial sectors or ‘commanding heights’ were:

• Nation-wide service networks like railways, aviation, telecommunication, electricity etc.
• Mining and exploration coal, oil, and natural gas
• Basic metal processing like steel, and aluminium
• Basic hydrocarbon processing like refinery and petrochemicals
• Heavy industrial machinery such as machine tools, power generation equipment, rolling stock
• Infrastructure engineering and construction – roads, railways, ports, dams
• Significant consumer durables like automobiles
• Military machinery

Apart from reducing the number of SOE (from 262,000 units employing 113 million in 1995-1997 period to 110,000 units employing 64 million in 2007-2008) and restructuring bigger SOEs, the government reduced tariffs, trade barriers, regulations; reformed banking system. The average return on assets in SOEs soared from 0.2% in 1998 to 5% in 2007. In the same period, the SOEs’ profits rose from 0.3% to 6.6% of GDP. Funds continued to be poured into SEZ and export-oriented manufacturing industry. As per Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, Hong Kong-Taiwan-Japan-South Korea-Singapore contributed about 71% of the FDI that flowed into China between 1990 and 2004. To sum it up cogently, it can be said that government of China pursued neoliberal economic agenda along with consulting advice from USA bankers and capitalists. China joined World Trade Organization in December’2001. During the period 1990–2004, China’s economy grew at an average rate of 10% per year.

A very interesting observation can be made related to the foreign relations during Jiang era – all foreign trips by the leadership and communication with foreign media were consciously made to revolve around China’s (the then) economic growth model and the imperatives. Incidents like USA bombing of China embassy in Belgrade, and collision with USA aircraft near Hainan Island were played down after some exchange of documents. Apparently, the top leadership aimed only at maintaining the stability of the government and the economy.

Very significant transformation took place in the CPC itself – from being a party of predominantly peasants and workers, CPC converted itself to a party with large number of middle-class petty bourgeois. This class evolved during the industrial restructuring of 1990s, who came out as the main beneficiary due to their entrepreneurship and connection with the then local and central leadership of CPC, and more importantly this class acted as a robust base of CPC in the urban regions of China.

B. Hu Jintao (2003 to 2012)

Hu Jintao had to continuously swim against the tide of domino effect from the (capitalist) economic reform and opening which was primarily initiated by Deng in 1979. During October’2003 Third Plenum, amendments to the constitution were discussed – an overarching government economic policy would be introduced to reduce unemployment rate, to re-balance income distribution, and to protect the environment. Also private property rights would be protected. Due to widespread poverty, inequality, and discontent the Chinese Government was forced to seek a balanced society above all. Using the concept of “socialist harmonious society”, balanced wealth distribution, improved education, and improved healthcare were assigned high priority.

During 1995, exports from East Asian countries to China were not very significant percentage of their total exports (Japan exported 4.95%, South Korea exported 7.0%, Taiwan exported 0.3%, Singapore exported 2.3%). In 1995, Chinese total exports were worth about 149 billion USD. However, by 2013 there was an explosive growth in exports from East Asian countries to China as a percentage of their total exports – (Japan exported 18.1%, South Korea exported 26.1%, Taiwan exported 26.8%, Singapore exported 11.8%). And, in 2013, Chinese exports to the world were worth about 2210 billion USD (a little over 30% of the value were exported by wholly foreign-owned enterprises, and 12% of the value were exported by joint ventures between foreign-owned and China-owned enterprises). Apparently, during this period China evolved as ‘core’ and East Asia as ‘periphery’ in a new sub-system within the overall world-system (with USA and west Europe as ‘core’ and rest of the world as ‘periphery’).

China’s GDP grew 10.1%, in 2004, and 10.4% in 2005 in spite of attempts by the government to cool the economy. And, in 2006 trade crossed USD 1760 billion, making China third-largest trading nation in the world. Again, in 2007 China registered 13% growth in GDP (USD 3552 billion) becoming world’s third largest economy by GDP. According to UN estimates in 2007, around 130 million people in rural areas of the backward inland provinces still lived in poverty, on consumption of less than $1 a day, while about 35% of the Chinese population lived under $2 a day. Chinese government’s official Gini index peaked at 0.49 in 2008– 2009 and thereafter declined only marginally, to 0.47 in 2014. The Global Financial Crisis in 2008 revealed the innate weakness of Chinese economy – export-oriented economy depends upon economic conditions in foreign countries much more than internal consumption. Government of China took highly effective policy decisions about economic stimulus and implemented those effectively (however, it also increased the already high debt burden). The stimulus (about US$600 billion at the then-current exchange rate) involved state investments into physical infrastructure like railway network, roads, bridges and ports, urban housing complex, easing credit restrictions and lowering tax on real estate. As per National Bureau of Statistics of China, in 2010, GDP of China was Yuan 40850 billion, which can be broken down into following expenditure categories:

1. Household Consumption Expenditure – Yuan 14146.55 billion (34.63% of GDP)
2. Government Consumption Expenditure – Yuan 6011.59 billion (14.71% of GDP)
3. Gross (Fixed) capital formation – Yuan 19186.69 billion (46.96% of GDP)
4. Net Exports of Goods and Services – Yuan 1505.71 billion (3.68% of GDP)

Household consumption has not increased substantially with economic growth – may be one of the reasons were wages and salaries of working class didn’t move upwards with same pace. Even though the reforms helped to improve the socio-economic indicators, taking into consideration the difference between coastal region and inland regions as well as between urban and rural regions, China could hardly overcome the poverty and inequality predominantly in the inland and rural regions.

By 2011, there were less than 10 out of 40 major industrial sectors in which SOE accounted for more than 20 percent of output. Another significant statistics of 2012 on industrial enterprises (as per National Bureau of Statistics, China) shows:

	State-owned Enterprises	Private-owned Enterprises	Private-owned FDI Enterprises
Total Asset (billion Yuan)	31,209	15,255	17,232
Profit (billion Yuan)	1,518	2,019	1,397

The above statistics might suggest at the first glance that, state-owned enterprises are laggard in profitability. However, such conclusion will be clearly wrong if it is noted that there exist wide difference of asset ownership across various sectors – in mining and extraction of coal, petroleum, natural gas etc. SOE commands 93% of sector-specific assets, while in textiles sector Private enterprises commands 90% of sector-specific assets. Different sectors of industry have different profit-capital asset employed ratio.

C. Xi Jinping (2013 onwards)

Since around 2010, Chinese government and CPC has been busy implementing economic policies that will pursue ‘economic growth based on domestic consumption’ while maintaining the decades old export-oriented economy. With Xi Jinping at the top chair, a long pending but top priority task was undertaken – war against corruption and nepotism. CPC took strong measures so that corrupt among ruling party cadres and government officials were identified and punished, Marxist principles were enforced as guideline for CPC so that the society and economy can be steered towards equality and justice. CPC has also became proactive in taking actions to enhance its geopolitical and geo-economic base throughout the world. Simultaneously, Chinese government has taken concrete measures to modernize all wings of military through research and development of 5th generation stealth military aircrafts, naval ships, nuclear submarines, hypersonic missiles, anti-satellite missiles, as well as procuring most lethal S400 air defence system and electronic warfare systems from Russia.

However, China has performed extremely well in reduction of poverty. In 2015, World Bank Group estimated that only 0.7% of Chinese citizens live below extreme poverty line of $1.9 (2011 PPP) per day, while 7.0% of Chinese population live below lower-middle poverty line of $3.2 (2011 PPP) per day. Such rapid poverty-reduction is an unparalleled achievement in the history of mankind.

As per National Bureau of Statistics of China, in 2019, GDP of China was Yuan 99492.74 billion (by expenditure approach), which can be broken down into following categories:

1. Household Consumption Expenditure – Yuan 38589.56 billion (38.78% of GDP)
2. Government Consumption Expenditure – Yuan 16559.90 billion (16.64% of GDP)
3. Gross (Fixed) capital formation – Yuan 42862.78 billion (43.08% of GDP)
4. Net Exports of Goods and Services – Yuan 1480.50 billion (1.49% of GDP)

Compared to 2010 statistics, in 2019 the household consumption has moved upwards at almost 39% of GDP. However, the 2019 figures of household consumption below 50% of GDP can’t be considered as healthy neither gross capital formation more than 30% of GDP can be termed as balanced growth. This is not to say that, the period of 1970-1975 was better because household consumption component was around 60 – 65% of GDP (GDP itself was very low).

The inequality between urban and rural remained too glaring even in 2019 – as we can note in the following data as per National Bureau of Statistics of China (2019 data),

1. Per Capita Disposable Income Nationwide – Yuan 30,733
2. Per Capita Disposable Income of Urban Households – Yuan 42,359
3. Per Capita Disposable Income of Rural Households – Yuan 16,021
4. Per Capita Expenditure Nationwide – Yuan 21,559
5. Per Capita Expenditure of Urban Households – Yuan 28,063
6. Per Capita Expenditure of Rural Households – Yuan 13,328

The growth model chosen by Deng and reinforced by Jiang has already run out of steam. It had its own utility to provide mass employment and to build the fixed capital for the national economy. Chinese government need to pivot economic growth on domestic consumption as soon as possible without damaging the export sector much. To boost consumption, ‘demand’ for goods and services will have to be enhanced – in China, ‘purchasing power’ is the key for boosting demand and hence, domestic consumption. Income of ordinary citizens should be increased through forced regulations whereby the surplus from industrial operation (that is pocketed by the capitalists for accumulation of capital) will be distributed to the working class. Similarly for the agricultural sector, government should provide much higher procurement prices for agricultural produces. Another key area that needs government intervention is social security and welfare system, whereby housing-education-healthcare for all rural and urban people living with daily expenditure below USD 10 will be arranged by the government (against a token amount of annual insurance premium). Most of such people will be confident enough to spend instead of saving money for rainy day. The well-entrenched capitalist elites will resist because such steps would restrict their continuous capital accumulation process – however, China being a socialist peoples’ democracy, it has to give priority to the common people.

BRI – Challenge to Current World-system?

Belt and Road Initiative (formerly One Belt One Road – OBOR programme) of China actually is a framework wherein investments amounting to anything between one to two trillion USD in different countries of Asia, Europe, Africa, South America will be done in primarily government-to-government projects. When successfully implemented, may be around 2035, BRI will completely transform the economy and comfort of peoples in more than 100 countries. Investments are mainly channelled into physical infrastructure, mining and exploration, power generation, industrial production hub, agricultural production hub, and communication network. BRI, instead of moving away from existing liberal capitalist economy, predicates on existing capitalist system with more inclusive agenda compared to Zionist Capitalist dominated financial system – thus BRI projects attempt to alleviate poverty and unemployment in participating states without bothering about the government ideology.

BRI benefits China in primarily four ways:

1. Corridors like CPEC (through Pakistan) and CMEC (through Myanmar), when fully established, will provide alternate trade routes for China-based companies to import energy and raw materials as well as export finished goods through Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal respectively; the corridors will circumvent the ‘choke point’ of Malacca Strait
2. China-Mongolia-Russia and China-Central Asia-West Asia corridors will be channel for further Chinese investments across Asia; in the long run exports and imports among these Eurasian states will experience quantum jump
3. ‘State capitalism’ will get a boost with most of the BRI projects being G-to-G kind; most of the participant governments will control the new projects thereby reproducing the production relations of capitalist society with the ‘state’ playing the role of capitalist who will make ‘profit’ and accumulate ‘capital’
4. Enhance Chinese ‘image’ through socio-cultural exchange
5. Enhance Chinese ‘influence’ through government-to-government contacts

There are more BRI corridors as well as ‘Maritime Silk Road’ planned as part of BRI. I would not get into the details of such a mammoth programme (consisting of hundreds of gigantic projects) which itself is a separate subject. However, it will be very interesting to analyse if and how BRI will pose a challenge to the existing world-system coordinated by the Deep State.

BRI follows the traditional capitalist economic model of ‘profit’, but unlike the Zionist Capitalist propelled system, BRI system aim for nominal profit margins that will create a tremendous ‘pull factor’ among the developing countries to seek BRI projects. Another key difference is: BRI system is radically different from existing capitalist system by shunning hegemony and force BRI promotes harmonious global integration. In all probability, BRI will create a ‘benign core’ and ‘exultant periphery’ in a global scale which uncannily resembles the Confucian concepts of family and state governance. The existing hegemonic world order and the Deep State will find it very hard to digest such decline of their stature and the formation of a new core-periphery. However, by no means will this new development threaten to upend the existing Zionist Capitalist world order – the new core-periphery will form a significant non-imperial sub-system within the existing world-system. USA, 5-Eyes, and Israel will have to share the hegemony with China being the BRI core and Russia as the semi-periphery (with low population count and hence limited domestic market, Russia can’t play much bigger role).

In practice, post-WW II world order has seen the working of core-periphery system with USA (and NATO) enforcing their will on the weak countries on the ‘periphery’ whenever a threat to the primacy of ‘accumulation capital’ was perceived by the Deep State cabal. The Deep State capital, through control of the media and academia, ensure that such threat to capital gets portrayed as a threat to ‘democracy and human rights’ which in turn provides a moral high ground to the Hegemonic superpower to invade any country at will. In the BRI system such supremacy of capital is not expected simply because Chinese outlook on ‘world-system’ was built typically on Confucian praxis.

Significant observations on post-Deng China:

1. CPC central committee in a conference in 2015 formulated eight principles of ‘socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics’:

1. Sustainability Led by Science and Technology
2. Orienting Production to Improve the Livelihood of the People
3. Public Ownership Precedence in National Property Rights
4. The Primacy of Labour in the Distribution of Wealth
5. The Market Principle Steered by the State
6. Speedy Development with High Performance
7. Balanced Development with Structural Coordination
8. Economic Sovereignty and Openness

Undoubtedly the above eight principles (like Buddha’s ‘asta-marga’ teaching) are very sound principles – but these are not focussed to Marxist ideology in a sense that, any other liberal democratic capitalist political party can also follow such principles for an effective management of economy and society. CPC leadership should take into account the core ideology of Marx-Engels-Lenin-Mao to explore that, the owners of capital can never reconcile with the proletariat and petty-bourgeois (as petty-bourgeois, I’m meaning only the middle-income group of rural land-holding peasants and urban professionals and self-employed people who own very little capital to earn their livelihood) – the theory of historical materialism clearly and correctly predict that, in the long-run, the capitalists will continue to accumulate capital with endless exploitation of 90% of the population, eventually they will overrun the CPC setup (as insider like CPSU in Soviet Union, or as outsider like Solidarity Movement in Poland) and create a state which will be ‘liberal capitalist’ in letter and spirit. Mao and Deng differed only on strategy to achieve Marxist economy and classless society, they never differed in the end objective – successive CPC leaders shouldn’t forget to take note of that.

Questions will be raised, ‘why then Mao didn’t create a classless society since 1950 or why Mao also tried for accumulation of capital to begin with’ or for that matter, even before Mao, ‘why in 1921 Lenin was staking on new economic policy (NEP) to introduce free market and capitalism under state control’?

To seek the answer, let’s visit the greatest leader of transformation – Lenin. Lenin considered the NEP as a strategic retreat from principles of socialism – Bolshevik party leaders had to create the “material basis” of economic development in Soviet Union before they could initiate the first stage of socialism to be followed by the second stage. This was exactly the situation for Mao and Deng in China who wanted to first create the basic building block for Chinese economy for which the forces of production were either outdated or non-existent. Interestingly, both CPSU and CPC tried to create ‘communes’ as an ideal communist construct for the rural regions and agricultural sector – primarily due to mismanagement among the party members and lack of indoctrination among the rural population, both the experiments failed. More valid question however remains, ‘why both CPSU and CPC got lost in the quagmire of ‘initial capitalistic development’ and never returned to their end objectives’ even after there was basic level of ‘fixed capital formation’ in Soviet Union by 1960 and in China by 2010! May be because geopolitical events were unsurmountable. To best of my knowledge, this question remains unanswered till date.

2. Another issue related to very high exports and some trade surplus obscures two significant points:

(a) China (with a GDP of Yuan 99,492.74 billion i.e. USD 14,140 billion) in 2019 not only exported goods and services worth USD 2,486.69 billion, but the import was also huge at USD 2,135.74 billion (as per National Bureau of Statistics of China). Even if the overall export surplus is not substantial, when the values are grouped continent-wise, large imbalance due to export surplus can be noted for Oceanic and Pacific Islands (about USD 64 billion), Europe (about USD 95 billion), North America (about USD 330 billion), while marginal imbalance of USD 5 – 10 billion export/import surplus exists in case of Asia, Africa, Latin America. Moving deeper at a country-level, one would find more imbalances. The main reason is that, the sourcing requirements of China (energy, raw materials, manufacturing components, foodstuff, etc.) and sourcing countries are, most of the time different from the nature of exported item (manufactured finished goods), quantity and destination where export opportunity exist.

(b) More often than not, the economists forget to mention that the imports of China has multiple categories including import by foreign-owned export-oriented enterprises for value addition before exporting goods, import by Chinese-owned enterprises for value addition before dispatching for export as well as for domestic selling, import of plant and machinery etc. for capital formation, and import for direct household consumption. Contrary to that, export has almost single dimension – manufactured finished goods, primarily consumer goods with some industrial goods as well. There is overwhelming dependence on exports which jeopardise Chinese economy to the extent that, without continuous growth in demand from foreign countries, Chinese economy will encounter slow growth. In future, there can be scenarios where trade partner countries (other than USA) may reduce good imports from China in order to produce within their country (to reduce unemployment).

3. Trade surplus resulting from the exports and high internal savings empowered the east Asian countries like Japan and China to accumulate largest forex reserves (together they account for more than USD 6 trillion) which were used to purchase USA Treasury bonds. USA Treasury bonds are issued by USA government to cover fiscal deficit – thus China and Japan are largest creditors of USA. With this arrangement of deficit financing successive USA government has been reckless to cut taxes (of oligarchy) and increase direct government expenditure to keep voters happy. The prices of east Asian exports into USA were kept low to keep it attractive in the USA market. Finally, more demand of east Asian goods increased trade surplus and more trade surplus meant more purchase of Treasury bonds. A two-way mutual relation between USA and China-Japan thus helped USA engage in end-less wars as well as keep inflation within USA low, hence, even if USA leaders take anti-import posture that will be only to please the constituency of nationalist voters. However, China will not only be at the receiving end if and when exports get restricted suddenly, China should be prepared for the worst scenario when, in future, USA will simply refuse to pay for their debt.

China will have to take a serious initiative on how US Dollar can be removed from world’s reserve currency status. Along with Russia, China should look into the possibility of introducing a new international currency which will be backed by gold – this action will not lead to a socialist economy, but this action will certainly work towards curbing the USA government’s undue advantage of printing as much fiat Dollar as possible using the global reserve currency without gold-backing status.

4. Indisputably China achieved incredible feats in economic growth and socio-economic indicators during past few decades. But such achievements to a large extent depended also on credit policy (apart from FDI and export). As a result, China’s total debt burden including households, government (central, regional, local), non-financial industry sector (including real estate), and financial sector has been rising over the decades albeit slowly. Apparently, in 2019 beginning, Household debt rose to more than 50% of GDP, Government debt crossed 50% of GDP, Financial sector debt rose to more than 40%, non-financial Industry sector breached 150% of GDP. As a whole, Chinese government is in a precarious position to control such huge debt (total crossing 40 trillion USD) – with strict control economic growth will be at stake. Even though the government of China have been periodically trying to deleverage the economy with control measures, economic growth trounced all such attempts till date.

The problem of bad debt first hit the Jiang government in late 1990s. The non-performing loans (NPL) caught the leadership’s eyes back then. And to address the burning issue, in 1999 asset management company was created, which absorbed Yuan 2 trillion bad loans from state-owned banks leaving the banks normal and healthy. For Chinese government NPL issue will continue to be a thorn in the flesh.

5. Maritime border disputes in South China Sea and East China Sea have historical roots when Japan displaced European powers from these two sea regions. It is also true that, after WW II most of the littoral countries (except Vietnam and North Korea) were/are backed by the Deep State and were/are armed to the teeth. However, it will be a monumental milestone for Chinese diplomacy and indeed, image, if China can resolve the maritime border issues without conflict, and if required, sharing the under-sea resources with the littoral states.

On the land border disputes, China resolved all but the dispute with India. The land border was drawn by the British colonial power who ruled most of south Asia till 1947, but Chinese government never accepted the border. Chinese government should keep no stone unturned to bring India-Pakistan-China on the same discussion table with UNO as observer. It will be beneficial for all three countries if they settle the dispute once for all through mutual concessions using give-and-take policy. A border war for a land with little economic value (but high geopolitical strategic value) makes no sense.

6. During 1700 to 1840 China was world’s biggest economy and second largest land empire. However that position didn’t deter the European powers from rampaging at their will inside Chinese territory. Chinese empire lost the edge because of inability to keep track with global technological changes. For the European powers, advancements in few industrial and military technology proved decisive. Keeping such watershed moments in view, government of China should make extraordinary arrangements (like special task force etc.) to bridge manufacturing technology gaps which have been pointed out by McKinsey Global Institute in “China and the world” report published in July 2019, some of which are:

1. Electronic Components
   1. Display
   2. Integrated circuits
2. Pharmaceuticals
   1. Small-molecule drugs
   2. Biomolecule drugs
3. Genomics
   1. Gene sequencing
   2. Gene editing

The above mentioned elements are not necessarily of military in nature – the backwardness in military technology are well-known which are being addressed by Chinese government since past two decades, jet engines with thrust-vectoring control technology among the most significant ones.

6. GEOPOLITICS 1930 ONWARDS

With the setting up of Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Switzerland in 1930, the disputes and tussle among the most prominent Jewish and Anglo banker families (like Rothschild, Rockefeller, Morgan, Warburg, Lazard, et al.) over type of business, geographical region of influence, and share of banking sector operations got resolved. The Zionist Capitalist elites were fully united in words and deeds notwithstanding the occasional rivalry and difference of opinion between followers of two camps: Rothschild and Rockefeller. The long-term objective of the Zionist Capitalist Deep State clique (representing primarily the Jewish, Anglo, Dutch, French, German oligarch and aristocrat families who had accumulated wealth and have been engaged in business in banking-land-industry-trading) after WW I has been to establish a hegemonic world order which would:

1. own ‘political process and power’ in every society/country on the earth
2. own ‘economic process and wealth’ in every landmass/country/ocean on the earth
3. control ‘socio-cultural process and population’ in every region/country on the earth

I find it difficult to consider that, ‘winning’ political power anywhere in the world, has ever been an objective of the Deep State – they want to ‘own’ the process through which any political party may be made to ‘win’ or ‘loose’ power depending on short-term and long-term interest of the Deep State.

The Zionist Capitalist Deep State crystallized in its existing form when WW II started in 1936 (with signing of anti-communist pact between Germany, Italy, and Japan). Expectations of the Zionist Capitalist Deep State were destruction of powerful societies (non- Anglo/Jewish/Dutch/French) who had potential to develop advanced economy, and expansion of Zionist Capitalist empire:

1. combatants Fascist Germany and Communist Soviet Union decimating each other’s (i) military forces, (ii) physical infrastructure, and (iii) population across entire Eurasia;
2. combatants Fascist Japan and Nationalist China decimating each other’s (i) military forces, (ii) physical infrastructure, and (iii) population across entire East Asia;
3. stages (a) and (b) would be followed by occupation of whole Europe and Asia by the ‘benevolent’ Anglo-American military who would claim that they have ‘liberated’ these ancient civilizations from the ‘authoritarian dictatorships’ of fascism and communism;
4. stage (c) would be followed by establishment of ‘liberal democratic capitalism’ version of empire (as against ‘colonial extractive capitalism’ version) in whole Europe and Asia to continue plunder of wealth in maximum possible way;

Unfortunately half of the objectives remained unfulfilled in the WW II that was over by 1945 – because of two political parties: Communist Party of Soviet Union (CPSU) and Communist Party of China (CPC) whose top leadership mobilised their countrymen in collective patriotic spirit, Soviet Union and China didn’t capitulate but their direct adversaries (Germany and Japan) were trounced. Phase II became a necessity for the Deep State.

WW II – Phase II:

Phase II of WW II was initiated as soon as phase I was over. ‘Operation Unthinkable’ was planned by most ardent imperialist Churchill in order to launch a surprise attack on Soviet Union to achieve the original objectives that Hitler failed to achieve, but dropped. Realising that a military block consisting of all societies that join together as Zionist Capitalist Deep State would be more effective to demolish: (a) morally and militarily supreme power like Soviet Union which recuperated economically,

(b) new power like Communist China (where by January’1949, Peoples Liberation Army already won three major campaigns in last strongholds of Kuo Mintang party in east and south regions of China), NATO was formed in April’1949.

To achieve the long-term objective of hegemonic world order as well as the four WW II objectives, the Deep State displayed creativity in designing and deploying diplomatic, political, economic, cultural tools and methods that proved to be highly durable and extremely effective:

1. UNO and its key sister organizations were established to control the international political incidents in all regions across the globe
2. Through WBG, IMF, ADB global banking and financial companies spread its tentacles to every region of the world to control natural resources and economy
3. US Dollar as the foreign currency exchange basis across the globe – not only the gold backing was withdrawn from Dollar in 1971 by USA government, but the hegemon also manipulated the Arab rulers to use Dollar as currency for most crucial commodity trading (of petroleum)
4. Trade pacts like GATT, WTO, and similar other pacts driven by USA-West Europe-Japan were implemented so that the hegemonic power maintains their hold over global trade
5. Promotion of ‘periodic election’ plus ‘market economy’ plus ‘private ownership’ masquerading as ‘Democracy’ across the globe
6. Promotion of literature-cinema-fine arts that revolves around sex-drug-commercial duplicity in all major languages across the globe
7. Promotion of mainstream media for broadcasting and publishing round-the-clock propaganda on the above mentioned tools (i) to (vi) in all major languages across the globe
8. Promotion of academic institutions and intellectual for propagating curriculum on the above mentioned tools (i) to (vi) in all major languages across the globe
9. Promotion of religious fundamentalist groups (male chauvinists with belief in illusory past glory from society which profess religious faiths like Sunni Islam, in Catholic Christianity, in Puritan Christianity, Brahminical Hinduism etc.) as well as ethnic fundamentalist groups (believing superiority of his/her ethnicity) in all regions across the globe
10. Development of highly complex computerised system and other industrial technology to replace human labour in every sphere of productive work as much as possible

During the ensuing four and a half decades- from 1945 to 1990- major tasks accomplished by Deep State were:

1. The Zionist Capitalist elites located primarily on either side of the Atlantic (who were driving force for aristocratic groups like Bilderberg Club, Club of Rome, Trilateral Commission as well as think-tanks like Council for Foreign Relations) were immensely successful in mobilising most of the academic institutions and media entities across world to spread propaganda among the people world-wide about ‘failure’ of socialism/ communism/ Marxist principles in Soviet Union and east European countries as well as China. While it was true that these countries which were devastated during WW II couldn’t provide the standard of living as west European imperialist/colonialist countries could offer to their citizens, these socialist countries provided all basic amenities of life to all its citizens.
2. In most unfortunate turn of history, in the second half of 1950s CPSU led by Khrushchev (a closet Zionist) denounced Stalin’s leadership in Soviet Union that not only defeated the most cruel war machinery ever built on earth but became the second superpower of the world by 1945 (in 22 years after Stalin got the top leader’s position). This created an unbridgeable ideological gap between CPSU and CPC that divided the entire socialist/communist movement across the globe. After removal of Khrushchev from the position of top leader in Soviet Union political situation was salvaged internally, however, China became completely blind about the changing landscape of Soviet Union. The lack of trust of Chinese leadership in Soviet leadership was utilised by the Deep State elites in the 1980s to bleed Soviet Union in Afghanistan and Angola.
3. By 1960 most of the Asian, and African countries got freedom from the west European imperialist/ colonialist powers like UK, France, and Belgium etc. Most of these countries were ruled by nationalist party who heavily mixed socialist ideological tenets with their nationalist creed. Most of these countries, backed by Soviet Union, had highly corrupt ruling party. Such leaders easily became prey for the global capitalist-imperialist elites, and simultaneously those semi-literate societies came under the spell of ‘Hollywood’-promoted illusion and ‘drug-sex-violence’ kind of culture. The significant block led by Soviet Union and relatively small islands of Chinese sphere came to a crossroads – they were falling behind in harnessing technological progress in economic growth, which resulted in relatively low standard of living of majority population while government officials and ruling party leaders led much better life.
4. Deep State tried hard to manipulate the policy of government and bureaucracy as well as to co-opt the key political parties across all countries so that they can create pro-USA, pro-5 Eyes, pro-Israel policies as well as anti-Soviet Union anti-China policies. Simultaneously, oligarch-aristocrat families and elite individuals with servility towards Zionist Capitalist ideology (i.e. capitalist enterprises, private ownership, European ‘liberal imperialism’) were promoted in political leadership-bureaucracy-judiciary in those countries so that they can convert the policies into actions to advance interests of global oligarchy.
5. In many large countries across the world, the Zionist Capitalist Deep State manipulated domestic politics to overthrow patriotic and incorruptible leaders who couldn’t be co-opted by them – Congo, Iran, Indonesia, Chile, Guatemala, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, etc. The Deep State mainly mobilised the country’s military forces to grab state power by killing the top leader(s) and by creating a repressive environment. Sometimes that would include mass murder of leaders and members of socialist party/communist party – in Indonesia, in the 2nd half of 1960s, between one to two million members of communist party were killed by military junta. In all the above mentioned cases, soon after coming to power the military junta would create economic policies that would favour the MNC from USA, 5 Eyes, west European countries, and simultaneously reduce contacts with Soviet Union and China.
6. Developing conventional, nuclear, biological, chemical, and other special weapons and building a military force based on land, marine, air, and space that will be able to dominate every other country in every region, and if necessary, the military force can take punitive actions against any country including carrying out ‘first strike’ against other nuclear powers like Soviet Union and China without any possibility of retaliatory strike. USA built over 700 military bases all over the world.

The Deep State operatives were very successful in their original plan of wrecking Soviet Union from within. In the beginning of 1980s two leaders got into powerful political positions in the Soviet block – Yuri Andropov became top leader of CPSU and Lech Walesa became top trade union leader in Poland, Such high-ranking anti-socialist leaders quickly made inroads into state structure and policies in Soviet Union and Poland. After Andropov handpicked Gorbachev to lead CPSU, it was only a matter of time for the Deep State to wrap-up the socialist experiment what was known as USSR. Gorbachev and his so-called reformist clique systematically incapacitated Soviet economy, and also actively promoted downfall of governments in every east European country which were led by socialist party aligned with CPSU. This clique was helped by professionals from USA and west Europe. They also pinned hope that CPC leader Zhao Ziyang will become the ‘Gorbachev of China’ to bring down the government ruled by CPC – however this was a complete failure as Zhao himself confided with Gorbachev that ‘Deng was the top leader’ in a meeting when Tiananmen Square protest was raging in Beijing in 1989. Without a single gun-shot being fired by the military wings of Zionist Capitalist cabal, the Soviet Union dissolved itself between 1990 to 1991 CE – the phase II of WW II came to an end. Instead of serious introspection and course correction among ruling party officials and government departments to design policies keeping pace with socio-economic changes and technological changes, all these ‘reformist’ leaders decided that the best way to (personal?) growth was to join hands with Zionist-Capitalist world order after bringing down the governments ruled by their own party communist/socialist party.

By 2020 whole Europe and half of Asia had been occupied by the ‘benevolent’ Anglo-American NATO military who claimed that they guarantee ‘independence’ of those ‘liberated countries’ from the clutch of ‘authoritarian’ communism, and they also ensure that ‘liberal democratic capitalism’ version of empire will suck the land and citizens dry. No wonder, Soviet WW II war memorials and monuments have been systematically destroyed in east Europe – how long the Deep State would tolerate anti-zionist anti-capitalist flag hoisted by Soviet Red Army in Europe with immense sacrifices and sufferings by Soviet leaders, soldiers and people?

Concomitant with the complete control of all political parties (across the wide spectrum of their professed ideology) on both sides of the Atlantic: North America, South America, Europe, the discerning Zionist Capitalist cabal maintains a complex cobweb connecting all key members and rotating them from one role to another. Thus a retired Director of intelligence department of USA will occupy the chair of Chairman of a big financial investment firm as well as the role of a university Professor! The cabal maintains a carefully constructed façade where professionals from different spheres of society jointly appear as a highly educated, experienced and intelligent wing – industrialists, bankers, politicians, bureaucrats, military officials, business managers, legal and media professionals, academicians, NGO managers, cinema directors and artists all walks of life are present.

[ Link: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-06-10/does-bilderberg-really-run-world-one-chart-help-you-decide ]

Interlude?

After Soviet Union was pulled down, the corrupt and treacherous Soviet leaders and their lackeys backed by the Zionist Capitalist oligarchy and elites ripped apart the socio-economic fabric of Russian society. The state exchequer was looted blatantly, the natural resources were divided among the Soviet elites-turned-businessmen, the industrial capital largely destroyed or privatised without any meaningful payment to state, workers were retrenched or pauperised without regular wages, and peasants were left without proper means of cultivation. Not only peoples tried to earn livelihood offering sex-drug-smuggling etc., but steep drop in birth rates across all splinter provinces of USSR made it to appear like entire Eurasian landmass will get depopulated within two generations. The Deep State also tried to split Russia (which, after the USSR dissolution, became largest state in Eurasia) into 4 – 5 regions through creating and aiding regional separatist movements with help of the 5th column elites and oligarchy within Russia. Without funding, military capabilities of Russia went into oblivion. Technological research and development as well as manufacturing of defence machinery came to a dead end. Demoralised troops and open corruption became symbolic of Russian military.

So, were the different factions of Zionist Capitalist cabal content with the successful closure of the WW II by 1991? What were they thinking about the glaring failure of destroying the CPC rule in China? Apparently, the Deep State was not only happy with their performance in destroying the CPSU and Soviet Union, they were also very confident about China becoming a ‘normal country’ with full-scale liberal democratic capitalist system of economy and periodic elections to elect governments that will be run by the Zionist Capitalist world order staying behind the curtain (as it happened for all countries in the world in 1992 except China-Vietnam-North Korea-Iran-Zimbabwe-Angola-Cuba). We need to ask ourselves, how the Deep State was so confident that China will be on board with them.

1978 onwards the drive towards industrial capitalism in China using the global finance owned by the Zionist Capitalist bankers and industrialists was initiated by Deng and followed up by Jiang Zemin in such earnestness that, the Deep State representatives like Kissinger and Financial Institutions like JP Morgan had to conclude that Chinese acumen for business and trade will transform the society into a capitalist society. Japan was anyway part of the world order triad i.e. USA-West Europe-Japan, and with China’s entry, the triad would have become USA-West Europe-East Asia. Chinese government went all-out to create a ‘happy hunting ground’ for global Zionist Capitalist interests which wanted more and more profits towards endless accumulation of capital, and hence were busy shifting their manufacturing base to China to harness low-cost labour and slack regulations. By 2008, i.e. after 30 years of reform, China became third largest economy in terms of GDP nominal (as per IMF estimates USD 4604 billion) and largest export base in the world (In 2007-2008, its Export-to-GDP ratio reached 32%, and its Exim-to-GDP ratio was 59%), but it also became a society where inequality was one of the highest in the world – China’s Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality – ‘0’ represents perfect equality, ‘1’ represents perfect inequality) rose from about 0.3 in early 1980s to 0.49 in 2008. The media, academia, multilateral institutions funded by the Deep State went all-out to woo the CPC leaders towards ushering a new era of ‘political reforms’ after such a brilliant success of ‘economic reforms’ – by ‘political reforms’ they meant introduction of multi-party election system and privatisation of the state-owned enterprises. After one and a half decades of persuasion, by middle of 2000s the Deep State cabal understood that, CPC never ever had any such plan of changing their ideology of political economy.

And about the same time in 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin as the leader of Russia, delivered his famous Munich speech. In no uncertain terms, Putin criticized USA’s hegemonic dominance and its “almost uncontained hyper use of force in international relations“. That speech came as a shocker to the Zionist Capitalist clique – it was like waking up from a slumber. All these years they thought WW II was over with Soviet Union completely decimated – after 16 years they had the ignominy of attending a conference on European soil, where a Russian leader was chastising them about use of force in settling disputes!

Actually 2000 onwards, there had been relentless sole-searching among top leadership of Russia. It was about the overall decay of Russia within a span of just 10 years – between 1985 and 1995. As a result, the Russian government and a section of ruling party led by Putin has been pushing economic policies that created new consumer goods industry and improved agricultural production, enhanced the oil-gas extraction operation. Within few years’ time Russia got on its feet and created an economy based on ‘domestic consumption’ and pushed export of oil-gas to earn foreign exchange. However, the Zionist Capitalist oligarchy led by powerful faction of the ruling party was deeply entrenched in the bureaucracy, academia and media who supported (and benefited from) their illegal amassing of wealth. Corruption, nepotism, extortion among ruling party cadres and government officials, mostly went unpunished. Outward flow of capital and tax breaks for rich businessmen were also happening albeit at a slow pace. But noticing the overall upswing in Russian society the Deep State got alarmed – ‘filthy’ Russian bear is again cooking up some curry that may prove difficult to digest in long run!

Part 1

Part 3 – pending

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By profession I’m an Engineer and Consultant, but my first love was and is History and Political Science. In retired life, I’m pursuing higher study in Economics.

I’m one of the few decade-old members of The Saker blog-site. Hope that this website will continue to focus on truth and justice in public life and will support the struggle of common people across the world.

An Indian by nationality, I believe in humanity.

Bridging China’s past with humanity’s future – Part 1

June 27, 2020

by Straight-Bat for the Saker Blog

This will be presented in 3 parts and in 3 different blog posts

PART – 1

1. INTRODUCTION

The world is tottering under the omnipresent virus covid19. Since January’2020, economic and sociological parameters went into a tailspin in one after another country across the globe. By end of year 2020, when the corona pandemic would be under control in all the top 25 countries (with GDP PPP more than 1 trillion $ in 2018, as per World Bank estimates), global economic fabric would have been torn apart with unheard of impact on society, few of which are:

• millions of sick people will need medical care,
• millions of unemployed people (and continuously growing) will need food and shelter,
• at least one-third of the medium and large industrial and utility producing units will be financially sick, while close to half of the small scale units permanently closed down,
• due to decline of overall purchasing power among the citizens, demand of manufactured products will decline dramatically with simultaneous upsurge of demand for medicines,
• banking system will be under tremendous stress to renegotiate with their clients to reschedule loan repay and/or write-off loans,
• Governments will be embarrassed with dwindling tax collection, large scale impoverishments which would accompany increasing unrest among common people

Under the above circumstances, what would be the action plan of the global oligarchy who collectively own banking and industrial sectors and who maintain the current unipolar world order through chosen members of the so-called (USA/5Eyes/Israel) Deep State? We need to remember that there exist nothing like ‘national capitalism’ – by virtue of its expansionary characteristic, ‘capitalism’ has always been global in outlook which resulted in ‘world system’ with industrially advanced society forming the ‘core’ and rest of the world forming the ‘periphery’. The global oligarchy has its interest in EVERY nook and corner of the globe. Deep State elites maintain strong economic and political alliances with almost all countries where, ALL significant political parties and large business houses of every hue and colours are joined through invisible covenant to continuously extend their support, and, in return get benefitted from the global oligarchy. (Cuba and North Korea are the exceptions owing to their overtly and fiercely ‘independent’ policy of governance; for past two decades, Russia-China-Iran-Venezuela governments are resisting the global oligarchy and their local partners with gusto.)

The answer to above question is – state policy and implementation of the same would be geared towards accumulation of capital in every country except the above mentioned six countries. Other than getting humongous sums as bailout packages from governments and share buy-back programmes through zero interest loan, the oligarchy (1% of the population) and flunky elites (5% to 15% of the population) has little interest in governance and support to common people in distress.

[ Link: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/21/american-billionaires-got-434-billion-richer-during-the-pandemic.html ]

A closer look reveals that, among those six ‘resistance camp’ countries, only China has both: landmass and population, that can be termed as ‘resources’ necessary to resist unipolar world order, roll back onward march of global capitalism, and simultaneously build a multipolar world order and more equitable society in close coordination with Russia. So it is natural to expect that China leads socio-economic rejuvenation of the world with full support from Russia. China is also well positioned to harness the strengths of Iran-North Korea-Cube-Venezuela. On behalf of peace-loving people who believe in truth-justice-equality, let me dig deeper into the proposition.

The journey will begin with review of Qing Chinese society as well as economy and industry of Qing era, then discuss the current Communist epoch, and end with future possibilities. Looking back is necessary, because a society which have a significant past would have a remarkable future as well.

2. CHINA IN QING ERA

While mentioning three successive empires: Yuan-Ming-Qing in late medieval and early modern China, it is often forgotten that, Yuan empire was divided into two parts: Ming and Northern Yuan empires, and most of the regions falling under these two empires were brought under control by Qing empire. Even though during the ‘century of humiliation’ starting from 1839 CE Qing empire gradually lost large territories in north-east, north, north-west as well as smaller tracts of land in the south and South China Sea, Qing empire should be given due credit for the following:

1. Notwithstanding the preferential treatments meted out to the Manchu aristocrats, the Qing emperors transformed the Chinese empire as a multi-ethnic multi-language empire in official policy and procedures (in contrast to Ming era that was truly Han chinese in outlook), thereby creating a fundamental basis of a modern Chinese society. Starting in 1618 through renunciation of Ming overlordship and creating Manchu kingdom by Jurchen/Manchu tribal chief, by 1648 Qing dynasty formed by the Jurchen/Manchu tribal chief extended their control over most part of the erstwhile Ming empire through a military force in which Manchu Bannermen represented below 20% of the manpower while Han Bannermen made up more than 70%. This data amply represented the multi-ethnic character of Qing policies.
2. The successive Qing emperors maintained warm relationship with all tributary states and protectorates until the onset of the ‘century of humiliation’ in 1839. Commentators and academicians who bring up Westphalian concept while discussing relationship between empires/kingdoms in pre-colonial Asia generally forget that Westphalian sovereignty was a concept that was necessary for and was derived under ‘feudal’ environment of medieval and early modern Europe. Except Japan, statecraft in Asian empires/kingdoms never introduced ‘feudalism’ in medieval and early modern Asia. Hence, the relationship between Qing empire and different categories of vassals had multiple vectors that can’t be seen through the Westphalian lens. Even though Qing empire didn’t lack manpower or military resources that would be necessary to directly rule over the vassals, they were comfortable with the tributary system (based on Confucian ideals) whereby different kingdoms surrounding the Chinese empire would accept Chinese emperor as the predominant authority of that part of the world, and the benevolent Chinese empire would guarantee the opportunity of peaceful trading and commerce across central, east and south-east Asia – this ensured continuation of the two millennium long exchange of goods-services-knowledge-culture between Asia and Europe.
3. Continuation of the merit-based entry through examination system to the bureaucratic institutions and pre-eminence of Confucian family value system (both were adopted from earlier dynasties) ensured that Qing China stepped into the modern era keeping the fundamental socio-political basis of Chinese society intact. Both of these ancient Chinese practices are valued in all modern societies across world.

By the end of the 18th century, Qing empire commanded an area of around 14 million sq.km with estimated population of around 300 million. Qing society was divided into mainly five categories:

• Bureaucratic Officials
• Gentry elite aristocracy
• Literati, scholar
• Respectable “Commoner”
  • occupational group of farmers
  • occupational group of artisans
  • occupational group of merchants
• Debased “Mean” people (slaves, bond-servants, entertainers like prostitutes, tattooed criminals, very low-level employees of government officials)

About 80% of total population were peasants. Landholding peasants were largest labour force with presence of insignificant number of hired (landless) labour. The state also recruited army personnel from rural population.

Agriculture and Land-use:

Agriculture sector was the largest source of employment in Chinese society. With private property rights over land, the farmers had natural incentive to produce more quantity and produce variety of crops. This resulted in increased factor productivity. Land owning peasantry also got benefitted from the state policy that supported hiring of labourers. On the other hand, tax from agriculture made up the largest share of state revenue. So, the landholding peasantry and fiscal-military state both had incentive for territorial expansion. And, the state often resettled farmers in new regions with material (seed and farming tools) and finance (free passage and tax holidays). By the 18th century the Han ‘refugees’ from northern China who were suffering from drought and flood were resettled in Manchuria and Inner Mongolia regions. The Han farmers farmed about 0.5 million hectares of privately owned land by Manchu elites in Manchuria and about 200,000 hectares of lands that were part of noble estates and Banner lands.

There were other innovative actions as well – introduction of maize and sweet potatoes, double cropping, fertilizer such as bean-cakes, re-introduction of early-ripening rice – that helped to increase productivity and conversion of marginal land into regular farm land. A system of monitoring grain prices helped the rulers to eliminate severe shortages, as well as to eliminate hoarding and price shock to the consumers.

The farmers on the basis of a high-yield agriculture produced a constant and sizeable ‘surplus’ that ensured development of market economy in (medieval and) early modern China. Historians estimate that up to one-third of China’s post-tax agricultural output was subject to market exchange. This surplus also became the basis of growth and development of other sectors in the economy.

Trade and Commerce:

For the first time, a large percentage of farming households began producing crops for sale in the local and national markets rather than for their own consumption or barter in the traditional economy. Surplus crops were placed onto the national market for sale, integrating farmers into the commercial economy from the ground up. This naturally led to regions specializing in certain cash-crops for export as China’s economy became increasingly reliant on inter-regional trade of bulk staple goods such as cotton, grain, beans, vegetable oils, forest products, animal products, and fertilizer.

Merchant class functioned within the state-imposed boundary. At the apex of the market structure, the state controlled key commodities like salt, wine, iron and steel etc. Qing state refused new mining rights to private merchants. Foreign trade was controlled by the state, participated by both state and private merchants. So the Chinese merchant class was left with unrestricted platform to engage in commercial transactions at village level (surplus-based market exchange with farmers) and at region level (estimated around 1,000–1,500 such regions in Qing empire). Trade between markets at the village level, region level, and province levels developed into a network covering much of Qing empire. Hence, the merchant class became very wealthy but lacked the strength (as a class) to influence the economy and state politics.

Merchant guilds proliferated in all growing cities in China who sourced manufactured items (by artisans and commoners) like textile, handicraft, ceramics, silk, paper, stationary, cooking utensils. More efficient administration of the Grand Canal created new opportunities for private merchants who could transport goods easily within Qing empire. It has been estimated that in the early nineteenth century, as much as one-third of the world’s total manufactures were produced by China. Though In 1685 the state opened maritime trade for the merchants along the coast by establishing customs offices in port cities like Guangzhou, Xiamen, Ningbo, due to internal political moves such trade arrangement was abandoned. By the time when maritime trade was again made legal, trade with west Europe grew to such an extent that, Canton alone housed more than forty mercantile houses. China primarily imported war horses (for the army), and metals (for currency). China exported silk, ceramics, textiles, metal products (made of iron, copper, bronze etc.), non-metal handicrafts, tea. Trade between China and Europe grew at an average annual rate of 4% between 1719 and 1806. Qing state established the Canton System in 1756 CE that restricted maritime trade to Canton/Guangzhou and gave monopoly trading rights to private Chinese merchants. European merchant ‘companies’ British East India Company and Dutch East India Company had been granted similar monopoly rights by their governments long ago. In the early modern era, demand in Europe for Chinese goods were met through import for which payments were made by silver (sourced by European colonial powers from western hemisphere colonies). Resulting inflow of silver expanded the money supply, facilitating the growth of competitive and stable markets. Thus China had gradually shifted to silver as the standard currency for large scale transactions and by the beginning of 18th century collection of the land tax was done in silver. Since China was self-sufficient in all types of consumer goods, very low import caused imbalance of trade vis-à-vis Europe, which in turn resulted in drain of silver from European powers. British East India Company started importing opium into China. Import of opium into China were paid for by silver – It is estimated that between 1821 and 1840, as much as one-fifth of the silver circulating in China was used to purchase opium. Alarmed with both over the outflow of silver and damage that opium smoking was causing to Chinese people, emperor ordered to end the opium trade, which started the conflicts with European powers in 1839 CE.

Apart from short-term credit systems, offering house and farm land as collateral to raise long-term money was also present. But, community and state interference with such contracts by blocking land transfers from debtors to creditors was one of the significant factors that displacement and dispossession (basis of ‘capitalistic’ primitive accumulation) never took root in China.

Due to ‘equal opportunity’ meritocracy and social mobility, the talented youth were generally drawn towards literati and officialdom (‘Pan’ family of Anhui transformed from one of wealthiest merchant family to powerful family of bureaucrats within two centuries). Merchant class was not considered as sufficiently suave which can attract talented people. They could not rival the influence of large landholding aristocracy notwithstanding localised influence of very rich merchants. Instead, the existence of factor markets for land allowed merchants to join the landholding class.

Some merchants with entrepreneurship zeal migrated to the European colonial outposts like Manila, Macau, Jakarta to avoid empire’s policies which were Confucian (assigning merchants and other commoners same level who deserved equal treatment from the state as a patriarch).

Early Banking:

Copper coins were used for everyday transactions, while silver was used for larger transactions as well as for payment of tax to the government. Apart from monetary conversion the money-changers also provided credit, and rudimentary banking services. Remittance banks evolved during this period that would take cash deposits from merchant in one place and issue remittance certificates, which the merchant could then take elsewhere to pay his supplier. That person would in turn go to bank in his vicinity and exchange the certificate for coins. By the 18th century there was a vast network of such banks which played a stellar role for development of commercial activity in China.

Development of Trade Towns:

Due to the commercialization of the surplus agricultural products as well as booming ‘cottage industry’ (if I may say so), merchants were involved in inter-region and inter-province trades with help of long-distance transportation network. Towns popped up as commercial centres to direct the flow of domestic trade. As more and more people travelled, ‘guild halls’ came up in market-towns for lodging and boarding of those people which included merchants, buyers, and sellers. It has been that about 45,000 market towns developed, some of which became home to some of the merchants.

During mid-17th century guild halls were introduced for more specific purpose – to facilitate craftsmen and artisans of specific sectors like textiles weaving, carpentry, medicine, iron and steel work. Thus those guild halls acted as nucleus of industrial-towns, which further developed into large cities with real estate, water supply, sewerage system etc.

Similarities & Dissimilarities with Western Europe:

In 18th century Qing era, the standards of living in south and east regions of China reached a high level which was comparable with wealthy regions of 19th century Western Europe. As per renowned Historians-cum-Sinologists key factors were ‘(1) the rationality of private property rights-led growth, (2) total factor productivity growth associated with China’s green revolutions from Han to Ming-Qing and the economic revolution under Song dynasty, and (3) China’s export capacity (hence China’s surplus output) and China’s silver imports (hence purchasing power of China’s surplus)’.

Ken Pomeranz showed that the core productive regions in China and West Europe both faced major bottlenecks in the form of land and energy constraints in the 19th century. A combination of domestic and international factors as well as much luck enabled England to overcome these challenges and embark on a capital-intensive path of industrialization. As per Pomeranz, two major factors here were ‘(1) the conveniently located coal reserves, which, being near the core areas helped Britain escape its energy constraints more easily, and (2) Britain’s coercive colonization of the western hemisphere, which served as a source of land-intensive goods such as cotton, sugar and grain, while at the same time providing a market for its manufactured goods. In China, where coal reserves were not as readily available, and a policy of coercive colonization, which could provide it with free land, was absent, ecological constraints led to a turn to labour-intensive agriculture.’

Yet another line of thought considers (1) families of ‘strong, urban, entrepreneurial class capable of concentrating the agrarian surplus to foster a capitalist-industrial’ were absent in China unlike in UK, (2) In both agriculture and cottage industry sectors the Qing emperors’ policy of conflict-containment (between landlord and tenant, between owner and labour) contained appeasing and accommodating attitude towards the tenants and labours (very much unlike the UK where merchants, landlords and entrepreneurs received unconditional support from state) which ultimately were detrimental to accumulation of capital.

Socio-economic indicators:

As per Maddison, percentage share of global GDP and GDP per Capita of China, West Europe, and USA:

Year	ChinaGDP	ChinaGDP per Capita	West EuropeGDP	West Europe GDP per Capita	USAGDP	USAGDP per Capita
1500	24.9	1.1	15.5	1.4	—	—
1820	33.0	0.9	20.4	1.9	1.8	1.8
1940	6.4	0.3	27.5	2.5	20.6	3.6

As per Allen, and Pomeranz, select socio-economic indicators in early-modern China and England:

Country	Average Life Expectancy at Birth in mid-18th century	Average Calorie Intake/male/dayin 19th century	Land Productivity 1806 to 1820 CE (Pound/Acre)	Labour Productivity 1806 to 1820 CE (Pence/Day)
China	35 to 39	About 2600	26.1	51.3
England	31 to 34	2000 to 3500	3.3	60.9

Significant observations on Qing China:

1. Even though Chinese society maintained a robust lead over rest of the world in science and technology (as conclusively shown by Joseph Needham) including metallurgy, porcelain, gunpowder, compass, silk, paper, block printing, water turbine, herbal medicines and many other areas, China was slow to catch up with the technology behind (a) industrial machinery, (b) transportation systems, (c) military arms developed in West Europe since mid-18th century

2. By end-18th century when territorial expansion stopped, population continued a healthy growth. Due to prevailing equal-inheritance practice, farm-owners started facing the problem of a shrinking farm that resulted in decreasing prosperity among farmer class, which finally reflected in less than expected tax realisation by the Chinese state. Combination of key factors like (a) the organised hooliganism and colonialism of European trading companies, (b) internal discontent and rebellion among the common people, and (c) territorial competition with Russian and Japanese empire, proved fatal after 1840 CE

3. With a thriving agriculture and a splendid cottage industry that catered domestic demands China mostly needed war horses and metals to be imported. This was in direct contrast to West European states who needed consumer goods to be imported from China but couldn’t offer goods to be exported to maintain somewhat balance in trade, so they brought in opium. Qing administration should have analysed this problematic trading relation beforehand to take necessary actions to forestall such developments

4. The debate among a large number of Historians and Sinologists about ‘why China couldn’t develop capitalism before West Europe’ continues till date. The fact of the matter is that, the social-economic-political checks and balances that existed in China since 1st millennium BCE (largely due to pervasive Confucian thought in Mandarin Chinese mainland as well as Buddhist thought in Mongolian-Tibetan dominated regions) were diametrically opposite to concept of the so-called ‘animal spirit’ of zionist capitalism. The wealthy landlord and merchant class in China could never pursue profit and endless accumulation of capital by controlling state super-structure. However, the hard-working and merit-based dynamic society of China allowed commercialization, trading, proto-industrialization, and urbanization in a big way since medieval Song era.

3. CHINA IN MAO ERA

Since mid-19th century, one-after-another onslaught by the west European colonialist powers, and Russian-Japanese empires devastated China: first the Qing empire up to 1911, then the Nationalist China up to 1945. Overcoming the ‘century of humiliation’, through armed struggle and huge loss of life, the Chinese Communist Party seized state power in mainland China in 1949. Mao Zedong lost his wife, a son, two brothers, and sister, Zhou Enlai lost all his children, while Zhu De found decapitated head of his pregnant wife nailed to the city gate. At the time, China was a backward agrarian economy with widespread poverty, lawlessness and illiteracy; of its five hundred million people, eight in every ten people were illiterate, one in every eight people was drug addict. It was a time when peasants had to give away two-thirds of their produce in rent/tax, and people sold themselves to avoid starvation.

One can only look back at 1949 China with bewildering awe about how the Peoples’ Liberation Army completed their task of liberation under Mao and his comrades, which culminated with CPC’s emphatic take-over of state power. No other revolutionary leader, anywhere in the world till date, could mobilise such vast number of his countrymen through such enormous hardships for decades. Initial acts were swift and effective. The banking system was nationalized and People’s Bank of China became the central bank for the country. The government tightened credit, established value of the currency, implemented centrally controlled government budgets – all of these ensured that inflation was under strict control. CPC undertook a land reform programme through which 45% of the arable land were redistributed to the 65% of peasant families who owned little or no land. These peasants were encouraged to form sort of mutual aid teams among 7-8 households. CPC also nationalised most of the industrial units as soon as they came to power. By 1952, 17% of the industrial units were outside state-owned enterprises compared to about 65% during Kuo Mindang government.

The First Five-Year Plan (1953–57) followed the Soviet Union model which assigned primacy to development of heavy industry. Government of China controlled about 67% as directly state-owned enterprise and 33% as joint state-private enterprise. There was no more privately owned company. Key sectors like Coal and Iron ore mining, Electricity generation, Heavy Machinery manufacturing, Iron and Steel manufacturing, Cement manufacturing etc. were modernised by construction of hundreds of new factories with help from engineers sent by Soviet Union. Growth of industrial production increased at average rate of 19% per year during this period. During this period, more than 90% of cottage/handicraft industries were organized into cooperatives.

The agricultural sector however didn’t perform as per expectation and only clocked average growth rate of 4% per year. From loosely constructed ‘mutual aid teams’, peasants were encouraged to form ‘cooperatives’, in which individual families still received some income on the basis of their contribution of land. In the next stage, ‘collectives’ were formed on which income was based only on the amount of labour contributed by each family. In addition, each family was allowed to retain a small plot to grow vegetables and fruit for their personal consumption. By 1957 the collectivization process covered 93% of all farm households.

Second Five-Year Plan (1958–62) was abandoned. The leadership introduced new set of policies, and decided to engage entire population to produce a “great leap” in production for all sectors of the economy at once. 3-tier Communes were built to spearhead quantum jump in agricultural produce – at the top level commune central administration, at the next level 20 or more production brigades represented by the old ‘collectives’, and the last tier production team that consisted of about 30 families of village. They attempted to build vast irrigation network by employing unemployed and underemployed farmers – final objective was to increase the agricultural output and employment. Similarly, surplus rural labour was also employed in thousands of small-scale, low-technology, industrial projects in rural areas – final objective was enhancement in industrial and agricultural output and employment. Such small scale industry (including steel making furnaces) were also run by communes. The communes proved to be too bulky to carry out administrative functions efficiently. As a result of economic mismanagement, and unfavourable weather for two years, food production in 1960 and 1961 plunged. As a result, China faced a famine – in 1960 the death rate was 2.54% compared to average death rate of 1.14% registered during 1957 and 1958.

In 1958 industrial growth was 55%, in 1961 it was 38%. By 1962 overall economic collapse propelled the leadership to devise a new set of economic policies. Agricultural taxes were reduced, supplies of chemical fertilizer increased, agricultural machinery were made available, procurement prices for agricultural products were raised, the role of the commune central administration was significantly reduced, and private farming plots were restored. In industry, planning was again emphasized, import of technologically advanced foreign machinery started, hydro-electric power plants were setup, old plants were refurbished, chemical fertilizer plants and agro-machinery plants were setup in large numbers. Between 1961 and 1966, average annual growth of industrial output surpassed 10% while agricultural output grew at an average rate more than 9% a year.

The Cultural Revolution, a political upheaval whereby Mao re-established control over the party by pushing aside the right-of-centre and left-of-centre factions of CPC. It didn’t produce major changes in official economic policies or the basic economic model. Nonetheless, the disturbances affected urban society which impacted about 14% decline in industrial production in 1967. By 1969 industrial sector returned to a normal growth rate. Fourth Five-Year Plan (1971-1975) saw resumption of systematic economic growth especially in industrial sector (with new plants setup for Petroleum Exploration and Refinery, Fertilizer, Steel, building materials, Chemicals etc.). Petroleum and Coal were exported since the beginning of 1970s. With industrial sector average rate of 8% and agricultural sector average rate of 3.8% it was clear that, contrary to popular image Mao era targeted industrial growth as the top priority.

CPC leadership re-evaluated the economic state of affairs and Zhou Enlai presented a report to the Fourth National People’s Congress in Jan’1975. He formulated the famous ‘Four Modernizations’ policy targeting agriculture, industry, defence, science and technology. By 1976, when both Mao and Zhou departed, foundation for a strong self-reliant country had been built, and mainland China had (1) a very large, and healthy labour force having basic education, (2) a huge battery of state-owned industrial enterprises across sectors, (3) infrastructure, power, communication required for further economic growth, (4) an economy burdened by extremely low external debt (2.99% of gross national income as of 1981).

Socio-economic indicators:

Except three interludes – Great Leap Forward (1958–60), Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966–69), and post-Mao political struggle (1976–78) – different sectors of the Chinese economy (agriculture, mining, manufacturing) experienced healthy growth, albeit with quite difficulty aroused out of frequent policy changes. Economists estimate that during the period 1952–1978, China’s real GDP per capita grew at a robust 4% average annual rate, the industrial share of GDP rose from 20.9% in 1952 to 47.9% in 1978 (as per Chinese National Bureau of Statistics), industrial labour productivity grew by 236.7% and agricultural labour productivity growth was only 25.5% over the same period, the fraction of the labour force in agriculture declined from 83% to 75% with the value added produced in agriculture declined from 78% in 1953 to 30% in 1977, household consumption grew by only 2.3% annually, retail prices for consumer goods grew at an average rate of 0.6% a year. Life expectancy at birth improved from 43.5 years in 1960 to 66.5 years in 1978, according to World Bank data.

Year	GDP Nominal(Billion USD)	GDP per Capita(USD)	Population(Billion)
1952	30.55	54	0.569
1960	59.72	89	0.667
1970	92.60	113	0.818
1977	174.94	185	0.943

Significant observations on Mao China:

1. Treading on the same path taken by Soviet Union, 1949 onwards China went on to implement a mode of production which was essentially ‘state capitalism’. Soviet Union as a state was the owner of the means of production and ‘commodity’ (which by definition is integrated with exchange-value i.e. ‘price’ in the ‘market’) that were produced. Following similar model, China created a new economy that also revolved around commodity production by state-owned enterprises, agricultural output production by state-owned communes and accumulation of capital by the state (through extraction of surplus from the rural agriculture and light industry). In Soviet Union and China, the ideologues termed it ‘socialist commodity’, however, socialism’ can’t theoretically accommodate production of ‘commodity’ that inherently refers to ‘market’.

In fact as Marxism suggests, the concepts of ‘commodity’, ‘market’, ‘capital’ and ‘surplus capital’ are intricately joined with ‘ownership’ of means of production. Marx and Engels were clear that these concepts don’t have place in socialist/communist society. It is not true that ownership pertains to only ‘private’ citizens, even ‘state’ can own assets to be used as ‘capital’ and the profits out of business gets appropriated by the state authority and close followers.  Undoubtedly, Stalin and Mao being the most committed followers of philosophy and ideology of Marx-Engels-Lenin, were well aware of the final destination of the Marxist journey. Why then both of them set out to accumulate capital in the state treasuries? We will come back to this question again in the last part of this hypothesis in section 5.

2. The central planning system initially adopted from Soviet Union, was the punching bag for CPC leaders whenever they reviewed the planned-vs.-achieved results and found variance (actual results were less than planned). The centralised economic planning as a concept was correct – there were shortcomings in the execution process. Firstly, sector-wise prioritization should have been done that reflects the reality in the society – Chinese society being overwhelmingly agrarian, the 1st Five Year Plan should have assigned primary importance to agriculture and next level of importance to light industry, heavy machinery being at the last layer of importance. Secondly, centralised economic planning needs accurate and complete set of data – China being a vast country with wide regional differences in weather, natural resources, social norms, demography, occupation, infrastructure etc., compilation of complete and correct and data for planning process 70 years back was much more complex than we can imagine today. Thirdly, in reality the central planning was a top-down process albeit with participation of all concerned ministries and departments. In a large country like China, bottom-up would have been a better approach.

3. Government introduced hukou system (originated in medieval China) in 1958 through which all rural households got registered through which the family members will get entitlement for housing, education, medical care in the place of their registered birthplace. In a way government controlled migration of rural population towards urban and semi-urban regions. Intellectuals who value human rights as inalienable natural right, termed this system as draconian. However, such arrangements were highly effective in controlling large-scale migration of unemployed rural people to urban areas causing socio-economic problem in both rural and urban areas.

4. The revolutionary spirit of Mao knew no bounds. Undoubtedly, he was right in emphasizing that, (a) not only economic sphere needs transformation from capitalism to socialism, but cultural sphere of society equally calls for such transformation, (b) the proletarian revolution has a long way to go. Time and again he became impatient with policies that were developed by him and his team earlier. Possibly Mao was oblivious of the fact that, frequent changes in political and economic policy would leave a trail of inefficiency, maybe he was not. During the second half of 1950s, the decisive rejection of Stalin’s achievements by CPSU, dampening of Leninist ideals, and withdrawal of all kinds of Soviet support from China made Mao deeply perceptive of the overall challenges on the way to build socialism in a country– this alone can explain Mao’s vacillation in policy issues and in-depth deliberations on socio-cultural aspects of socialist revolution (a territory, which was much less travelled by Lenin and Stalin). Thus Mao delved into too many intangible factors (apart from political economy) that would influence the final outcome of a complete communist transformation of any society.

4. CHINA IN DENG ERA

After a brief struggle for leadership, Deng Xiaoping took control of CPC in 1978. At the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the CPC held in December’1978 in Beijing, the majority party leaders decided to undertake reform and opening up of economy. They repudiated the Cultural Revolution of Mao era. The reform, as Deng proposed, would develop productive forces through increasing role of market mechanisms and reducing role of government planning.

Agricultural production was stimulated by an increase of over 22% in the procurement prices paid to the peasants for farm produces. The commune system was decollectivized but the state still owned the land and household responsibility system was introduced in agriculture starting in 1979 – individual farming families would get ‘right to use’ on plots of land (divided from old ‘communes’) from government, earn profit by selling their products on the market in lieu of delivering a small contractual amount of produce to the state as taxes. This arrangement increased productivity through the profit incentives for the farmers, and about 98% of farm households were brought under this system by 1984. In 1985, by employing 63% of the country’s labour force the agricultural sector achieved 33% of the GNP, agricultural production got increased by about 25%. Among agricultural produces grains like rice, wheat, corn, barley, millet, cash crops like oil seeds, sugarcane, cotton, jute, fruits, vegetables, poultry and pigs were primarily produced by peasant families. Though efficiency of agriculture sector improved a lot with all arable plots producing at least one crop per year, and under favourable conditions two or three crops a year, fundamental problems remained as before – small farm size, and inadequate agriculture equipment.

Apart from a significant category of small handicraft/cottage industry, light industries formed second category while large industry category included Power plants, Petroleum Refineries, Petrochemicals, Chemicals, Fertilizers, Textile, Steel, Cement, and Automobile. Reforms targeted in urban industrial regions. In industrial sectors, state-owned industries received permission to sell production above the ‘plan quota’ at market at prevailing market prices, as well as received affirmation to experiment with the bonuses to reward higher productivity among employees. Industrial Responsibility System introduced in mid-1980s allowed individuals or groups to manage the state-owned enterprise by entering into contract with government. Private businesses (which almost disappeared after the Cultural Revolution) were allowed to operate and price flexibility was introduced, and gradually private ownership enterprises began to make up a greater percentage of industrial output. Bringing in modern business enterprise management process, government allowed managers to gain control over their business operation including recruitment and layoff (with approval from bureaucrats and CPC). Industrial sector generated around 46% of GNP in 1985 by employing only about 17% of the total labour force in China. Enterprises further got incentive when in 1985 the policy of retaining the net profit (after payment of tax-on-profit to government) within the enterprise was made across China. On banking and financing also there were policy changes – bank loans were made available to the enterprises at a very low interest which would have to be paid back to banks. Budgetary support by government was reduced. For industries, foreign trade procedures were made much easier; (soon special economic zones would be launched to be in the forefront of the boom in foreign trade). The effect of profit-driven competitive environment on working class people was that, many enterprises slowly replaced permanent employment with short-term contractual job as well as eliminated welfare packages for workers – this impacted industrial workers’ living standard and social security negatively.

Perhaps the most sweeping policy decision taken by Deng related to the open door policy for foreign investment. Starting in January’1979, Chinese government created initial 5 special economic zones (SEZ) in Shantou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai (all in Guangdong province), Xiamen (in Fujian province), and Hainan province where many additional infrastructure, fiscal incentives, and freedom from too many bureaucratic regulations were provided to foreign investors for setting up industry. Primarily geared to exporting goods, the five SEZs housed foreign joint ventures with Chinese companies as well as fully owned foreign companies. In 1984, China opened 14 coastal cities to MNC investment: Dalian (Liaoning province), Qinhuangdao (Hebei province), Tianjin, Yantai, Qingdao (both in Shandong province), Lianyungang, Nantong (both in Jiangsu province), Shanghai, Ningbo, Wenzhou (both in Zhejiang province), Fuzhou (Fujian province), Guangzhou, Zhanjiang (both in Guangdong province), and Beihai (in Guangxi province). Beginning in 1985, new economic zones were established in Liaodong peninsula, Hebei province, Shandong peninsula, Yangtze river delta, Pearl river delta, Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou in southern Fujian province, and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous region. In the post-Deng era, these regions became high-power engines of economic growth and technological breakthroughs for the Chinese economy.

The open door policy changed the landscape of foreign trade in China. Before the reforms, combined exports-imports in 1969 was 15% of GDP; with reforms in 1984 it became about 20% and in 1986 it reached 35% of GNP. Textiles, Petroleum, and foodstuff were main export goods while machinery, transport equipment, and chemicals were key import items. By 1986, Japan became the dominant trading partner accounting for 28.9% of imports and 15.2% of exports. During the same time, USA appeared on the horizon as the third largest overall trade partner, next only to Hong Kong which accounted for 13% of imports and 31.6% of exports. Under Deng, the SEZ and foreign trade became significant tools for both foreign direct investment (FDI) and modern technology. Most interesting part of China’s industrial drive was ‘technology transfer’. While historically China was always on the forefront of applied science and technology, as the 18th century was drawing to a close China was slowing down in the technology race compared to west Europe – hence Deng made it a point that following the ‘four modernisation’ programme China should rapidly close the technology gap by upgrading old mining and manufacturing plants as well as installing plants with sophistication.

Apart from huge coal reserves, China had substantial reserves of natural gas. With many rivers running across the country, hydroelectric potential was among the largest in the world. Large number of coal-fired thermal power plants and large hydroelectric projects were undertaken by the government to generate electric energy necessary for a thriving industrial economy.

Undoubtedly Deng’s overall reform programme accomplished very impressive success, but it also gave rise to several serious socio-economic problems – rise of factions attached to neoliberal free-market political economy within CPC, managerial autonomy in state owned and private owned enterprises, rampant corruption, economic crime, widening income disparities, uncontrolled inflation, and large scale moral deterioration. These concerns created huge storm within CPC and party general secretary Hu Yaobang was forced to resign in 1987. The left-of-centre faction of CPC stalled some of the reform programmes. Student leaders mainly based in Beijing and Shanghai who were fascinated by the neoliberal free-market ideology, pointed out to such socio-economic issues in the then Chinese society and built a movement (supported by the Zionist Capitalist Deep State) that aimed at toppling the CPC rule. The People’s Liberation Army was mobilised to break seize by protesting students at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June’1989.

In November and December of 1990 Deng reopened the Shanghai Stock Exchange and established the Shenzhen Stock Exchange respectively. Party Congress in 1992 echoed Deng’s views while stating that China’s key task ahead would be to create a ‘socialist market economy’. And, in 1992 Deng undertook ‘southern tour’ during which he underscored the need to continue reforms to open up the economy. Through these actions Deng re-established control over the party (which was weakened in the aftermath of Tiananmen Square protests) by pushing aside the far-left and left-of-centre factions of CPC. Deng made Jiang Zemin the CCP’s new top leader. A new round of market reforms was initiated. Private enterprises and enterprises owned by the local governments took advantage of easy loans from state-owned banks to expand their business. This again caused inflation and fiscal deficit during 1993. New policy of floating exchange rate and convertibility for renminbi caused about 33% devaluation of renminbi. Foreign Direct Investment was further encouraged and capital inflows to China poured. Economy cooled down after enterprises owned by local governments transferred a larger portion of revenue to the central government, and bank credits were tightened. Exports surged due to devaluation. In 1996, the economy grew at around 9.5% accompanied by low inflation.

Working on the free trade and economic zone policy after 1990, the government opened the Pudong New Area in Shanghai and cities in Yangtze river delta to overseas investment. Since 1992 the government opened more border cities and capital cities of provinces and autonomous regions.

The total number of industrial enterprises rose from 377,300 in 1980 to nearly 8 million in 1990. During the Deng era, higher levels of inflation appeared with reduced government controls – in 1980 consumer prices rose by 7.5% while in 1985 the increase was 11.9% going down to 7.6% in 1986. In 1995 China exported 24.7 billion USD to USA and 149 billion USD to rest of the world. In 1997, the year when Deng departed, share of private consumption in GDP was only around 43% while share of exports in GDP was around 22%.

Changing socio-economic indicators:

Economists John Whalley and Xiliang Zhao estimated the impressive performance of Chinese economy (using Barro-Lee approach) between 1978 and 1999:

• Output growth rate – 9.72%
• Growth rate in Input
  • physical capital – 7.30%
  • labour – 2.03%
  • human capital (represented by average years of schooling) – 2.81%
• Growth rate in Total Factor Productivity (TFP) – 3.64%
• Contribution to GDP growth
  • physical capital – 36.35%
  • labour – 10.78%
  • human capital – 14.95%
  • TFP – 37.93%

Year	GDP Nominal(Billion USD)	GDP per Capita(USD)	Population(Billion)
1980	306.17	312	0.98
1990	394.57	348	1.135
1997	961.60	782	1.23

Significant observations on Deng China:

1. The 14th National Communist Party Congress held in the year 1992 not only backed Deng’s continuous push for market reforms but they thought that China was on the way to create a ‘socialist market economy’. This was the official expression of CPC to document their push for reform using market forces. I doubt, if such terminology existed in pre-Deng China or in pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union.

Again, as the Marxist theory proposed, socialism would be antithesis to market-driven economy which had been propelled by capitalistic mode of production. In capitalist society the ‘factor of production’ would be sourced from ‘market’ and commodity would be sold in the ‘market’. In socialist parlance, concept of market shouldn’t exist irrespective of whether the concept is proposed by any faction within the communist party: ‘left’, ‘right’, or ‘centre’. It was, primarily, the inability of the then CPC leadership to reorganise and galvanize the rural and urban economy to unleash the productive forces; instead they got into the ‘market economy’ which was the engine of ‘mercantile’-‘agrarian’-‘industrial’ versions of capitalism that took root in west European societies since 16th century.

2. Deng was the great architect of what can be termed as the ‘Chinese juggernaut for export’. China’s market reform was undertaken much later compared to Japan and other Asian Tigers. Beginning in the 1980s the late-coming exporter did a splendid job of absorbing huge amount of investment and latest manufacturing technology. Relatively stagnant urban living standards and falling rural living standards resulted in massive transfer of rural labour into the growing export sector. Additionally, the state-owned enterprises already had disciplined, educated, and skilled labour force that made the entry of big Multi-National Corporations (MNC) easy into Chinese market – giants like Boeing, Toyota started their businesses in China through collaboration with Chinese state-owned enterprises who were in same sector of aircraft or automobile. This environment was another legacy of the Mao era. China’s attractiveness to global capital was further enhanced by persistently low level of workers’ wage compared to other Asian countries like Japan, Singapore, as well as the competitive pressure among local provinces who raced with one another to achieve high GDP growth by offering favourable terms possible to foreign investors (ranging from tax breaks to free industrial land).

While China went on to build world’s largest export-dependent economy in 2000s, unlike Japan and other Asian Tigers who built on the basis of private-owned enterprises, Chinese government depended on both: state-owned and private-owned enterprises to manufacture and to export an amazing range of consumer goods to every nook and corner of the world. Deng foresaw this economic boom that provided much needed upliftment of living standard of millions of educated Chinese. However, Chinese economy couldn’t avoid the short-term economic hardships unleashed by such rapid reforms to push export-oriented economy.

3. Far from being a follower of liberal capitalist political thought, Deng was a committed socialist unlike many top leaders of Soviet Union at that point of time. Researchers should remember that for Deng, ‘market economy’ was ‘a method of using black cat to catch mice instead of using a red cat’, and capability development in China would follow the policy ‘hide your strength, bide your time’. In my opinion, Deng didn’t have ever any doubt on the final outcome of the Marxist view that, the final history will be written by the classless communist society. Hence, his advice to build strength.

While authorising the deployment of PLA forces to remove the protesting student by force from Tiananmen Square in 1989, Deng was clear that the leadership of protesting students were liberal capitalist ideologues who was trying to bring down the CPC rule in China using the discontent among the people about corruption-inflation-nepotism. Had Deng and most other senior leadership believed an iota of liberal capitalist philosophy, by 1991, words like ‘socialism’, ‘communism’, ‘Marxism’ would have been completely erased from even the written history of civilization.

Part 2 – pending

Part 3 – pending

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By profession I’m an Engineer and Consultant, but my first love was and is History and Political Science. In retired life, I’m pursuing higher study in Economics.

I’m one of the few decade-old members of The Saker blog-site. Hope that this website will continue to focus on truth and justice in public life and will support the struggle of common people across the world.

An Indian by nationality, I believe in humanity.

توازن العالم في عين العاصفة أميركا بين الوجود واللا وجود

محمد صادق الحسيني

ماذا يجري في دهاليز السياسة الأميركية، على خلفية مقتل المواطن الأميركي ذي البشرة السوداء جورج فلويد خنقاً..!؟

ماذا يحضّر لمستقبل أميركا خلف الستار على عتبة استحقاق الانتخابات الرئاسية..!؟

هل يحضّر أمرٌ ما لن تظهره الشاشات الآن بسبب غبار معارك الشوارع بين الـ «انتيفا» والقوى الخفية ذات اليد العسكرية الطولى التي تخرج من بين عسكر أميركا..!؟

هل يخرج ترامب بطلاً قومياً من هذه المعارك ليعود العسكر فارضين شروطهم عليه ليتخلى عن شعاراته الانتخابية في العام 2016 أم يُطاح به ليتسلّم العسكر الحكم مباشرة وتتحوّل أميركا الى جمهورية موز، ومن ثم تبدأ رحلة تفكّك الفيدرالية والانقسام والحرب الأهلية وزوال القوة العظمى الأميركية على وقع تغريدات وخطوات «أبو ترامب البغدادي» العنصرية والمتوحشة، فيكون ترامب غورباتشوف أميركا في قرن أفولها وانقراضها..!؟

هذه الأسباب وغيرها في القراءة التالية:

اياً تكن أسباب تفجر المظاهرات الاحتجاجية، منذ ما يقارب الأسبوع، في الولايات المتحدة، وبغضّ النظر عن السبب المأساوي المباشر لذلك، أيّ مقتل الشاب الأسود جورج فلويد، وبنظرة موضوعية لا بدّ من التأكيد على ما يلي:

أولا ـ هناك قوى عميقة (ليست الدولة العميقة بالضرورة)، تحكم الولايات المتحدة، لها مصلحة في تصعيد المظاهرات وتسعير الصدامات والعمل على تحويل المواجهات الى مواجهات مسلحة.

ثانيا ـ لا يعني هذا الكلام تعارضاً مع الحقوق المشروعة، والمكفولة في الدستور الأميركي، لهؤلاء الأميركيين بالتظاهر والتعبير السلمي عن مطالبهم العادلة، لا بل الدستورية. ونعني بالدستورية هنا حق المواطن الأميركي من اصول افريقية في المساواة الكاملة والشاملة مع المواطنين البيض في البلاد.

ثالثا ـ وعليه فإن مطالب المتظاهرين الحاليّة، اي المطالبة بالعدالة، لا ترتقي الى مستوى حقوقهم الدستورية. تلك الحقوق (المساواة العملية بين الابيض والاسود) التي تجب المطالبة بتغيير أسس النظام الحاكم من أجل تحقيقها على ارض الواقع. وهذا يعني ضرورة إنهاء التقاسم الحزبي، بين الجمهوريين والديمقراطيين، للحكم في أميركا من دون إجراء اي تغييرات تذكر في مجال حقوق الانسان. اذ لا مساواة في ظل الطائفية السياسية السائدة في الولايات المتحدة والتي تشكل الضمانة الموضوعية لسيطرة العرق الأبيض على كل مفاصل الدولة وتفاصيلها.

رابعا ـ لكن مأزق القوى أو الطبقات المسحوقة في الولايات المتحدة، المواطنون من أصول افريقية وجنوب أميركية، يتمثل في عدم وجود تنظيم سياسي او حزب سياسي، يمثلهم ويقود نضالهم. وهذا يعود لما ذكرناه آنفاً، من الدكتاتورية السياسية، التي يفرضها الحزبان الجمهوري والديمقراطي، والتي هي أقرب ما تكون الى ديكتاتورية الطوائف التي نعرفها في بعض دول العالم الثالث وفي المملكة المتحدة (حكم البروتستانت ضد كاثوليك أيرلندا).

خامسا ـ خاصة انّ ما يتصدّر الاخبار والمعلومات المتداولة، حول القوى التي تحرك هذه الاحتجاجات، هو الحديث عن منظمة انتيفاAntifa ، والتي أعلنها الرئيس ترامب منظمة إرهابية، ما يثير الانطباع بأنها منظمة ثورية تحمل برنامجاً سياسياً يهدف الى إحداث تغيير جذري في الولايات المتحدة. بينما الحقيقة هي غير ذلك تماماً.

سادساـ لذا فإنّ توضيح ماهية هذا المسمّى ضروري جداً، من اجل فهم خلفياته وآفاقه وقدراته، وحتى إرادته في التغيير. فهذا المسمّى ليس حزباً سياسياً ولا منظمة سياسية عسكرية، كالجيش الجمهوري الأيرلندي مثلاً، بل انها مجموعة من التنظيمات الشبابية والطلابية الصغيرة المبعثرة على كل اتجاه سياسي، من أقصى اليسار الى أقصى اليمين، والتي لا تملك لا عقيدة موحدةً ولا برنامجاً سياسياً موحداً ولا خطط عمليات موحدة.

سايعا ـ وهي تنظيمات منتشرة في اوروبا وأميركا بشكل خاص، ومنذ بداية عشرينيات القرن العشرين، إثر استيلاء بيتينو موسوليني وحزبه الفاشي على الحكم في إيطاليا سنة 1922، وما تلا ذلك من محاولات لصعود القوى اليمينية المتطرفة في اوروبا الى الحكم، كمثل أدولف هتلر الذي حاول تدبير انقلاب عسكري للاستيلاء على الحكم في المانيا، وكذلك تحرك الجنرال فرانكو لقيادة القوى الفاشية في اسبانيا والجنرال سالازار في البرتغال…

كل ذلك دفع الى نشأة هذه الحركة، التي رفعت شعارات معاداة الفاشية والتطرف والنازية، وكانت لها فروع ونشاطات في فلسطين، الواقعة تحت الانتداب البريطاني آنذاك. ولكن ما كان يجمعها بالتنظيمات الموجودة في اوروبا هو شعار «التضامن مع إسرائيل» والتي لم تكن موجودة في تلك الحقبة.

ثامنا ـ إذن فما يطلق عليه اسم «أنتيفا» حالياً ما هو الا مظلة لمجموعات، تسمّي نفسها يسارية، تموّلها وتحركها، في حقيقة الأمر حالياً، القوى الخفية التي تحكم الولايات المتحدة الأميركية. وهي لا تزال ترفع شعار التضامن مع «إسرائيل» وتعتبرها «البقرة المقدّسة»، التي تجب رعايتها وتسمينها.

تاسعا ـ أما عن علاقة ذلك بما يدور حالياً من احتجاجات في الولايات المتحدة فتتمثل في أن القوى الخفية، التي تحكم هناك، وبرغم عدم ظهور أي دور واضح لها، الا انها تعمل على استغلال هذه التحركات الجماهيرية العادلة لمصلحة ممثله (القوى الخفية) الجالس في البيت الابيض، وذلك من خلال حملة التصعيد التي ينفذها ترامب والهادفة الى عسكرة المواجهات بهدف:

أ) إظهار نفسه كرئيس قوي، قادر على ضبط النظام والوقوف في وجه «المنظمات اليسارية» التي تعمل ضدّ مصالح الولايات المتحدة، حسب رأيه، وذلك في محاولة لإعادة تحشيد انصاره، من العنصريين البيض، بعد الأضرار التي لحقت بصورته بسبب فشله في ادارة ازمة كورونا داخلياً وفشله في ادارة التوتر مع الصين خارجياً، مما جعل جمهوره من المزارعين يتعرضون لأضرار وخسائر كبيرة، اثر قيام الصين بإلغاء العديد من صفقات المنتجات الزراعية التي كانت ستستوردها من الولايات المتحدة.

ب) تأجيج الصدام الداخلي، بشكل يوصله الى الصدام المسلح، وذلك بهدف تأجيل الانتخابات الرئاسية القادمة، اذا ما اتضح لترامب والقوى الخفية التي تدعمه انه لن يفوز في هذه الانتخابات.

وهذا يعني أن خطابه العنصري وتصرفاته الرعناء مدروسةً بعناية ومخطط لها بدقة وتهدف الى خلق الظروف المناسبة لإعادة انتخاب ترامب، وتحويله الى اداةٍ في ايدي تلك القوى الخفية، من أجل استغلاله لتنفيذ مشاريعهم العدوانية العسكرية، سواءً ضد الصين وروسيا او ضد إيران ومحور المقاومة. خاصة أنّ هذه القوى هي من المتطرفين الإنجيليين، المحافظين الجدد، الذين تربطهم مصالح عقائدية ومالية كبيرة مع الدوائر اليهودية التي تدعم نتن ياهو في الولايات المتحدة، والتي لا تتوانى عن إشعال الحروب، خدمة لمصالح تجمع الصناعات العسكرية الأميركية.

عاشرا ـ وفِي اطار التصعيد الكلامي والعملي، من قبل ترامب، والمُشار إليه أعلاه، فإنّ مرافقة رئيس هيئة الاركان العامة للجيوش الأميركية، الجنرال مارك اليكساندر ميللي للرئيس الأميركي، في زيارته البائسة لكنيسة يوحنا بولص الثاني، في واشنطن، وإن لم يظهر الجنرال ميللي في الصور إلا انّ آلاف الأميركيين قد شاهدوه هناك بالعين المجردة. وبالتالي فإنّ وجود الجنرال ميللي مع ترامب قد أجّجَ موجة الغضب العارمة، التي اجتاحت الاوساط الأميركية، رفضاً واستنكاراً لاستغلال ترامب للدين والمشاعر الدينية الإنسانية للمواطنين الأميركيين، لما لذلك من معانٍ، لا يمكن التستر عليها.

ومن بين أهمّ معاني حضور هذا الجنرال، الرفيع المنصب، ما يلي:

ـ تهديد رئاسي مباشر للمواطنين، الذين تمّ اجلاؤهم بالقوة من محيط الكنيسة، باستخدام القوة العسكرية للجيش الأميركي لقمعهم بإحباط تحركاتهم ومنعهم من ممارسة حقهم الدستوري في التعبير عن الرأي، ما يعتبر تعدياً على الدستور وحقوق الانسان يستوجب محاسبة مرتكب هذه الجريمة ومن تواطأ معه في ارتكابها (الجنرال ميللي) وتقديمهم للمحاكمة، حسب ما تنص عليه القوانين الأميركية.

ـ تحريض الرئيس ترامب، من قبل القوى الخفية الحاكمة في واشنطن، على اتخاذ المزيد من خطوات التصعيد ضد المتظاهرين، وذلك عبر الإيحاء له وللرأي العام الأميركي، بان الجيش يساند ترامب، في ما يتخذه من اجراءات قادت البلاد الى حالة غير مسبوقة من الانقسام والحقت أضراراً كبيرة بمصالح الولايات المتحدة وسمعتها الدولية وأظهرتها كدولة دكتاتورية تمارس أقسى درجات العنف ضد مواطنيها من دون أي مبرر لذلك.

وهو الأمر الذي يظهر نفاق الإدارة الأميركية الصارخ، اذ انها تتهم كل دول العالم تقريباً، بعدم احترام حقوق التعبير عن الرأي وتطالبها باحترام تلك الحقوق. ولكن شرطة ترامب «التي تحترم حقوق الإنسان»، قد داست رقبة المواطن الأميركي حتى قتلته خنقاً، مع ما يرافق ذلك من ألم وتعذيب لا يمكن تخيّل شدته. وهذه جريمة إضافية يجب ان يحاكم الرئيس الأميركي على ارتكابها، ليس فقط بصفته رأس الدولة، وانما بصفته مقصّراً في اتخاذ الإجراءات الإدارية والقانونية اللازمة، التي كان يجب ان تحول دون وقوع جريمةً مروعة كهذه.

من الآن حتى عشية الانتخابات الأميركية المرتقبة في تشرين الثاني/ نوفمبر المقبل، ستظلّ عيون العالم شاخصة الى واشنطن عاصمة الدولة الأعظم في العالم سابقاً والقوى الخفية التي تحاول الانتقام لهزيمة أميركا على أبواب بلاد الشام وبلاد الرافدين وأسوار صنعاء وتخوم إيران الثورة والاسلام ورجال الله في فلسطين ولبنان من معالوت الى إيلات ومن الجولان الى الجليل الى غزة وكل شبر من الضفة الغربية التي ساهم أهلها الصابرون والمحتسبون إلى جانب بحر أهلهم العرب والمسلمين في تهشيم وتقزيم جسم الإمبريالية الأميركية وتحويلها الى نمر من ورق..!

حتى ذلك اليوم نقول:

‏من كان يعبد أميركا وجبروتها فإنّ أميركا في حالة احتضار

‏ومن كان مخزّناً دولارات عليه أن يستبدلها بالتومان ‏أو الروبل أو اليوان…

‏هو الله الحيّ الذي لا يموت.

‏ويبقى وجه ربك ذو الجلال والإكرام.

‏بعدنا طيّبين قولوا الله…

The end of globalisation won’t be televised, despite the hopes of the Western 99% (2/2)

Monday, 27 April 2020 5:46 AM  

By Ramin Mazaheri

Part 1 discussed how the West’s coronavirus response totally ignored the needs of their lower classes, and also how Iran’s “Resistance Economy” rejects Western economic liberalism (and neoliberalism) which has always sought to relegate non-Westerners to second-class economic partners.

As I have written previously, the West’s corona response is not just murderously mediocre but middle-class – it assumes everyone has a comfortable home, savings and a stable job. The West is employing quarantining, control methods and collective-over-individualist concepts used by Asian nations, but without having similar cultures of government economic intervention nor widespread trust in their governments. It is not hysteria to suggest that this could prove fatal to their bubble-filled, high-finance dominated economies.

There is a lot of foolish talk from Westerners, who are effectively forbidden to learn about and discuss how capitalism-imperialism truly operates, regarding how corona will cause supply chains to move back home. This has produced a lot of soon-to-be-forgotten agreement from their politicians, who are desperate to show that – all of a sudden – they care about their lower classes. Recall that the “end of irony” was proclaimed after 9/11 – will we see the “end of globalisation” because of coronavirus?

That’s funny.

The state of Delaware is where most US corporations are located and buy their charters – if it is not the world’s biggest corporate tax haven, according to The New York Times and The Japan Times, the state is certainly among the world’s top five. (Indeed, it should now be no surprise why Delaware senator Joe Biden was chosen to be Barack Obama’s running mate amid the 2008 economic crisis.) It could not be more crystal clear, even though neoliberals in the US often try to sow confusion about this fact: “Delaware corporate law requires corporate directors to manage firms for the benefit of shareholders, and not for any other constituency.” So anyone thinking corporations will sacrifice a mere fraction of their stock price in order to move supply chains back home are absolutely deluded about the possibility of patriotism, much less humanity, in “Capitalism with American characteristics”: their laws explicitly forbid it.

The post-corona persistence of neoliberalism – an ideology predicated on reducing government programs and expenditures for the 99% with ruthless efficiency – means that Western governments both national and local will be so strapped for cash in a post-Lockdown climate that they will be forced to try and save every nickel they can to maximise ever-more inadequate tax revenues and income. They will forced to buy from China, Haiti or whoever can save them pennies, because this is exactly what neoliberalism demands – it fundamentally neuters economic patriotism.

Urban hipsters who perhaps previously would pay premiums to “eat local” (because it is tastier) will soon find that unemployment (or a worsening of the seemingly never-ending underemployment for the West’s youth class) drastically alters one’s menu options. They would like to “eat local”, but many will be forced to forego the local farmers’ market to buy their food as cheaply as possible, and regardless of provenance.

So such talk from Esquire magazine bout how corona will usher in a new economy based around “resilience preparedness” is totally absurd: the very basis of globalisation is hyper-specialisation (Adam Smith) and turning every nation into a single cash crop/cow (David Ricardo’s comparative advantage) writ large, and these two concepts are the very opposite pole of resilience. Hyper-specialisation is hyper-resistant… but in one single area; if classic liberalism or modern neoliberalism or the “free market” selected your country to produce hygienic masks, congratulations! According to them you should jack up the price and the rest of us should not try to domestically produce our own.

Contrarily, we can say that Iran has tried to create “specialisation” in the normal way – within a single national economy’s different regions instead of all over the world, messianically and arrogantly. This is why they have employed a “resistance economy” (with many egalitarian principles held over from the “command/war economy” era), which is based around self-sufficiency, protectionism, government intervention to stimulate innovation in vital sectors, and government ownership in essentially every sector with medium or large importance. This, even more than the insistence that Islam is compatible with democracy, is why the West wages war on Iran.

The good news for Iranians: these economic principles are what promote resilience and preparedness, they curtail the indebtedness/poverty of the lower classes, and they will make Iran far more capable of weathering the economic turmoil of the coming months.

It is amusing that some in the West are now clamouring for sensible, humane, patriotic, efficient measures which Iran has employed for decades. Is Iran’s economic idea more exportable to Esquire if we call it a “resilience economy”, perhaps?

The Iranian economy in opposition to the West’s seemingly certain post-Great Lockdown economic chaos

At the root of this economic program is not anti-capitalism but anti-the-type-of-capitalism which today’s Iranians are violently confronted by: neoliberalism and globalisation. This form of capitalism is the most-geared towards maximising the profits and market concentration of the 1%, whereas a “resistance economy” is fundamentally-geared towards satisfying the needs of the Iranian 99%. The Koran sanctions capitalism, after all, but it bans usury and has clear exhortations to equality and the economic redistribution of massively-ordered charity. (If the West would simply follow the ban on usury – exorbitant interest and debilitating compound interest – they would be so much better off….)

If the Iranian Revolution did not satisfy the needs of their 99%… how can we possibly explain its endurance amid all the growth-sabotaging Cold War from the West? The question never was growth, after all, but re-distribution. The same logical argument stands for anti-imperialist Cuba and North Korea – caricaturing these nations as totalitarian oligarchies will continue to lose its false power for as long as these countries continue to not just endure but thrive (considering Western blockades), and for as long as the West’s post-1980 inequality entrenchment continues. Despite the looming economic crisis, does anyone really believe the West is culturally capable of reversing these inequality trends?

Undoubtedly, the West’s corona overreaction will make their economies – which were already in a Great Recession – even weaker.

Yes, this will force more Western domestic criticism of neoliberalism and globalisation, but will it really? How can it when France’s Muslims, US so-called “White Trash” and their lower-class counterparts across the “West + client” world cannot even be seen on their televisions? We are logical to believe that open criticism of the ideology of globalisation will be muted very shortly, because all these nations have airwaves which are dominated by a handful of corporations; contrarily, the Iranian government owns all the radio and TV waves – to get the outlook of not-always-selfless private media one can turn to Iran’s extremely critical, thriving print press.

Yes, the West’s reduced economies will necessarily reduce the influence and local reach of governments, but this reduced reach can easily be counter-balanced by the drastic quasi-martial laws which have already been employed. France almost certainly has the most over-policed corona lockdown (800,000 citations already), mais bien sûr: they just had an Islamophobia-based two-year state of emergency, which President Emmanuel Macron legalised into normal police practice.

Yes, the gut-wrenching reduction in wealth for the West’s lower classes may provoke “Western-style populism”, but this ideology is intrinsically reformist and not revolutionary. Look at the Five-Star Movement in Italy – it took them eight years to win significant power, but they have not been able to make significant changes. In their last national election the superb Yellow Vests gained merely half the votes of the (ugh) Animal Rights Party.

Yes, Westerners can see that all the evidence points to the necessity that they must change, but we must recall how very culturally chauvinistic they are: The West is hysterically convinced that their system is supreme – even among their “dissidents”, who are usually just “semi-dissidents” at best – despite all the evidence of failure and their perennial disregard of their own lower classes.

So combine this inherent conservativeness (liberal reformism), with neoliberal cultural saturation, with laws that forbid leavening neoliberalism, with “it’s not totalitarian when the West does it”, and it’s hard to compute a conclusion where the Great Lockdown produces a drastic reform of the Western economy, no? They have to overcome all of these trends, laws and false beliefs simultaneously and in great measure.

That would be a revolution. The West, the great thwarter of progressive revolutions, is supposedly now on the cusp of having one?

The only thing more idiotic than such talk are the commentators who accuse Iranian Reformists of being “neoliberals”, which is as stupid as calling Biden-backing Bernie Sanders or the French “socialists”. The Iranians most associated with the “resistance economy” are indeed Ayatollah Khamenei, ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Principlist Party, but the idea that Reformists aren’t hugely, hugely on board with countless resistance economy principles is just eye-rollingly wrong.

The reality – well-known in Iran – is that there is absolutely no room in Iranian politics for any political group which pushes ending the pro-99%, government-interventionist, fundamentally anti-neoliberal direction of the economy for this simple fact: they would never get re-elected by the 99%, and thus such a movement is necessarily finished before it could ever even could get started in Iranian democracy. Capitalism is sanctioned by the Qur’an, so it will always have a place, but neoliberal capitalism (again, all capitalism is not “neoliberalism” just as all socialism is not “violently atheistic Russian Soviet socialism”)? Not hardly.

Smith and Ricardo’s liberal ideas that each region should produce only that which it was perfectly suited to producing had one fatal flaw: such perfect harmony cannot possibly ever exist in a capitalist-imperialist system, because such a system is predicated upon competition. This is not a small flaw in their ivory-tower thinking, nor am I resorting to a mere humbug attack on “human nature” – competition, instead of cooperation, is a poor foundation for human stability and peace.

Such harmony and mutually-beneficial arrangements (and on a global scale, no less!) could only possibly ever be achieved in a world that has a basis which is definitely not neoliberal, which is very wary of capitalism’s excesses and constant exhortations to battles both big and small, and which tacitly accepts resolutely anti-imperialist and thus essentially socialist economics as the foundation.

You may not want Iran’s culture – that’s natural, they don’t want yours.

But across the West their lower classes are clamouring for an economy with many of Iran’s motivations and practices – they will be ignored, sadly.

Ramin Mazaheri 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 the books ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’ and the upcoming ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’.

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

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Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir

www.presstv.co.uk

www.presstv.tv

ماذا يخبّئ ترامب لأميركا والعالم على صفيح كورونا الترامبيّة…!؟

محمد صادق الحسيني

سؤال: لماذا أعلن وزير الدفاع الأميركي، في 25/3/2020 في مقابلة مع رويترز، عن القرار الذي كان قد وقعه بتاريخ 1/2/2020، والقاضي بمنع سفر الجنود الأميركيّين وعائلاتهم خارج الولايات المتحدة، لمدة ستين يوماً؟

جواب: ليس من أجل الاستعداد لشنّ حرب وشيكة ضدّ إيران أو الصين أو روسيا أو الدول الثلاث معاً.

سؤال: وما الذي يمنعه من ذلك؟

جواب: عجز الجيش الأميركي عن تنفيذ أية مهمات خارج الولايات المتحدة لأسباب عديدة وتفشي فيروس كورونا بشكل واسع جداً في الولايات المتحدة وعدم قدرة الحكومة السيطرة عليه وتوجه محافل الحكم في أميركا للاستثمار فيه واستخدامه كحصان طروادة.

سؤال: كيف؟ وبأيّ طريقة؟

جواب: عن طريق تحويله إعلامياً الى عدو حقيقي للولايات المتحدة تجب محاربته ومحاربة من تسبّب في انتشاره؛ ايّ الصين؛ بدليل انّ ترامب يصرّ على تسميته الفيروس الصيني بينما يسمّيه بومبيو فيروس ووهان…!

سؤال: لكن كيف للولايات المتحدة أن تحارب الصين وروسيا وإيران وهي عاجزة عن محاربة كورونا في أميركا الى جانب ما تعانيه قواتها المسلحة من مشاكل عدة؟

جواب: من خلال حشد كافة إمكانيات الولايات المتحدة الاقتصادية والسياسية والمالية والعسكرية ووضعها تحت سيطرة الجيش الأميركي، وتنفيذ انقلاب عسكري، يؤدّي الى تعليق عمل أجهزة الإدارة الأميركية المعهودة والإبقاء عليها كواجهة فقط وإقامة حكم عسكري يسيطر على مقدرات البلاد كاملة، على أمل أن يتمكّن من حشد القوة العسكرية اللازمة لشنّ الحرب التي تخطط لها القوى الخفية التي تحكم أميركا. وهي بالطبع شيء يختلف عما يطلق عليه الدولة العميقة في أميركا والتي يقصد بها البنتاغون والمخابرات المركزية. إذن انّ هاتين المؤسستين ليستا هما مَن يحكم أميركا وإنما هما أدوات القوى الخفية التي تحكم البلاد.

سؤال: وهل ستتمكن هذه القوى الخفية من تنفيذ انقلاب عسكري في الولايات المتحدة؟

جواب: لا شيء يمنع ذلك، خاصة انّ الخطط اللازمة للتنفيذ قد أنجزت وتمّ توزيع مهمات التنفيذ على قيادات ووحدات من مختلف صنوف القوات المسلحة الأميركية وبموجب أمر العمليات، الذي وقعه وزير الدفاع إسبِر يوم 1/2/2020، والمتعلق بمنع سفر الجنود.

سؤال: وهل من مؤشرات إضافية على احتمال وقوع الانقلاب العسكري؟

جواب: نعم، انها الحملة الإعلامية الضخمة التي تديرها وسائل الإعلام المسيطر عليها من القوى الخفية في الولايات المتحدة والتي تركز على أنّ تفشي وباء كورونا قد يفضي الى انتشار الفوضى، وربما الحرب الأهلية، في أميركا وضرورة تدخل القوات المسلحة، في مثل تلك الحالة، لحماية وجود الدولة الأميركية. وهو ما يتمّ تأكيده من خلال قرار ترامب بزجّ الحرس الوطني الأميركي في شوارع المدن الأميركية “لمحاربة فيروس كورونا”. علماً انّ الحرس الوطني يتبع وزارة الدفاع الأميركية مباشرة ويبلغ عديده 450 الف عسكري ويعتبر بمثابة جيش رديف للجيش الأميركي.

سؤال: ومن سيتولى قيادة الانقلاب العسكري وتشكيل الحكومة العسكرية الأميركية؟

جواب: إنه الجنرال O‘ Shaughnessy (أو شاوغنيسي) قائد القيادة الشمالية المولجة اليها عملية حماية ودعم الأطر غير العسكرية في الولايات المتحدة (المقصود الإدارة الأميركية) وإنفاذ القانون، وحماية الدولة حال تعرّضها لخطر وجودي. علماً أنّ هذه القياده قد تمّ تشكيلها عقب أحداث 11/9/2001، ومقرها في كولورادو سبرينغس في ولاية كولورادو.

انتظروا المزيد من حاكم أميركا الكذاب والمحتال والمراوغ.

لكنه الذاهب الى قعر الهاوية بأسرع مما تتصوّرون.

بعدنا طيّبين قولوا الله…

Baghdad Embassy: The Secret Logistics of America’s Global Deep State

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on JANUARY 10, 2019

Eric Zuesse

Why is America’s Baghdad Embassy the world’s largest embassy — and the largest by far?

“It’s as if the US Embassy is there not only to protect American interests, but to manage the entire world from the heart of the capital, Baghdad.”

— Iraqi Sheikh Qassim Al Ta’ee, as quoted on 27 December 2011 in Al Iraq News and translated by Ibrahim Zaidan from the original Arabic by Nicholas Dagher

Zaidan’s article went on to say:

The world’s largest embassy is situated in the Green Zone and fortified by three walls, another barrier of concrete slabs, followed by barbed wire fences and a wall of sandbags. It covers an area of 104 acres, six times larger than UN headquarters in New York and ten times larger than the new embassy Washington is building in Beijing – which is just 10 acres.

[EDITOR’S’ NOTE: THE TEN-ACRE US EMBASSY IN BEIJING IS THE SECOND LARGEST OVERSEAS CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN THE HISTORY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE — AND THE 104-ACRE US EMBASSY IN IRAQ IS THE LARGEST.]

So, America’s largest diplomatic mission is surrounded by high concrete walls, is painted in black, brown and grey and is completely isolated from its environment. … The United States announced several months ago that between diplomats and employees, its embassy would include 16,000 people after the pullout of US forces.

On January 1^st, Will Sillitoe headlined at the Helsinki Times, “What does the US embassy in Baghdad export to Finland and dozens of other countries?” and he reported that:

More than a million kilograms of cargo were shipped from Baghdad to different parts of the world, reveals US embassies procurement documents.

Mysterious cargo shipments from the US Embassy in Baghdad to other American embassies and consulates around the world have been revealed on a Wikileaks’ database. Procurement orders of US embassies are public documents, but Wikileaks put them in a searchable database making it easier to analyse.

The database displaying worldwide US embassy orders of goods and services reveals Baghdad as a postal and shipping centre for tonnes of freight.

Though military freight might be expected between the US and Iraq, records show that embassies across Europe, Asia, the Middle East, the Americas and Africa are all receiving deliveries from Baghdad too.

According to Wikileaks’ database, orders to ship more than 540 tonnes of cargo to the US were made in May 2018. The same document shows other main delivery destinations included 120 tonnes of freight to Europe, and 24 tonnes to South Africa, South America and Central Africa respectively. …

On December 29^th, Sillitoe had headlined “Guarded warehouse near airport and mysterious cargos from Baghdad; what is the US embassy in Helsinki up to?” and he opened:

Why does the US Embassy in Helsinki need a big warehouse near Malmi Airport and what are the contents of thousands of kilograms of cargo sent to Helsinki from Baghdad?

A dilapidated warehouse in Malmi is being used by the US Embassy for unknown operations after a Wikileaks release revealed its location.

The anonymous looking building on Takoraudantie is notable only for the new 427 meter perimeter fence that according to the Wikileaks’ database was ordered by the US Embassy in April 2018.

Situated across the street from the main entrance of Malmi Airport, the warehouse with its 3 meter high security fence appears an unlikely location for official embassy business. Neighbouring companies include a car yard and a tyre warehouse.

Helsinki Times visited the perimeters this weekend. Security personnel, young Finns in uniforms with American flags on their arms, appeared nervous and suspicious when asked to comment on the warehouse. …

Strategically located US embassy complex in Helsinki and the newly built “Innovation Center”

Sillitoe closed that article by saying: “The searchable Wikileaks database and info about Finland related activities can be found HERE.”

That link leads to a “US Embassy Shopping List” of 24 separate documents, one of which is “RFP 191Z1018R0002 Mission Iraq Shipping Transportation Services”, dated “5/17/18.”

Item 2 there is “Packing of unaccompanied air baggage (UAB) – Throughout Iraq – US Embassy Baghdad, Baghdad International Zone, US Consulate General in Basrah, US Consulate General in Erbil, US Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, US Erbil Diplomatic Support Center (Note: under the specified unit of measure the US Government contemplates ‘per kilogram’ of gross weight in kilograms)”

The “Quantity Estimated” is “100,000” and the “Unit of Measure” is “kilogram.”

Item 7 is “Storage Services – Monthly Storage of containers – Throughout Iraq – US Embassy Baghdad, Baghdad International Zone, US Consulate General in Basrah, US Consulate General in Erbil, US Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, US Erbil Diplomatic Support Center.”

The “Quantity Estimated” is “100” and the “Unit of Measure” is “40’ Container.”

Item “Section B.5 Sub-CLIN:84E” is “From Republic of Iraq to Western European Countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City, Nicosia)”

The “Quantity Estimated” is “5,000” and the “Unit of Measure” is “kilogram.”

Item “Section B.5 Sub -CLIN:84 F” is “From Republic of Iraq to Eastern European Countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Kosovo)”

The “Quantity Estimated” is “5,000” and the “Unit of Measure” is “kilogram.”

By far the biggest categories for shipments are to the eastern US states: “From Republic of Iraq to the Unites [sp.] States Eastern Time-Zone – the following States: VT, ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, MD, DC, NY, PA, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, WV, MI, OH, IN, KY, GA”

There are 11 such categories:

“Section B.5 Sub-CLIN:85A”

“Section B.5 Sub-CLIN:86A”

“Section B.6 Sub-CLIN:84A”

“Section B.6 Sub-CLIN:85A”

“Section B.6 Sub-CLIN:86A”

“Section B.7 Sub-CLIN:84A”

“Section B.7 Sub-CLIN:85A”

“Section B.7 Sub-CLIN:86A”

“Section B.8 Sub-CLIN:84A”

“Section B.8 Sub-CLIN:85A”

“Section B.8 Sub-CLIN:86A”

Each one of those eleven will receive 30,000 kilograms, under the contract.

In each of the eleven, the products will be going “From Republic of Iraq to the Unites [sp.] States Eastern Time-Zone – the following States: VT, ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, MD, DC, NY, PA, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, WV, MI, OH, IN, KY, GA”

That’s a total of 330,000 kilograms. That’s 727,525 pounds, or 364 tons, which are going from the world’s largest Embassy, America’s in Baghdad, to America’s eastern states.

In addition, around another 1,091,287 pounds are going from the Baghdad Embassy to other locations throughout the world.

The RFP, or Request For Proposal, informs its recipient that “The Contractor shall provide the services for the base period of the contract,” but “base period” isn’t defined in the RFP. However, the contract does specify that there shall be “a firm fixed unit price for any contract line item number in the Base Year,” and therefore the obligations under any contract will continue for at least one year, but possibly longer (if renewed). Furthermore, the “Type of Solicitation” here is not “Sealed Bid (IFB),” but instead “Negotiated (RFP),” which means that the US Government officials who are “Soliciting” these offers will choose whom to request to present an offer; and, if two or more recipients are being approached and make an offer, then the US official will select the winner that he or she prefers, and won’t be required to accept the lowest-priced one, but can instead take some sort of kickback, as long as there is no evidence of having done that. It can easily be arranged. Furthermore, private arrangements bond the two parties, even if the arrangement is just a one-time deal, because neither party will want the private arrangement to be made public, and if ever it does become public, then both parties will be revealed as guilty; it’ll hurt both parties. Moreover, since any contract may be renewed, the offeror of the contract, which is the Embassy employee, holds the power to affect that — the length of term, and everything that’s associated with it, will be controlled by the Embassy’s side, and not by the contractor’s side. And no matter how brief a contract-term might be, and no matter how many non-Americans might be signing any particular type of contract during any given period of years, none of the private parties will have any motive to make public any kickback. Consequently, there is every motive to keep these arrangements private; and the Embassy employee will always be the more powerful one in any private arrangement that is made with any contractor.

Prior RFPs are also online, for example this one from 16 November 2014. The annual amounts seem to be fairly stable.

On 10 October 2007, while the US Embassy in Iraq was still building, the Congressional Research Service issued to Congress their report, “US Embassy in Iraq”, and it said:

The US Ambassador to Iraq (currently Ambassador Ryan Crocker) has full authority for the American presence in Iraq with two exceptions: 1 — military and security matters which are under the authority of General Patraeus, the US Commander of the Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I), and 2 — staff working for international organizations. In areas where diplomacy, military, and/or security activities overlap, the Ambassador and the US Commander cooperate to provide co-equal authority regarding what is best for America and its interests in Iraq.

By “Patraeus” it meant David Petraeus. He was the person who designed the torture-system that was applied by his assistant James Steele and used in Iraq to extract from prisoners everything they knew about Saddam Hussein’s assistance to the 9/11 event. Petraeus subsequently became a regular participant in the annual meetings of the private and secretive Bilderberg group of representatives of the US and allied nations’ billionaires that constitute The West’s Deep State. Prior to that, Petraeus and Steele had organized and instituted in El Salvador that Government’s death-squads, to eradicate opponents of US control over that country.

The most corrupt parts of the US Government are usually in the military, because the entire Defense Department isn’t audited. It is instead financially an enormous dark hole, even to US Senators and Representatives, and even to the US President. Only members of the US Deep State might have an approximate idea of how much money is getting ‘lost’ in it. After all, the Deep State isn’t, at all, answerable to the public. Since it operates in secret, it can’t be. The consequences of the Deep State, however, can become public, and may contradict what is shown in publicly available documents and public statements, which have been circulated, to the public, by the press. In any nation where a Deep State rules, such contradictions, between public assertions and the actual outcomes, are so commonplace as hardly to be even news at all, if and when they appear, at all.

On 2 July 2017, the great investigative reporter Dilyana Gaytandzhieva headlined “350 Flights Carry Weapons Diplomatic for Terrorists”, and provided documentation of the US CIA’s intricate global network, which secretly “sends $1 billion worth of weapons” through many countries to jihadists in Syria to take down Syria’s Government. Iraq was mentioned 6 times in the original publication of her article, and is mentioned 9 times in the 29 April 2018 updated version. That secret US supply of weapons to jihadist groups to overthrow Bashar al-Assad and his secular, non-sectarian, Baathist Party, is a secret operation, just like the US State Department’s Baghdad Embassy’s operations are, and that Embassy could even be this particular operation’s headquarters.

The 200-page, December 2017, study, “Weapons of the Islamic State: A three-year investigation”, by Conflict Armament Research Ltd., states in its Conclusion:

IS forces, like most non-state armed groups, acquire significant quantities of weapons and ammunition on the battlefield… Evidence presented in this report, however, confirms that many of the group’s weapons — and notably its ammunition — are newly manufactured, having been delivered to the region since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011. These weapons originate in transfers made by external parties, including Saudi Arabia and the United States, to disparate Syrian opposition forces arrayed against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Here are just a few of the details that this passage in the summary was based upon and summarizing:

On pages 36-9:

CAR has documented and traced numerous weapon systems in service with IS forces. Many derive from shipments made to the US government, or to entities operating under US government contracts. The United States has acknowledged its support to Syrian opposition forces, orchestrated primarily through resupply from the territories of Jordan and Turkey.26 All of the shipments originated in EU Member States; in most cases, US retransfers (exports made after purchase by the United States) contravened clauses in end-user certificates (EUCs) issued by the United States to EU supplier governments. The United States signed these certificates prior to transfer, stated that it was the sole end user of the materiel, and committed not to retransfer the materiel without the supplier government’s prior consent. It did not notify the supplier states concerned before [violating that, and] retransferring the materiel. …

On 21 December 2016, Jaysh al-Nasr, a Syrian armed opposition faction active in the Hama Governorate of Syria, published a set of photographs of its fighters.29 In one of these, Jaysh al-Nasr fighters are operating a 9M111MB-1 ATGW30 bearing an identical lot number and a serial number (365) close in sequence to the one CAR documented (286) in Iraq, suggesting both were part of the same supply chain. …

In May 2015, Syrian YPG forces recovered a PG-7T 40 mm rocket from IS forces near Al Hasakah, Syria, where CAR documented it on 20 May 2015. The Government of Bulgaria confirmed that it exported the item to the US Department of the Army through the US company Kiesler Police Supply. The application for the export licence was accompanied by the original EUC issued by the US Department of the Army (with a non-re-export clause) as well as a delivery verification certificate. The item was exported on 23 June 2014.32 … CAR has yet to receive a reply to a trace request sent to the United States regarding these rockets.

Page 54 says:

Like the United States, Saudi Arabia has provided support to various factions in the Syrian conflict, including through the supply of weapons. Working with the Bulgarian authorities, CAR has traced numerous items deployed by IS forces to initial exports from Bulgaria to Saudi Arabia. These transfers were uniformly subject to non-retransfer clauses concluded between Saudi Arabia and the Government of Bulgaria prior to export. In this respect, onward retransfers by Saudi Arabia of these weapons contravene its commitments to the Government of Bulgaria not to re-export the materiel in question without Bulgaria’s prior consent.

Just like in the case of the Baghdad Embassy’s agreements with contractors, the powerful party in any contract will be the party whose side is paying (the buyer), and not the party whose side is supplying the service or goods (the seller). Money always rules.

The CAR report, which was issued just months after Dilyana Gaytandzhieva’s report, was entirely consistent with, and largely overlapped, hers. The US and Saudi Governments were not only using Al Qaeda as their main proxy in southwestern Syria to lead the jihadist groups to overthrow Syria’s non-sectarian Government, but were also using ISIS in northeastern Syria as their main proxy forces there to overthrow Syria’s Government. After Russia’s entry into the war on 30 September 2015 on the side of Syria’s Government, America’s assistance to Al Qaeda in Syria (Al Nusra) continued in order to help replace that Government by one which would be controlled by the Sauds. And America’s assistance to ISIS was almost totally replaced then by its assistance to ethnocentric Syrian Kurds in the northeast as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which were fighting against both the Government and ISIS. Russia, of course, was against both Al Qaeda-led jihadists and against ISIS jihadists. (Turkey was against ethnocentric Kurds, because those people want to take a chunk out of four nations: Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran. The CIA edited and written Wikipedia’s article on Kurdistan conveniently doesn’t even make note of that key fact.) So: America was using a complex combination in order to take over Syria for the Sauds ultimately to control. But Russia’s entry into Syria’s air-war on 30 September 2015 has overcome that U.S-led and Saudi financed combination against Syria.

Would any secret facility, anywhere in the world, be better situated to manage that operation, on America’s side, than America’s Baghdad Embassy?

So, the question then arises: who benefits from this enormous Embassy, and from the Deep State of which it is a part? The American public certainly do not.

Generally speaking, the people who get paid to promote endless wars, such as sellers of the constantly receding (propagandistic) “light at the end of the tunnel”, support continuing if not intensifying such wars. Typical is the neoconservative (in foreign affairs) and neoliberal (in domestic affairs) David Bradley, who controls and is the Chairman of Atlantic Media, which publishes the neocon-neolib The Atlantic, and many other public-affairs magazines and websites. His “Defense One” site posted, on 22 March 2018, from its Executive Editor, “The War in Iraq Isn’t Done. Commanders Explain Why and What’s Next”, and closed with “‘We need to be very careful about rushing to the exit, and secure this win,’ said the senior US military official. ‘This is a significant win.’” The “senior US military official” wasn’t identified, other than to say that he “spoke only on background.” But, of course, George W. Bush had already told the world all about this “win,” back in 2003. Salespeople just continue their pitches; it’s what they are paid to do, and so they never stop.

The annual military costs alone, for the US to keep being, as its propaganda euphemistically puts the matter, “policeman for the world” (such as, in the Syrian case, by means of those proxy boots-on-the-ground warriors, the jihadists, and the ethnocentrists among Syria’s Kurds) are actually sufficient, even on their own, to cause America’s soaring federal debt — and that’s not a benefit, but an extreme harm, to the public. Future generations of Americans will be paying the tab for this. And the costs for being “policeman for the world” are enormous. Even just militarily, they’re over a trillion dollars each and every year.

Though current US Defense Department budgets are around $700 billion annually, the United States is actually spending closer to $1.2 trillion annually on the military when all of the nation’s military spending (such as for military retirements, which are paid by the Treasury Department not by the Defense Department) are factored in. The only people who benefit from being “policeman for the world” are the billionaires of the US and (though to only a lesser extent) of its allied countries. And, of course, they pay their lobbyists and propagandists. It’s really being policeman for those billionaires, who own and control all of the international corporations that are headquartered in this alliance. The US public isn’t paying the tab by any cash-and-carry basis; instead, future generations of Americans will be paying the tab, for today’s US-and-allied billionaires. Those billionaires today are the chief beneficiaries. It’s all being done for them and their retinues. That’s why America’s Founders didn’t want there to be any “standing army” at all. They didn’t want there to be any permanent-war government. They wanted military only for national defense — not for any billionaires’ protection or ‘insurance policy’, or what might actually be publicly paid and armed thugs in service abroad as if they were the nation’s armed forces — when, in fact, they are the armed forces for only those billionaires and their servants. America’s Founders wanted no military at all that serves the aristocracy. They wanted no aristocracy, at all. They wanted no “standing army” whatsoever. They wanted only a military that protects the public, when a real military danger, from abroad, to the domestic public, exists. Of course, that’s possible only in a democracy, but the US is no democracy now, even if it might have been in the past.

On 11 December 2017, Montana State University headlined “MSU SCHOLARS FIND $21 TRILLION IN UNAUTHORIZED GOVERNMENT SPENDING; DEFENSE DEPARTMENT TO CONDUCT FIRST-EVER AUDIT”, but the Pentagon’s promised audit has failed to materialize. A major accounting firm was hired for the task but soon quit, saying that the Defense Department’s books were too incomplete to proceed further. Three days before that article was published, a colleague of that MSU team headlined at Forbes, ”Has Our Government Spent $21 Trillion Of Our Money Without Telling Us?” and said that the answer was yes. All of this ‘lost’ money was spent merely by the Department of Defense. Just managing the more-than-a-thousand US military bases worldwide requires a lot of money. Any actual war-fighting adds to that US military-base cost — the war-fighting costs are extra. Those military bases etc. are the “standing army.” Protection of our billionaires’ investments abroad, and of their access to raw materials in underdeveloped countries (such as to manufacture cellphones), is an enormously expensive operation. Basically, the American public are hugely subsidizing America’s billionaires. But only future generations of Americans will be paying that debt — plus, of course, the accumulated interest on it.

The Department of Defense isn’t the only federal Department that has ever been unauditable. On 18 June 2013, Luke Johnson and Ryan Grim at Huffington Post bannered “GAO Cannot Audit Federal Government, Cites Department Of Defense Problems” and opened: “The Government Accountability Office said Thursday that it could not complete an audit of the federal government, pointing to serious problems with the Department of Defense. Along with the Pentagon, the GAO cited the Department of Homeland Security as having problems so significant that it was impossible for investigators to audit it. The DHS got a qualified audit for fiscal year 2012, and is seeking an unqualified audit for 2013.” However, on 17 November 2014, the Washington Post headlined “Homeland Security earns clean audit two years running”, and Jerry Markon reported that, “For the second straight year, the Department of Homeland Security has achieved a much sought-after clean audit of its financial statements by an independent auditor.” Furthermore: “for nearly all of its first decade of existence, DHS was unable to achieve a clean audit because it had been created by combining 22 federal agencies and components into one massive department. That led to inherent challenges.” That wasn’t the situation at the Defense Department, which was far different. On 8 December 2017, NPR headlined “Pentagon Announces First-Ever Audit Of The Department Of Defense”, and opened: “‘The Defense Department is starting the first agency-wide financial audit in its history,’ the Pentagon’s news service says.” However, almost as soon as the auditing team began their work, they quit it, because the Department’s books were garbage. Only the DOD is like that — almost entirely corrupt.

On 2 October 2018, Project Censored headlined “$21 Trillion in Unaccounted-for Government Spending from 1998 to 2015”. However, it falsified. It opened: “Two federal government agencies, the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), may have accumulated as much as $21 trillion in undocumented expenses between 1998 and 2015.” None of that was actually HUD, it was 100% DOD. And all of “the alleged irregularities in DoD and HUD spending” were not merely “alleged,” but they were, in fact, carefully checked and repeatedly verified, and were only at DOD, despite what Project Censored published. This inaccuracy is important. If people don’t know that DOD is the only unaudited federal Department, then they can’t possibly understand why that is the case. The reason it is the case, is that almost all of the “waste, fraud, and abuse” in the US federal government is at the Defense Department. It has never been auditable. How much do America’s ‘news’-media report this reality?

DOD is consistently, year after year, and decade after decade, the federal Department or federal or local governmental function, that Gallup’s polling has shown to be more respected by the US public than is any other. (It’s identified there as “The military”. It beats, for examples: “The Supreme Court,” “Congress,” “The public schools,” “The presidency,” “The police,” and “The criminal justice system.”) The most corrupt isn’t the most despised; it is the opposite — it is the most respected.

Secret government tends to be costly for taxpayers, and also tends to add a lot to the governmental debt. An unauditable governmental department, such as the Defense Department is, cannot function, at all, without an enormous amount of corruption. This is the reality about America’s military. However, there’s much propaganda contradicting it. The news-media also serve those same billionaires.

How likely, then, is it, that America’s Baghdad Embassy serves the US public? It certainly does not serve the Iraqi public. But it does serve the people — whomever they are — who control the US Government. And that’s the Deep State. That’s the reality, but what’s promoted is fantasyland. And this fantasyland, which is promoted, is called “American democracy”.

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Why the UK Establishment Hates Jeremy Corbyn

By Johanna Ross

Global Research, December 08, 2019

He’s been termed a ‘national security risk’ and an ‘enemy of the state’ by the mainstream media. On Sky News recently former Conservative and Times columnist Matthew Parris referred to his ‘mad’ conspiracy theories as he discussed with other journalists the danger of him being elected to power. One might think they were discussing a terrorist or criminal, but instead it was none other than Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the opposition, whose only crime has been to speak out against the harmful aspects of Britain’s foreign policy in recent years. Against regime change wars, against arms sales to Saudi Arabia and a supporter of Palestine – Corbyn has openly contradicted the establishment position for decades. Why? Because, like most conscious individuals, he deemed it to be immoral.

You see the problem with Jeremy Corbyn is that he tells the truth. Lord Finkelstein, writing in The Times on Wednesday, wrote a piece designed to send shivers down the spine of Britain’s most ardent capitalists. ‘How Lenin inspired Corbyn’s world view’ it was entitled, as he tried to persuade the public that the Labour leader threatens everything the UK establishment stands for. He quotes from a 2011 foreword written by Corbyn to the book Imperialism, in which he wrote,

“Since World War Two, the big imperial force has been the United States on behalf of global capitalism and the biggest, mostly US-based corporations. The propaganda for this has presented itself as a voice for ‘freedom’ and carefully and consciously conflated it with market economics.”

He goes further to suggest that Soviet expansionism was different from that of the US:

“The influence of the Soviet Union around the world was huge, but tempered by an inadequate industrial base in comparison to the United States and the ruinously expensive arms race that hastened its decline, and eventual collapse in 1990. But the Soviet influence was always different, and its allies often acted quite independently.”

These ‘dangerous’ opinions are of course opposed by the establishment, whose very existence depends on a flourishing capitalist order.

The reason this subject has resurfaced of late is, of course, because of the 70th anniversary of NATO. This military alliance, consistently portrayed in the West as a force only for good in the world, has been criticised by Corbyn in the past for its ‘obsession with Cold War politics’ and for provoking Russia through its expansion into Eastern Europe.  Describing it as a ‘US tool’ for shaping policy in Europe, in his 2014 Corbyn article entitled ‘NATO belligerence endangers us all’ has dared to venture into territory that no other UK politician would dare go into. Suggesting that there were ‘huge questions surrounding the West’s intentions in Ukraine’, that NATO has been wrongly allowed ‘to act outside its own area since the Afghan war’ and that ‘it’s time we talked with Russia’ are statements strong enough to raise more than a few eyebrows in Westminster. Dismissed as crackpot conspiracy theories, there are very few mainstream journalists and commentators willing to tolerate such views for a second, let alone work out what they might mean.

The Plot to Keep Jeremy Corbyn Out of Power

Thankfully there are some who have been able to see past the propaganda that Corbyn is some kind of ‘Soviet sleeper’ and terrorist sympathiser intent on undermining national security and destroying Britain’s ‘special relationship’ with the US, and as such he has got to the position he is in.  For the reality is that Corbyn’s mantra is essentially based on one basic principle: promote peace not war. And that is something which unfortunately is a huge threat to weapons manufacturers, from which the UK made £14bn last year, making it the world’s second largest arms exporter.

Therefore the ‘deep state’, will do everything it can to persuade the British public that Jeremy Corbyn is our enemy. Former MI6 head, Sir Richard Dearlove, writing in the Mail on Sunday last month warned ‘do not even think about taking the risk of  handing this politician the keys of No.10’ as he boasted that neither Corbyn nor many of his close allies would have passed security vetting in order to join the agency. He asserted that Corbyn and his strategist, Seamus Milne, were ‘compromised by their past’ as they had ‘embraced the interests’ of Britain’s enemies. Dearlove, whose resilience has survived the criticism he faced over his role in the Iraq war, is still be listened to it seems. Indeed, his anti-Corbyn articles have featured regular in the mainstream press in recent years, along with several television interviews. And he is not the only former intelligence officer to have spoken out against Corbyn, despite the fact that the security services are supposed to remain neutral.

A recent article by Mark Kennard illustrates the extent to which this principle is being flouted. He writes “The stories — which quote former or current members of the army, navy and special forces, as well as MI5, MI6 and an ex-senior civil servant — have averaged one every six weeks since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party in September 2015. There have, however, been significant spikes in frequency during the 2017 and 2019 general election campaigns.” Kennard goes on suggest that intelligence officers have in fact provided journalists in the mainstream media with secret documents as part of what he terms a ‘campaign’. It’s not hard to agree that this is a strong possibility. In 2018 the government’s Integrity Initiative scheme – an intelligence operation involving journalists and academics, designed to counter ‘Russian propaganda’ – was exposed, and it was found to be openly tweeting against Corbyn. This was one of the first indications that the media campaign against Corbyn could be orchestrated. In a previous interview with Professor David Miller at the University of Bristol, he also told me of the ‘unconstitional animus’ towards the Labour leader which he said was operating in the same way as the Zinoviev case in 1924.

So the threat Corbyn poses is, in fact nothing new – we’ve been here before with previous potential socialist governments. With baited breath one awaits the result of next week’s election; for if indeed Jeremy Corbyn does gain the keys to No.10 Downing Street we can only imagine what turmoil the establishment will be in…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Johanna Ross, Global Research, 2019

Globalism’s Last Disgrace: The Army vs. the Yellow Vests

TOM LUONGO | 27.03.2019 | FEATURED STORY

There are few people in this world more odious than French President Emmanuel Macron after his behavior this week. I’m sure there are child molesters who are worse. But as a man who is pivotal in the future of hundreds of millions of people, his decision to order the French military to quell the Yellow Vests protests with live ammunition is simply vile.

Macron outed himself as the very symbol of what animates the globalist elite he represents.

Disdain.

The disdain he holds for the people he leads is palpable. It’s as palpable for his disdain for the British who voted for Brexit. To him the EU is all, the EU is inevitable and when faced with the choice of serving France or serving the EU, he chooses the EU every time.

That is what led him to this disastrous decision to deploy the French military to the streets for the first time since 1948 with orders to shoot protestors.

And that disdain is so complete that he doesn’t realize what happens if even one of those men goes too far and takes the President at his word. Thankfully, that did not happen.

But if it did, he would have lost complete control of his country, if he hasn’t already.

The estimates for Act XIX of the Gilets Jaunes this weekend were over 125,000 across France. That many people taking to the streets risking getting shot is not something you dismiss with a wave of your hand.

It is something as a leader you need to take very seriously.

Because the real fear for Macron is not a violent demonstration that ends with protestors shot and killed. No, the real fear is the protests that are peaceful.

Because what happens, Mr. Macron, if the soldiers you deployed to suppress attendance to these demonstrations see first-hand just how much the violence reported has been overblown?

Or worse, the lack of it confirms their suspicions that the violence was committed by agent provocateurs who now didn’t show up because it’s no longer worth the €25/hour they are being paid to sow discontent?

They’ll see exactly what Macron doesn’t want them to see: angry, dispirited, desperate people with legitimate grievances expressing those feelings the only way they know how.

If Macron wasn’t courting civil war before this weekend, he is now.

Because an uprising against a corrupt and unresponsive government by some people is one thing. It starts with the most angry but it can spread over time only if the government doesn’t hear them.

Macron’s reactions have only made things worse at every turn.

So, while the people started this fight for the future of France it will be the military that ends it. And woe to Macron and the French political elite if the military on the ground sides with the people they were sent to shoot.

There is nothing more cowardly than a supposedly liberal, tolerant democracy sending in the military to shut down and order violence against is own people for taking to the streets. It is simply the order of tin-pot dictator with delusions of adequacy.

Prudent leadership stems from having weapons and knowing when and how to use them. The images coming from France have been horrific and no better than those captured during Mariano Rajoy’s crackdown on Catalonia during its independence referendum in 2017.

That response cost him his job. So too will it be for Macron now that he has crossed that line.

Macron is under the orders of his paymasters in The Davos Crowd to get control over France. He will not be removed from office as long as he acts in accordance with their wishes. By now they would have replaced him with someone more acceptable to defuse the situation.

There is only one problem with that. There is no one else.

Macron’s approval rating is abysmal. He’s polling behind Marine Le Pen’s National Rally who will send more members to the European Parliament than his En Marche will in May.

He was already the bait and switch candidate in 2017’s election. The globalist-in-reformer’s clothing. And now that he’s the focal point of the Gilets Jaunes’ anger nothing short of a violent put-down of their rebellion will save Macron at this point.

Because they know this and they know that he hates them.

But a violent put-down is only winning the battle to lose the war.

With the EU locked in mortal combat with Brexiteers and Italy pushing the envelope in the European Council, there’s no room to maneuver here.

So, this continues until it can’t. At which point Macron’s legitimacy will evaporate and political change will occur. But the globalists behind Macron and in French political circles will put that off for as long as possible.

That’s why the lack of violence at ACT XIX’s marches this weekend was so important. Macron’s bluff was called. And that means we’re nearing the end of his story. And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving weasel.

Merkel, you’re on deck.

The Noose Tightens Around the EU’s Neck

TOM LUONGO | 12.12.2018

Last weekend’s protests across France may have done far more damage than just smashed windows and stolen iPhones. The depth of French anger at the neoliberal globalist policies of President Emmanuel Macron has finally been heard.

And Macron’s response may be exactly the thing needed to destroy what is left of imperial Europe’s credibility.

Macron’s handling of these protests have been nothing short of abysmal. He began November the darling of the globalist set I like to call The Davos Crowd, excoriating any sense of national pride, likening it to terrorism.

He also called for the creation of a Grand Army of the EU and pushed hard for banking federalization to consolidate power under Brussels over the currency, the true Achilles’ heel of the EU itself.

Then a planned tax hike on diesel fuel, which was sold to the French as a way to combat global warming, as part of the EU’s unquenchable desire to tilt at climate windmills, erupted in a nation-wide peaceful protest.

At which point Macron called the protesters ‘thugs.’

And now, after two weekends of violence and having scrapped the diesel tax, Macron emerges from his bunker to reaffirm France’s commitment to cracking down on the violence. But at the same time, as reported by Zerohedge, he’s calling for significant tax cuts and welfare spending.

Macron – whose approval rating is at an all time low, says he has asked his government to increase wages by 100 euros per month beginning in January as part of a series of new measures to be released in detail on Tuesday. He also announced that overtime hours won’t be subject to payroll tax, and that his administration will scrap a tax hike on poor and low-income retirees. Furthermore, Macron asked companies to pay end-of-year bonuses which won’t be taxed, and will suspend a CSG levy on pensions below 2,000 euros per month.

Macron also said that immigration “must be debated” as well, as anti-immigrant sentiment has spread throughout Europe.

Correct me if I’m wrong but France is already running a budget deficit that defies EU regulations. So, how is Macron going to pay for these programs and cuts?

Does Brussels even care?

No, they don’t because Macron is one of theirs so anything that can save his government from extinction will be tolerated. But what this move by Macron signifies is how close the Yellow Vests are to winning, because there’s no way these kinds of things would be on the table if the political winds hadn’t shifted far enough to leave him badly exposed.

With his approval rating dropping faster than Deutsche Bank’s stock price, Macron had to do something to stem the tide against him. It’s so bad even the rest of the French political establishment are sharpening their knives looking for a no-confidence vote and his resignation.

So, this is a desperate bid to quell the anger by throwing some money around and supporting tax relief for the very people who are rioting against him and turn some of the public’s opinion his way.

I note that Marine Le Pen has kept her mouth mostly shut while this is going on allowing the tempest to gather strength on its own. It’s been more than a week since she called for the French parliament to be dissolved for the first time in 20 years.

And, in my mind, that’s a very good thing. Le Pen is a divisive figure and by her staying out of this it doesn’t give the compliant European media any chance to link these protests to her and ‘far-right’ and ‘alt-right’ she’s supposed to occupy.

Instead they’ve had nothing at all to focus on but the protests themselves while test-marketing a tired “Russia hacked muh protest” narrative without proof or cause.

The best part about this move by Macron is that Italy’s Matteo Salvini, a man who walks through crowds in Rome like he’s the messiah, can use this to enflame Italian passions (not a difficult proposition, let me tell you) over just how unfair the EU is treating them with respect to their budget.

Salvini is looking at this proposal of Macron’s like it truly is manna from heaven. But for the EU, does it really have any other choice? When you’ve stepped off the cliff and are falling, anything you can do to keep from hitting the ground is what you do regardless of the long-term damage. Survival is all that matters.

And that’s exactly where the EU and Macron are now. Every action they take to try and hold this dysfunctional and tyrannical union together is only tightening the noose around their necks and hastening their eventual demise.

The more they struggle to maintain control in one place the more they empower their enemies in another.

The little Dutch Boy in Brussels is running out of fingers.

Nations as Foreign Capital Corporations

December 02, 2018

by Francisco Fernández-Bullón for The Saker Blog

As shadow banks become authentic governments of countries, the nations gradually turn into foreign capital corporations or companies, which enslave the workforce. Capital or money doesn’t have a nationality. Its homeland is the accounts, hidden by its owners so as not to pay taxes. Traditionally these accounts were in Switzerland or in the Virgin Islands, but are now scattered around the world in many centers, turned into the cash boxes and are the true homeland of that one percent that monopolizes the riches of the planet.

This is especially true for small countries such as Honduras, which probably never was a proper country, but rather a group of ranches owned by a bunch of families and now on its way to definitively become a foreign capital corporation without nationals. Left behind are only wretched employees with miserable wages. The foreign capital company strips all of the homelands of its excess inhabitants, who then have to migrate on foot looking for other lands. The only nationals that Honduras has at the moment are Orlando Hernandez and his cadre of cocaine traffickers who are the only ones who feel at home in the country (although they would probably prefer to live in Miami and be North Americans) and perhaps the high-ranking US military stationed at the base of Palmerola. They are probably the only ones who can walk the streets of Tegucigalpa boasting with impunity of their elite privileges preserved only by the fear or ignorance of the people; an ignorance that they do everything in their power to encourage. I do not include the rank and file soldiers of the base, because surely they will spend their time dreaming of returning home from time to time; returning home to their own country, that probably has also turned into an immense foreign capital corporation with four or five subsidiaries (Blackrock, Vanguard Group … and of course the Carlyle group, the most emblematic). Nationals without a homeland or with a shrunken one like Syria may perhaps console themselves a little for their misfortune, thinking that the capital in the hands of some Arab sheiks is converting middle-class or lower-class Americans into employees of Ben Salman with slowly diminishing salaries. However scarce the rights enjoyed by the Hondurans that manage to enter the stepmother country of adoption that could be the USA, they’ll always have more than in their own country, where they have none and where their death isn’t news. Now finally they have become “news” after many decades of being anonymous victims, thanks to an epic journey on foot, crossing the hostile lands of Central America and North America: lands hostile to those who don’t have more capital than only their hands or their wit, as long as they do not use it to foment crime and robbery. It is possible that those Mexicans who contemplate this diaspora, and are also subject to the abuse of local mafia bosses backed by Washington, feel wrongly lucky. Thinking that they are on one higher rung of the global pyramid, and I don’t mean the Aztec one, but the pyramid of the Ponzi scheme perpetrated by the directors of the Vanguard group or Carlyle, is a false sense of consolation. It only allows the Mexicans to deceive themselves because the foreign capital corporations will continue oppressing them all the same. This hopeless consolation does serve the bigwigs of the banks and corporations in that the Mexicans don’t become fully aware of the oppression that they suffer and don’t decide to rebel against it.

Meanwhile, the nation of Honduras is on its way to becoming universal, because it is a model that Chiquita’s prominent executives want to export to the entire world. They do not want to only ship bananas. They are also committed to exporting slavery and misery as this is part of the model. And the Mexicans and the Americans themselves are becoming Hondurans exceptionally quickly, and if the immigrants don’t hurry to get into the northern country as soon as possible, they could find a nation as tyrannical as their own, but of a much bigger size. Because the real mission that Trump has entrusted to the army on the border with Mexico is not only to stop their progress but to keep intact the mirage that his is a free and prosperous nation, when it stopped being such, a few years ago.

The Bush administration by means of a rigged election, took good care of cutting the constitutional guarantees with its false war on terrorism (which is nothing more than a war against the liberties of America and the rest of the world). This started the long road to privatize the homeland and deliver their wealth into the hands of a few entrepreneurs who frequently disguise themselves as politicians and who change the legislation at will and for their own benefit. It seems very revealing to me that a banana company like Chiquita (because the banana one is the company and not the nation) is in charge of keeping at bay the thirst for freedom and justice of the Honduran people.

In this way, the Hondurans are diminished, and a distorted image of them is projected to the world that allows their oppressors to keep them in the status of serfs or ignorant peasants who serve only to work a land that doesn’t belong to them, with semi-starvation wages. If Honduras is a banana republic, it is because the banana foreign capital companies like Chiquita strangle its development. The role played by Chiquita in the financing of the death squads of Colombia is well demonstrated when they were condemned to pay a “symbolic” fine of 25 million dollars for financing the self-defense groups in that country.

The directors of Chiquita could have saved the money paid to the death squads by raising the salary and improving the coverage of their employees (instead of cutting it as they intend to do now in La Lima). We must ask ourselves, then, why didn’t they do it?. Does such behavior gratify the ego of executives who take a sadistic pleasure in subduing and oppressing their employees under the soles of their feet to feel themselves important? Are they psychiatric fodder? Are they perverts who desperately need someone to knock them down on a couch to be psychoanalyzed? Is that the only explanation? Or would such an initiative have found the rejection of the Colombian elites, of a no less sinister profile, who contemplate any improvement in the living conditions of the humble classes of that country as a threat? Do they fear that this improvement will arouse the envy of other sectors of the population that could claim, in turn, more just living conditions for themselves? The relationship between corporate fascism and sadomasochism is very clear. It is not necessary to consult with any specialist in mental illnesses about that. The problem, or one of them, is that the victims of the sadism of the fascists do not usually present themselves on a voluntary basis. About the sadism of the assassins, I do not want to joke because it’s too terrible.

Regarding this, the Argentine psychoanalytic school has failed us; it didn’t penetrate into the heart of horror, it didn’t sit the assassins on the couch, and sadly neither in the dock to dig into the garbage of their minds, more tormenting than tormented, and profoundly sick with an infectious disease that looks remarkably like the rage. You only have to read their threatening statements. But perhaps psychoanalysis wanted to transform the patient so that it would integrate better or worse in a sick society, and not to transform the sick society as a whole, and I mean into everyone’s society. Because in the new neo-liberal order, psychopaths spring up like mushrooms. Psychopathy is the crop that gets favored most, together with that of transgenic soybeans. They are transgenic psychopaths fed with Kelloggs watered with glyphosate.

We must ask ourselves these things because it is not enough to accuse the corporations of all the evils of this world. Their bad practices thrive in societies of authoritarian tradition that prevail in most Latin American countries (and increasingly everywhere) where the armed man is worshiped, and solidarity or the disinterested struggle for the common good is considered a dishonor. It is a cult of death and weapons that spread everywhere with fascism, and that also corrodes American society. The “perverse” exaltation of the bully, on the part of both men and women, intensifies with the crisis and threatens to plunge us all into a new global conflagration of apocalyptic consequences. The new times, and the new model propose the villain as a hero. We can not get tired of repeating it: the money to pay the thugs and murderers was foreign, but the murderers are native.

Chiquita has changed ownership (supposedly, because it is impossible to know who is hiding behind that innocent-looking name), but it does not seem to be willing to change its practices. And now it is engaged in breaking the strikes, utilizing the Honduran army, which is actually the army of Chiquita. We saw this in La Lima, Colonia San José not long ago,where 400 workers were shot, and several of them were tortured. Chiquita Honduras dismissed 105 workers in retaliation, and 34 arrest warrants were issued against the leaders of the strike committee.

The links that Chiquita Brands maintained with prominent figures of the American political and economic panorama are very clear. Many accuse it of being behind the coup that ousted Zelaya. Chiquita was represented by a powerful US law firm, Covington & Burling LLP and its consulting firm, McLarty Associates. President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, was a Covington partner and defense attorney for Chiquita when the company was accused of hiring the death squads in Colombia. George W. Bush’s ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, currently Trump’s national security adviser, worked as a lawyer for that firm, and the vice president of McLarty Associates was none other than John Negroponte, who played a leading role in the Contra war against Sandinista Nicaragua.

The organizations and individuals that conspire in Honduras are undoubtedly the same ones that want to put an end to the Nicaraguan democracy by disguising themselves as a non-profit or an altruistic organization, now named the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation. The old School of the Americas, where General Romeo Vásquez did his studies as coup supporter, has graduated to a new name just as Vásquez graduated “cum laude” in the techniques of torture, intimidation, and extermination. The fact that such a school remains open despite its bloody history of dishonor and infamy, gives us an idea of how highly it is esteemed in the new world order (which is the same as the old one, but only worse). The degree of impunity which war criminals walking free enjoy, is rampant. We need a non-profit or philanthropic organization that tells us which NGOs are worthy of the name, and that does not include the Cosa Nostra or the Ndrangheta among its members, who will very soon call themselves philanthropic organizations. I recommend Front Line Defenders, committed to the clarification of the murder of the defender of the land, and president of Muca, Jose Angel Flores as well as the defender Mr. Silmer. Another black chapter in the history of Honduras that deserves a separate essay.

If we try to find out the nationality of a corporation like Chiquita, we enter an authentic labyrinth where it is difficult not to get lost. According to some sources it is – in theory – Swiss. Switzerland, the homeland of evaded fortunes is an ideal country and opaque as no other to hide your gains, but its headquarters is in the canton of Vaud and in Florida, which means that it has at least a double nationality. The Safra Cutrale group that acquired it not long ago is an international network of companies that has its headquarters in Sao Paulo, that is, in Brazil, the perfect country to establish the headquarters of a corporation like that one, now that Bolsonaro and the ultra-right is ruling it. Did the executives of Chiquita decide to make the company Brazilian because, in a country as corrupt as that one, where judges send to prison whoever pleases them based on the false testimonies on the part of criminals without credence, their crimes would never come to light?

Safra and Cutrale, the new owners of Chiquita, not only commercialize bananas, but they also commercialize transgenic soybeans, which is a crop that spreads like fascist cancer through Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, and just as neoliberalism, takes hold of those countries. The cultivation of soybeans thrives and already represents 50 percent of the arable land in Argentina. This, however, compromises food security and contributes to spreading the hunger that its defenders say they intend to fight. Violent expulsion of farmers from their lands and introducing changes in legislation that favor the cultivation of these crops, support the concentration of land and wealth in a few hands. It is hugely ironic that the profits of such crops are dedicated to paying the national debt contracted by corrupt politicians or members of the army following the wise advice of the IMF. As many already know, this institution is expert in ruining the economy of countries with the only objective being to fatten their accounts and those of the financial funders who are very savvy in tricks of all kinds. These fraudulent practices deserve a separate essay.

Transgenic soybeans (generously irrigated with Monsanto’s carcinogenic insecticide) not only threaten Argentina’s food security, but it is also a threat to health throughout the world since such poisonous pesticide has been found in alarming proportions in a multitude of foods consumed everywhere. The oppression in the Americas don’t come free of charge for the rest of us: we get it served on a tray, food dressed with carcinogenic. Pharmaceutical lobbies (Monsanto merged with Bayern not long ago) are very active bribing or pressuring European MEPs (like Richard Ashworth and John Agnew) who dine together in restaurants serving organic food. Of course, the glyphosate is left for the masses.[1]

Thus, if Honduras is described as a banana republic, we can already speak of a soy republic in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, or would it be better to call them soy dictatorships? Monsanto impoverishes us all as it impoverishes the variety of seeds and degrades and sickens them; suppressing small farmers and suppressing diversity in agriculture and putting countries on their knees before the big foreign capital corporations of the food, pharmaceutical and armaments complex.  The foreign based bankers can only but smile.  

Honduras is a priority; together with El Salvador and Guatemala it is the cornerstone where the lies and the tyranny in the Americas, need many schools. Its freedom is the freedom of all of us. That is why it is so important that we help it to free itself so that Honduras exports not only bananas but liberty and justice to the rest of the continent.

[1] https://corporateeurope.org/food-and-agriculture/2017/10/last-minute-pro-roundup-lobbying-ahead-high-level-monsantopapers