BRICS
is in a coma. What's surviving is RC: the Russia/China strategic
partnership. Yet even the partnership seems to be in trouble —
with Russia still attacked by myriad metastases of Hybrid War. The —
Exceptionalist — Hegemon remains powerful, and the opposition is dazed
and confused. Or is it?
Slowly but surely — see for instance the possibility of an ATM (Ankara-Tehran-Moscow)
coalition in the making — global power continues to insist on shifting
East. That goes beyond Russia's pivoting to Asia; Germany's
industrialists are just waiting for the right political conjunction,
before the end of the decade, to also pivot to Asia, conforming a BMB
(Berlin-Moscow-Beijing) coalition.
© AP Photo/ Evan Vucci, Pool
Germany
already rules over Europe. The only way for a global trade power
to solidify its reach is to go East. NATO member Germany, with a GDP
that outstrips the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is not even
allowed to share information with the "Five Eyes" secret cabal.
President
Putin, years ago, was keen on a Lisbon-to-Vladivostok emporium. He may
eventually be rewarded — delayed gratification?— by BMB, a
trade/economic union that, combined with the Chinese-driven One Belt,
One Road (OBOR), will eventually dwarf and effectively replace the
dwindling post-WWII Anglo-Saxon crafted/controlled international order.
This
inexorable movement East underscores all the interconnections — and
evolving connectivity — related to the New Silk Roads, the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS's New Development Bank (NDB),
the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Eurasia Economic
Union (EEU). The crux of RC, the Russia-China strategic partnership, is
to make the multipolar, post-Atlantic world happen. Or, updating Ezra
Pound, to Make It New.
Containing RC
Russia's
pivot to Asia is of course only part of the story. The core of Russia's
industries, infrastructure, population is in the west of the country,
closer to Europe. BMB would allow a double pivot — simultaneously
to Europe and Asia; or Russia exploiting to the max its Eurasian
character. Not accidently this is absolute anathema for Washington. Thus
the predictable, ongoing no holds barred exceptionalist strategy
of preventing by all means necessary closer Russia-Germany cooperation.
In parallel, pivoting to Asia is also essential because that's where the
overwhelming
majority of Russia's future customers — energy and otherwise — are
located. It will be a long, winding process to educate Russian public
opinion about the incalculable value for the nation of Siberia and the
Russian Far East. Yet that has already started. And it will be in full
fruition by the middle of the next decade, when all the interpolated New
Silk Roads will be online.
"Containment"
of RC will continue to be the name of the exceptionalist game —
whatever happens on November 8. As far as the
industrial-military-security- surveillance-corporate media complex is
concerned, there will be no reset.
Proxies
will be used — from failed state Ukraine to Japan in the East China
Sea, as well as any volunteering Southeast Asian faction in the South
China Sea.
Still
the Hegemon will be in trouble to contain both sides of RC
simultaneously. NATO does not help; its trade arm, TPP, may even
collapse in the high seas before arriving on shore. No TPP — a certainty
in case Donald Trump is elected in November — means the end of US
economic hegemony over Asia. Hillary Clinton knows it; and it's no
accident President Obama is desperate to have TPP approved during a
short window of opportunity, the lame-duck session of Congress
from November 9 to January 3.
Against
China, the Hegemon alliance in fact hinges on Australia, India and
Japan. Forget about instrumentalizing BRICS member India — which will
never fall into the trap of a war against China (not to mention Russia,
with which India traditionally enjoys very good relations.)
Japan's
imperial instincts were reawakened by Shinzo Abe. Yet hopeless economic
stagnation persists. Moreover, Tokyo has been prohibited by the US
Treasury Dept. to continue unleashing quantitative easing. Moscow sees
as a long-term objective to progressively draw Japan away from the US
orbit and into Eurasia integration.
Dr. Zbig Does Desolation Row
The Pentagon is terrified that RC is now a military partnership as well.
Compared
to Russia's superior high-tech weaponry, NATO is a kindergarten mess;
not to mention that soon Russian territory will be inviolable to any
Star Wars-derived scheme. China will soon have all the submarines and
"carrier-killer" missiles necessary to make life for the US Navy hell
in case the Pentagon harbors funny ideas. And then there are the
regional details — from Russia's permanent air base in Syria to military
cooperation with Iran and, eventually, disgruntled NATO member Turkey.
No
wonder such exceptionalist luminary ideologues as Dr. Zbig "Grand
Chessboard" Brzezinski — foreign policy mentor to President Obama — are
supremely dejected.
When
Brzezinski looks at progressive Eurasia integration, he simply cannot
fail to detect how those "three grand imperatives of imperial
geostrategy" he outlined in The Grand Chessboard are simply
dissolving; "to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence
among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep
the barbarians from coming together."
Those
GCC vassals — starting with the House of Saud — are now terrified
about their own security; same with the hysteric Baltics. Tributaries
are not pliant anymore — and that includes an array of Europeans. The
"barbarians" coming together are in fact old civilizations — China,
Persia, Russia — fed up with upstart-controlled unipolarity.
Unsurprisingly,
to "contain" RC, defined as "potentially threatening" (the Pentagon
considers the threats are existential) Brzezinski suggests — what else —
Divide and Rule; as in "containing the least predictable
but potentially the most likely to overreach." Still he doesn't know
which is which; "Currently, the more likely to overreach is Russia,
but in the longer run it could be China."
Hillary
"Queen of War" Clinton of course does not subscribe to Brzezinski's
"could be" school. After all she's the official, Robert Kagan-endorsed,
neocon presidential candidate. She's more in tune with this sort
of wacky"analysis".
© AP Photo/ Mikhail Metzel, Pool
So
one should definitely expect Hillary's "project" to be all-out hegemony
expansion all across Eurasia. Syria and Iran will be targets. Even
another war on the Korean Peninsula could be on the cards. But
against North Korea, a nuclear power? Exceptionalistan only attacks
those who can't defend themselves. Besides, RC could easily prevent war
by offering some strategic carrots to the Kim family.
In
many aspects, not much has changed from 24 years ago when, only three
months after the dissolution of the USSR, the Pentagon's Defense
Planning Guidance proclaimed.
"Our
first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival…This
requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a
region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient
to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East
Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and southwest Asia."
Talk
about a prescient road map of what's happening right now; the "rival",
"hostile" power is actually two powers involved in a strategic
partnership: RC.
Compounding
this Pentagon nightmare, the endgame keeps drawing near; the next
manifestations and reverberations of the never-ending 2008 financial
crisis may eventually torpedo the fundamentals of the global "order" —
as in the petrodollar racket/tributary scam.
There
will be blood. Hillary Clinton smells it already — from Syria to Iran
to the South China Sea. The question is whether she — and virtually the
whole Beltway establishment behind her — will be mad enough to provoke
RC and buy a one-way ticket to post-MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction)
territory.
No comments:
Post a Comment