The US, Russia, and Iran butt heads in Syria and Iraq

AUG 23, 2023

Source

Amidst the influx of thousands of US troops into West Asia, Syria is once again at the heart of a multifaceted battle for control, which will likely be played out on its troubled, contentious border with Iraq.

Ahmed al-Rubaie

In a significant development last month, US military convoys rolled into Iraq via the Arar crossing with Saudi Arabia. This visible display of foreign force movements saw a portion of the convoy making its way to the Ain al-Assad base in western Iraq, while the rest headed toward the US occupation base of Al-Tanf in Syria.

In July, the US Department of Defense unveiled its plan to deploy approximately 2,500 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, stationed at the Fort Drum military base. Their mission: Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR), the codename for the US-led military campaign against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

Given the fact that US troops were assumed to be gone from Iraq since last year, pro-US media and political commentators went into overdrive trying to convince a cynical Iraqi public that these new troop movements suggest a healthy development in Washington’s policies toward Baghdad. But will it work?

Syria’s strategic significance 

Today, the focal point of the Russian-American-Iranian power struggle in West Asia is in Syria. This strategically located country serves as a pivotal Meditteranean gateway for Russia’s military presence, and is the Arab cornerstone for the Axis of Resistance which extends from Iran to Lebanon and Palestine.

Geopolitically, Syria’s significance derives from its vital location at the crossroads of three continents, and shares borders with five countries: Turkiye (822 km), Iraq (605 km), Jordan (375 km), Lebanon (370 km), and Palestine (76 km). Moreover, Syria’s coastal stretch along the Mediterranean Sea, spanning 192 km, holds tremendous strategic sway in the realm of global security, politics, and economics.

For these multifaceted reasons, Washington has stayed fully engaged on the Syrian file as an important arena from which to curtail Russian and Iranian influence throughout the region. As such, regime change scenarios have played an outsized role in US policy in West Asia. 

In 2011, spurred on by the euphoria and optimism of the so-called Arab Spring, anti-government protests erupted in Syria and were very quickly infiltrated by western weapons and agendas.  

A plethora of armed factions emerged during this turbulent period, each backed by different foreign states and interests, including the Free Syrian Army, Al-Nusra Front,  ISIS, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and various other armed extremist groups. 

By 2012, it became clear that chief among the countries involved in supporting terrorist militias in Syria were the US, Turkiye, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. In a direct display of support, Washington threw its weight behind the Kurdish-led SDF, offering training and weaponry to help ethnic Kurds carve out an autonomous zone in eastern Syria, emptied of much of its Arab population. 

These machinations were not lost on Russia and Iran, who entered the fray upon the request of the Syrian government, and rallied  support from the likes of Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).

For much of this conflict, western powers turned a blind eye to the burgeoning activities of terrorists along the Syrian-Iraqi border – and by 2014, ISIS managed to seize control of Mosul and three Iraqi provinces.

The Iraqi-Syrian border, stretching over 605 km, fell under ISIS’s dominion as it severed supply lines to Iraqi factions fighting in Syria. This strategy aimed to force Iran to withdraw its support of Syrian President Assad.

But in an unexpected countermove, mostly Iran-backed Iraqi forces launched campaigns to reclaim territory from ISIS’s grasp. After an arduous 1,200 days of battles, they emerged victorious, wresting control of the Iraqi borders from the grip of the self-proclaimed caliphate. 

Disputes on the border 

On the Syrian side of the border, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), aided by Russia and other allies, successfully reclaimed a vast swathe of territory from armed opposition militias, leaving only pockets of militias in eastern Syria, notably in the city of Idlib, where Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Al-Nusra Front) dominates. 

Of particular concern to the US has been the prominent presence of the Iran-supported PMU along Syria’s borders with Iraq. In order to control that border, the US-led international coalition – occasionally joined by Israeli forces – has launched countless targeted operations against the PMU along the Iraqi border. Washington argues that it does so in “self-defense,” to prevent attacks against US forces stationed at bases like Syria’s al-Tanf and Iraq’s Ain al-Assad. 

It is a position unsupported by international law: US forces illegally occupying a sovereign state cannot claim self-defense.

Nevertheless, these dynamics have compelled the US to prioritize the Iraqi border within its broader Syria strategy. As strategic expert Hazem al-Sharaa tells The Cradle:

“These borders are not only part of the Syrian war game but have become part of the Ukrainian war and Washington’s conflict with both Moscow and Tehran.”

Today, control of the al-Qaim (Iraq’s side) border crossing are held firmly by the PMU. When the US feels a need to undermine that control, it makes claims of PMU attacks against US bases and troops, in order to launch a lethal US retaliation at PMU positions.

In the broader picture, Russia – as a steadfast ally and strategic partner to Damascus – also plays a role in tightening the grip around the illegal US occupation of Syria, with Russian forces now reaching a point of contact with the US-backed SDF.

A proxy theater for Russia and the US 

This has “raised the American side’s fears of a decline in its influence in Syria,” says Ali al-Shammari, a researcher at Al-Rafidain Center for Strategic Studies. “Washington lost on the Ukraine front, and does not want another loss on the Syrian front,” he tells The Cradle. 

For Vladimir Vasiliev, a senior researcher at the Institute for the United States and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a US loss in Ukraine may ratchet up confrontation in Syria quickly: Washington “is attacking Russia with Ukrainian hands. The failure of this attack will prompt America to resort to a backup plan in Syria.”

On 23 July, 2023, a potentially dangerous episode unfolded as a Russian Air Force fighter jet narrowly avoided a collision with a drone from the US-led coalition. These past months have seen subtle yet palpable tensions grow between US and Russian forces in Syria.

Syrian intelligence sources tell The Cradle that US forces in Syria have increased from 500 to 1,500 soldiers, all of whom have entered the country via the Al-Waleed border crossing from Iraq. Meanwhile, a high-ranking officer within the Iraqi border guards reveals that there are “indications of an upcoming military operation by the US army on the Syrian side of the border with Iraq.”

A senior security source in the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), on the other hand, reports to The Cradle that “the Americans whom we meet at the Joint Operations Command weekly, and who inform us of all their movements and air strikes inside Iraqi territory against ISIS, did not inform us of any military operation inside Iraqi territory.”

Stakes and alliances 

Suspicions over US military ploys grew further on 7 August, when Iraqi Defense Minister Thabet al-Abbasi paid a secret visit to Washington, accompanied by prominent army commanders and the head of the CTS.

Although the details of the visit remain undisclosed, private sources tell The Cradle that Iraqi officials were presented with a new deployment strategy for US forces in eastern Syria. Implementation of this strategy is expected upon the conclusion of US reinforcement efforts.

The sources add that the Americans emphasized the necessity of neutralizing Iraqi Shia armed factions and preventing their involvement in potential clashes between US forces and the SAA along the Iraqi border. As Ghazi Faisal, director of the Iraqi Center for Strategic Studies, tells The Cradle, US interest in Syria appears not to have diminished a whit:

“Washington’s plan in Syria has three axes: forcing Moscow to bring in more forces to Syria to relieve pressure on Ukraine, blocking the Iranian presence in Syria, and cutting off Iran’s supply of advanced missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

Qamishli, a city situated in northeastern Syria approximately 680 km from Damascus, emerges as a potential epicenter for the brewing confrontation between US and Russian interests, due to the coexisting spheres of influence between US forces and the SDF on one hand, and on the other, the Russian military position at a local airport. 

In this intricate mix, several military factions aligned with both Tehran and Damascus also stake a claim on these areas. Kirill Semenov, an expert from the Russian Council for International Affairs, notes that “In the event of any provocation from any party, all possibilities will be available.

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

The Empire’s Revenge: Set Fire to Southern Eurasia

24.04.2023

Source

By Pepe Escobar

Hegemon hacks are spinning that the North Atlantic has relocated to South China. Goodnight, and good luck.

The collective cognitive dissonance displayed by the pack of hyenas with polished faces driving U.S. foreign policy should never be underestimated.

And yet those Straussian neo-con psychos have been able to pull off a tactical success. Europe is a ship of fools heading for Scylla and Charybdis – with quislings such as France’s Le Petit Roi and Germany’s Liver Sausage Chancellor cooperating in the debacle, complete with the galleries drowning in a maelstrom of  hysterical moralism.

It’s those driving the Hegemon that are destroying Europe. Not Russia.

But then there’s The Big Picture of The New Great Game 2.0.

Two Russian analysts, by different means, have come up with an astonishing, quite complementary, and quite realistic road map.

General Andrei Gurulyov, retired, is now a member of the Duma. He considers that the NATO vs. Russia war on Ukrainian soil will end only by 2030 – when Ukraine would basically have ceased to exist.

His deadline is 2027-2030 – something that no one so far has dared to predict. And “ceasing to exist”, per Gurulyov, means actually disappearing from any map. Implied is the logical conclusion of the Special Military Operation – reiterated over and over again by the Kremlin and the Security Council: the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine; neutral status; no NATO membership; and “indivisibility of security”, equally, for Europe and the post-Soviet space.

So until we have these facts on the ground, Gurulyov is essentially saying that the Kremlin and the Russian General Staff will make no concessions. No Beltway-imposed “frozen conflict” or fake ceasefire, which everyone knows will not be respected, just like the Minsk agreements were never respected.

And yet Moscow, we got a problem. As much as the Kremlin may always insist this is not a war against the Slavic Ukrainian brothers and cousins – which translates into no American-style Shock’n Awe pulverizing everything in sight – Gurulyov’s verdict implies the destruction of the current, cancerous, corrupt Ukrainian state is a must.

A comprehensive sitrep of the crucial crossroads, as it stands, correctly argues that if Russia was in Afghanistan for 10 years, and in Chechnya, all periods combined, for another 10 years, the current SMO – otherwise described by some very powerful people in Moscow as an “almost war” – and on top of it against the full force of NATO, could well last another 7 years.

The sitrep also correctly argues that for Russia the kinetic aspect of the “almost war” is not even the most relevant.

In what for all practical purposes is a war to the death against Western neoliberalism, what really matters is a Russian Great Awakening – already in effect: “Russia’s goal is to emerge in 2027-2030 not as a mere ‘victor’ standing over the ruins of some already-forgotten country, but as a state that has re-connected with its historic arc, has found itself, re-established its principles, its courage in defending its vision of the world.”

Yes, this is a civilizational war, as Alexander Dugin has masterfully argued. And this is about a civilizational rebirth. And yet, for the Straussian neo-con psychos, that’s just another racket towards plunging Russia into chaos, installing a puppet and stealing its natural resources.

Fire in the hole

The analysis by Andrei Bezrukov neatly complements Gurulyov’s (here, in Russian). Bezrukov is a former colonel in the SVR (Russian foreign intel) and now a Professor of the Chair of Applied Analysis of International Problems at MGIMO and the chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy think tank.

Bezrukov knows that the Empire will not take the incoming, massive NATO humiliation in Ukraine lying down. And even before the possible 2027-2030 timeline proposed by Gurulyov, he argues, it is bound to set fire to southern Eurasia – from Turkey to China.

President Xi Jinping, in his memorable visit to the Kremlin last month, told President Putin the world is now undergoing changes “not seen in 100 years”.

Bezrukov, appropriately, reminds us of the state of things then: “In the years from 1914 to 1945, the world was in the same intermediate state that it is in now. Those thirty years changed the world completely: from empires and horses to the emergence of two nuclear powers, the UN, and transatlantic flight. We are entering a similar period, which this time will last about twenty years.”

Europe, predictably, will “whither away”, as “it is no longer the absolute center of the universe.” Amidst this redistribution of power, Bezrukov goes back to one of the key points of a seminal analysis developed in the recent past by Andre Gunder Frank: “200-250 years ago, 70 percent of manufacturing was in China and India. We are going back to about there, which will also correspond to population size.”

So it’s no wonder that the fastest-developing region – which Bezrukov characterizes as “southern Eurasia” – may become a “risk zone”, potentially converted by the Hegemon into a massive power keg.

He outlines how southern Eurasia is peppered by conflicting borders – as in Kashmir, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan. The Hegemon is bound to invest in a flare-up of military conflicts over disputed borders as well as separatist tendencies (for instance in Balochistan). CIA black ops galore.

Still Russia will be able to get by, according to Bezrukov: “Russia has very big advantages, because we are the biggest producer of food and supplier of energy. And without cheap energy there will be no progress and digitalization. Also, we are the link between East and West, without which the continent cannot live, because the continent has to trade. And if the South burns, the main routes will not be through the oceans in the South, but in the North, mainly overland.”

The biggest challenge for Russia will be to keep internal stability: “All states will divide into two groups at this historic turning point: those that can maintain internal stability and move reasonably, bloodlessly into the next technological cycle – and then those that are unable to do so, that slip off the path, that bloom a bloody internal showdown like we had a hundred years ago. The latter will be set back ten to twenty years, will subsequently lick their wounds and try to catch up with everyone else. So our job is to maintain internal stability.”

And that’s where the Great Awakening hinted at by Gurulyov, or Russia reconnecting with its true civilizational ethos, as Dugin would argue, will play its unifying role.

There’s still a long way to go – and a war against NATO to win. Meanwhile, in other news, Hegemon hacks are spinning that the North Atlantic has relocated to South China. Goodnight, and good luck.

Gallup’s Latest Poll Shows That Those Americans Obsessing Over Russia Are A Fringe Minority

Aug 4 2022

Source

By Andrew Korybko

The fact that only 1% of Americans regard Russia as the US’ “most important problem” shows just how out of touch the Mainstream Media is with their targeted audience’s interests. That in turn adds credence to the speculation that they’re being ordered by their government to wage this unprecedented information warfare campaign against Russia despite it only being popular with a fringe minority.

The Mainstream Media (MSM) has been waging an unprecedented information warfare campaign against Russia for nearly half a year already, yet Gallup’s latest poll shows that literally only 1% of Americans consider it to be the US’ “most important problem” despite their government already sending Kiev tens of billions of dollars in their name as part of its proxy war against that Eurasian Great Power. This confirms that those Americans who obsess over Russia are a fringe minority.

The polling company also noted in their report that the 1% of those who consider Russia to be their country’s “most important problem” is a steep drop from March when 9% of them shared that opinion. This suggests that Americans were most powerfully influenced at the onset of the MSM’s anti-Russian information warfare campaign but have since grown numb to it, with domestic issues like inflation, dysfunctional leadership, and abortion being regarded as much more important by them nowadays.

That’s bad news for the warmongers in Washington who wrongly assumed that their targeted audience could continue seeing Russia as their country’s “most important problem” well into the summer. What seems to have happened is that their MSM proxies overplayed their hand and have thus dealt irreparable damage to their information warfare operations after 99% of Americans no longer really care all that much about the Ukrainian Conflict.

Absent a major provocation aimed at artificially manufacturing another false narrative fearmongering about Russia, it might very well end up being the case that this trend is irreversible. Simply put, the MSM shared too many claims about Russia too fast to the point that most people started tuning out after realizing that everything they were being told about what a threat it supposedly was to their country never ended up panning out.

Russia never attacked NATO, World War III didn’t break out, and no fearmongered nuclear apocalypse ever happened unlike what the MSM warned was about to happen. The Ukrainian Conflict remains contained and Americans quickly realized that they have much more important things to worry about like inflation, which nobody seriously blames Russia for. “Putin’s price hike” that Biden never tires of talking about hasn’t caught on and is widely mocked as intellectually insulting propaganda.

There’s probably nothing that the US Government can do to make its people care anymore since most probably wouldn’t bite the bait even if their intelligence services engineered a major provocation like was earlier predicted. This suggests that the Democrats can’t realistically campaign on the Biden Administration’s support of Kiev since 99% of voters don’t think that it addressed their country’s “most important problem”. To the contrary, a growing number consider it to be a money laundering operation.

The fact that only 1% of Americans regard Russia as the US’ “most important problem” also shows just how out of touch the MSM is with their targeted audience’s interests. That in turn adds credence to the speculation that they’re being ordered by their government to wage this unprecedented information warfare campaign against Russia despite it only being popular with a fringe minority. Building upon this observation, it can be concluded that American media isn’t as “independent” as it claims to be.

With a view to the future, it’s unlikely that the MSM’s obsessive smears against Russia will end anytime soon even though 99% of Americans don’t consider it their country’s “most important problem”. That’s because the US Government wants to falsely signal to its transatlantic vassals that their own people supposedly haven’t lost interest in this proxy war in the hopes that this lie will convince their leaders not to waver in their support of Kiev like American officials worry is already in the process of happening.

Like the author noted last week, “The Zelenskys’ Vogue Photoshoot Exposed What A Charade The Ukrainian Conflict Has Become” while Gallup’s latest poll just confirmed that observation with statistical facts that nobody can deny since that company is regarded as the world’s most reputable in its field. This “politically inconvenient” development proves what a failure the MSM’s US Government-managed information warfare campaign against Russia has been.

Nonbelligerent Russia an Existential Threat?

May 2, 2021

By Stephen Lendman

Source

Democratic Russia is a leading proponent of world peace, stability, cooperative relations with other countries, and compliance with the rule of law.

In stark contrast, hegemon USA and its imperial partners represent an unparalleled threat to everyone everywhere — at home and abroad worldwide.

Since established after the Soviet Union’s dissolution in December 1991, the Russian Federation never attacked or threatened other nation.

Its geopolitical agenda is polar opposite how hegemon USA operates.

Throughout the post-WW II period, the US raped and destroyed one country after another — for the “crime” of not bowing to a higher power in Washington.

From preemptive war on nonbelligerent North Korea to the present day, Washington’s only enemies were and remain invented.

No real ones existed since WW II ended.

None exist today — not Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or any other nation poses a threat to US sovereignty, territorial integrity, or overall security.

Claims otherwise by its ruling authorities and press agent media over the last 75 years were fabricated to maintain a heightened state of national emergency over barbarians at the gates that haven’t existed since the Civil War ended in 1865.

Yet in recent years, spurious claims otherwise keep surfacing with disturbing regularity.

In summer 2015, then-US joint chiefs chairman General Joseph (fighting Joe) Dunford defied reality by falsely claiming that Russia’s threat to US security is “nothing short of alarming (sic),” adding:

“If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia (sic).”

Whenever claims like the above surface, no evidence supports them because there is none.

So they’re invented to unjustifiably justify spending as much or more on militarism, warmaking, and a global empire of bases than all other nations combined — while homeland needs vital to most people go begging.

In April 2019, then-US army chief of staff/current joint chiefs chairman General Mark Milley falsely claimed the following:

Moscow is likely to “threaten our interests for the next 20 years (sic) as they attempt to regain control of historic spheres of influence (sic) and shape European economic and security structures in their favor (sic),” adding:

Moscow seeks to undermine US-dominated NATO in “all regions of the world (sic).”

Around the same time, head of the  US Strategic Command General John Hyten expressed concern about the Pentagon’s ability to defend the nation against a Russian threat that didn’t exist and doesn’t now.

Last February, US European Command/Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Tod Wolters falsely accused Russia of “engag(ing) in destabilizing and malign activities across the globe (sic), with many of those activities happening close to home” in Europe (sic),” adding:

Moscow “remains an enduring existential threat to the United States and our European allies (sic).”

Last week, US Defense Intelligence Agency director General Scott Berrier resurrected the myth of a Russian “existential threat” to the US.

Throughout the Cold War and its aftermath to the present day, Russia’s only threat to the US was and remains retaliatory against preemptive US aggression if occurs.

Earlier and current claims otherwise by US politicians, generals, and admirals are all about wanting virtual open-checkbook amounts spent on preparing for and waging endless preemptive wars on invented enemies.

Since Soviet Russia dissolved, countless trillions of dollars were poured down a black hole of waste, fraud and abuse to defend the US against Russia, China, Iran, and other nonexistent enemies.

There’s no ambiguity about US hegemonic aims.

They’re all about seeking dominance over other countries, their resources and populations worldwide — by whatever it takes to achieve its aims, notably by brute force and other hostile actions.

Under both right wings of its war party, the US poses an unparalleled threat to world peace, stability, and humanity’s survival.

Their rage for unchallenged global dominance makes unthinkable nuclear war ominously possible by accident or design.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow once explained that when all someone has “is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

That’s how US Pentagon and political militarists think and operate.

They plot ways to use their hammer against one nation after another.

At a time when no nations remotely threaten US security, dominant militarists in Washington threaten to immolate planet earth by their rage to own it.

US Hostility Toward Russia Unchanged Under Biden

by Stephen Lendman

Source

US war by hot and/or other means rages against all nations free from its control — notably against China, Russia and Iran.

During his Thursday address, Biden signaled continued US dirty business as usual against invented enemies — not a new course toward cooperative relations with other countries.

He falsely accused China and Russia of “advancing authoritarianism…to damage and disrupt our ‘democracy (sic),’ ” adding:

“(T)he days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russian aggressive actions (sic), interfering with our elections (sic), cyberattacks (sic), poisoning its citizens (sic) are over.”

“We will not hesitate to raise the cost on Russia and defend our vital interests and our people, and we will be more effective in dealing with Russia when we work in coalition and coordination with other like minded partners.”

Aggression and other dirty tricks reflect how US ruling regimes operate.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia is governed by higher standards, ones the US and its imperial partners long ago abandoned.

The same goes for China, Iran, and other nations the US seeks to transform into pro-Western vassal states.

The more forcefully it tries, the more greatly its decline is hastened, the sooner it arrives in history’s dustbin where it belongs.

It’s long past time for the Kremlin to abandon diplomatic outreach to hegemonic USA that’s hellbent for eliminating its sovereign independence.

Toughness is the only language the US understands. 

Giving it a taste of its own medicine is the only way to counter its hegemonic rage for dominating other nations.

On Friday, Moscow acted properly by declaring German, Polish and Swedish “diplomats” persona non grata for support of and participation in violent po-Navalny/anti-Russia rallies on January 23, a Foreign Ministry statement saying:

“In compliance with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18, 1961, ‘diplomats’ who took part in unauthorized rallies have been declared persona non grata.” 

They’re hostile toward Moscow and “must leave Russia as soon as possible.”

Revoking their credentials requires their swift departure.

“The Russian side expects that” these nations and officials respect Russia’s sovereign rights and the rule of law.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on these and other nations to cease “meddl(ing) in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.”

Sweden’s Foreign Ministry’s said it “considers this entirely unjustified (sic), which we have also conveyed to the Russian side.” 

“The ministry regrets Russia’s actions and reserves the right to take appropriate measures in response.”

Poland’s Foreign Ministry said it “reserves the right to take adequate steps,” in response — vowing to expel a Russian diplomat.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel falsely called Russia’s action “a step away from the rule of law,” suggesting a retaliatory action to follow.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry slammed what it called a “coordinated global campaign to contain Russia and interfere in its internal affairs.”

Suggesting US dirty hands behind it, Zakharova said Moscow intends having “a serious talk” with Biden regime officials on the issue.

Separately, Sergey Lavrov slammed fake news claims about Navalny’s alleged poisoning by novichok, a bald-faced Big Lie, stressing:

“Today we simply bogged down in a topic that for some reason the West is now trying to sideline, focusing all of its attention on protests and demonstrations in the Russia.” 

“I am referring to the topic of finding the truth about what happened to Navalny and when and where it happened.”

Despite “numerous requests” by Russia to Germany, France, Sweden and the OPCW for information they have on Navalny’s illness, “(t)hey just won’t give us any answers,” said Lavrov — calling their behavior “categorically unacceptable.”

In response to Biden’s hostile rhetoric toward Russia, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the following:

“This is very aggressive and unconstructive rhetoric, to our regret.”

“We have already said that we will not heed such statements, which are some kind of mentoring lectures.”

US hostility toward Russia and other nations free from its control is unbending, diplomatic outreach by their ruling authorities to their US counterparts a waste of time.

Throughout the post-WW II period, the US waged endless wars by hot and/or other means on nations unwilling to subordinate their sovereign rights to its interests.

Looking ahead under Biden/Harris and whatever US regimes succeed them, no evidence remotely suggests a new leaf turned for cooperative relations with these countries over endless confrontation.