During the past weeks, the world saw Eurasian nations take great strides towards the inevitable creation of an alternative financial system capable of withstanding the effects of the onrushing blowout of the $1.5 quadrillion bubble that some still wish to call the “western banking system”.

Contrasted with those ideologues committed to preserving the unipolar hegemon propels in a bid towards hyperinflationary (and possibly thermonuclear) hell, the BRICS nations have announced three new members (UAE, Bangladesh and Uruguay) to the membership roster of the New Development Bank. Additionally Russian ambitions for a new Arctic development vision that entails a multi-generational grand design for the far east and northern-most regions of Eurasia has also created a climate of long term thinking that is in total synergy with China’s 130-nation strong Belt and Road Initiative.

The Roots of the Oncoming Collapse

While many a myopic economist treat the oncoming collapse of the western banking system as a non-event (or the unavoidable effects of a pandemic), the reality is that this blowout has been a long time coming. Events associated with the Coronavirus-induced economic shutdown may prove to be the pin prick that blows the bubble, COVID-19 cannot be said by any honest person to be the actual “cause”.

It is difficult to pin-point the exact “moment” in time that the trajectory of the system found itself on a path towards a self-implosion… but it wasn’t a virus.

Months before anyone had heard the name “COVID-19”, former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King was already looking at the newly revamped bailouts begun in September 2019 and screamed of a “financial Armageddon” ahead.

But was this the beginning of the end of the financial system?

Not at all.

Case Studies in Folly #1: 2008

Some have argued that the 2008 blowout of an over-extended speculative bubble in the subprime housing market was in truth never resolved, but merely papered over with a new regime of bailouts of private gamblers and loop-hole-filled regulation like Dodd-Frank that only protected the derivatives assets which had already ballooned to 10 times the world GDP in less than two decades.

While this would certainly be a valid thing to observe, it wouldn’t be the full truth.

Case Studies in Folly #2: 2000

Others might point to the meltdown of the dotcom/Y2K bubble in 2000 when the new millennium hit and the world kept spinning. The burst of the dotcom bubble at this time sent markets into a potential tailspin… although it didn’t trigger the systemic chain reaction that many had been afraid of at that time.

Those choosing to point to this moment as the “start” of the collapse might also note that it was only the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall that allowed for the merger of commercial and investment banking activities into new Universal ‘Too Big To Fail’ structures which created a new dynamic of fictitious growth of economic value that allowed the world to avoid the abyss in 2000. The ensuing deregulation of ‘over-the-counter’ derivatives under the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of December 20, 2000 are after all what allowed for a new sub-prime housing bubble to grow under Greenspan’s watch. From 1999 to 2008 when the new bubble began to collapse, derivatives had inflated from $70 trillion to $708 trillion which is no small thing.

But that wouldn’t be the full truth either.

Case Studies in Folly #3: 1987

Others looking at more subtle systemic shifts might look to the Black Tuesday of October 1987, when stock markets collapse by 25%, and the world watched with bated breath as a new bank panic threatened to replicate the devastation of the 1929 meltdown that ushered in the Great Depression.

These people might take note that the only “fix” in 1987 was caused by Alan Greenspan’s normalization of “creative financial instruments” which took junk bonds, and derivative speculation from the slimy illegal gutters that had sent scam artists like Michael Milken to prison earlier, and rehabilitated the practice in perverse ways which some credulous tools still believed to this day “saved” the economy.

What did he do? In short, Greenspan accomplished this Herculean task by bringing derivative bets (aka: forms of gambling on infinitely divisible types of insurance on securitized debts including junk bonds) into the mainstream economy giving supercomputers and quantum mechanists new roles to play in creating “value” without producing anything at all. While this could be said to be the “starting point” for the now-impending collapse, even that wouldn’t be the full truth.

Case Studies in Folly #4: 1971

One could easily go back in time to the systemic changes that were introduced by the floating of the U.S. dollar and destruction of the gold reserve system in 1971 under the careful guidance of Henry Kissinger and George Schultz.

It was after all this destruction of the foundations of the Bretton Woods system that ended the 25 year post-war “industrial growth” model that defined economic value between 1945-1971.

This shift from a fixed exchange to floating exchange system thrust society into a new paradigm of consumerism, post-industrialism and deregulation which increasingly detached the individual members of western society from having any involvement in long term goals of the societies they were parts of.

Basic concepts like “value”, and “productivity” were increasingly turned inside-out as monetarism began to grip the minds of economists who increasingly lost their capacity to recognize the underlying PHYSICAL economic processes of industrial, scientific and infrastructure growth that former generations recognized must always infuse genuine value into currencies. The loss of that productive ethic, driven as it once was by large scale, long-term thinking and planning, not only turned the western economies into self-destructive basket cases floating from moment to moment in the pursuit of maximising shareholder profit, but also encouraged the cancerous growth of private oligarchical supranational interests above the jurisdictions of any sovereign nation state. The plunge into cultural decay associated with a loss of national goals, priorities and values should not be lost on any thinking being. As the old parable goes: Where there is no vision, the people perish.

But even this couldn’t be said to be the absolute cause of our current crisis.

Dynamics vs Mechanics: A Lesson Which Must Now Be Learned

The fact is that there really is no singular “moment” that one can say “caused” the oncoming economic collapse. Reality just doesn’t seem to work like that.

What we have are decisions to move society into directions that either 1) bring our species into greater alignment with the laws of the universe or 2) decisions to move society in another direction with a growth or loss of potential to do good in either case.

Each of the moments stated above (1971, 1987, 2000, 2008, 2021) were crisis points which carried the opportunities for systemic corrections in alignment with Natural Law.

While each “moment” contained a great potential for self-examination and self-criticism of foolish behavior and assumptions which generated those crises, many who stood up as consciences calling forth our better natures and offering alternative pathways out of the ever deepening abyss were ridiculed, slandered, shunned, or worse as Deutschebank head Alfred Herrhausen discovered when his car blew up on November 30, 1989.)

The Multipolar Alliance Breaks the Rules of the Rigged Game

The Multipolar Alliance which has taken on a vigorous life in recent years has demonstrated a profound understanding of this oncoming collapse and has made many maneuvers to establish a new financial, security, economic architecture premised on the lessons the west SHOULD have learned at each of those “pregnant moments” have punctuated the last half century.

Many mechanisms have been brought online in recent years by this grouping of civilizations which could be considered a “survivors club of the 21^st century” unwilling to sacrifice themselves on the altar of a New World Order.

When the USA became too aggressive with their sanctions and threats to block Russia from the Wall Street dominated SWIFT system after the 2014 Ukraine coup, Russia took the initiative to create their own international payment system with MIR and the SPFS (System for Transactions of Financial Messages) in 2015 and China soon followed suite with the China International Payment System (CIPS) that same year.

When it became obvious that the private central banking system of the west under the helm of the Bank of International Settlements and associated World Bank/IMF structures were not going to cooperate with the China-led growth ambitions showcased by the New Silk Road (announced in 2013), China and 57 other founding members lost no time creating the Asian Industrial Investment Bank which went online in 2016. Today this bank has 103 members.

The AIIB joined the BRICS-led New Development Bank which had come online in 2015 and was associated with a $100 billion Contingency Reserve Agreement that created a buffer from speculative attacks and alternative lending mechanism from IMF special drawing rights.

China itself had never given up their national controls over a central banking system (unlike nearly ever other country on Earth) and also never gave up Glass-Steagall separation of investment from commercial banking activities despite the years of pressure and manipulation from western sociopaths like Soros and his minions embedded within the Chinese establishment like Zhao Ziyang. This successful defense of its sovereign controls over finance has given China the power to defend itself against western oligarchs and chart out its developmental pathways successfully in the face of countless forms of economic and asymmetric warfare.

By now, anyone reading these words must recognize that China’s $3 trillion Belt and Road Initiative is more than just a monetary program or macro-economic business model.

Like the better traditions that once animated western nations, China’s BRI has re-united politics, economics, security and cultural policy in a transformative program that has pulled 800 billion souls out of poverty and introduced new productive, educational and cognitive powers among all nations participating in this innovated win-win system.

Increasingly both Russia and China which set the bedrock of the multipolar alliance have de-dollarized at breakneck speeds with the U.S. dollar now accounting for only 46% of Russian-Chinese trade compared to 90% in 2015. The Bank of Russia has slashed U.S. dollar holdings by $101 billion dollars (and nearly 50% since 2013) while growing its renminbi reserves from 5 to 15% in two years, with gold reserves now making up 23% of its reserves leaping ahead of U.S. dollars for the first time in three decades. While 95% of Russian exports to BRICS states occurred in U.S. dollars only 7 years ago, today it accounts for only 10%.

In July 2021, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund purged all U.S. dollar denominated assets from its $186 billion portfolio and on September 3, Gazprom arranged to de-dollarize all jet fuel payments with China. China has become a global frontrunner in digital currencies, massively reigning in western-dominated Bitcoin transactions and expanding their own digital currency via the Chinese Central Bank. The small array of companies authorized to distribute the digital renminbi (like Alibaba and Tencent) have been firmly regulated and are now largely obedient to national priorities rather than the whimsy of the global markets. As of July 2021, the Russian Central bank announced that it too, would follow suit.

In March 2021, Sergei Lavrov stated to his Chinese counterparts that “we must consolidate our independence… we must reduce our exposure to sanctions by strengthening our technological independence and switching to settlements in national and international currencies other than the dollar. We need to move away from using western-controlled international payment systems”.

Is this system perfect? Not at all.

Are mechanisms like the New Development Bank or AIIB immune from foreign manipulation?

That would be a stretch, since a British knight (Sir Danny Alexander) sits as Vice President for AIIB Policy and Strategy indicates that there are problems. The fact that only $30 billion in investments have been issued among BRICS nations by the New Development Bank since it’s creation 6 years ago also demonstrates a lack of vision or capacity within that institution. Constant foreign destabilization of the weakest members of the BRICS (Brazil, South Africa and India) with regime change operations and economic warfare certainly hasn’t helped improve the situation.

Although the Russian economy has moved far from the dark days of the 1990s, the sad fact remains that the central banking system is still a nest replete with liberal technocrats who emerged into power positions under perestroika and have little will or capacity to think in terms of the bold vision for either multigenerational planning which Putin’s Far East Development vision requires, let alone Russia’s larger integration into an evolving belt and road initiative.

Despite these problems, the Multipolar Alliance has demonstrated a drive towards: 1) scientific and technological progress driven by 2) constant industrial growth in order to 3) empower sovereign nation states to develop full spectrum economies and 4) encourage the increase of quantity and quality of population growth rates both on the surface of the earth even into space.

What gives this paradigm its vitality is not to be found in those mechanical predicates enumerated above. Among the top down considerations and priorities of this paradigm is to be found the sacredness of the cognitive power of participating people of diverse cultures and a defense of the deeper cultural traditions that unite our present moment with the forces of history. These dynamics bring us to the essence of what makes an economy function and imbues a society with the Mandate of Heaven (Tian Ming).

This paradigm, once dominant in the west during saner times long past, is now a driving feature of the Greater Eurasian Partnership and its foundation in natural law, basic morality and common sense has made it an ever more attractive alternative to the burning Hindenburg which nations of the world have increasingly come to realize is the western, rules based neo liberal order.

The author can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com

The New Development Bank (NDB) was created by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) in 2015. The BRICS bank, as it is more commonly known, invests mainly in developing economies in areas such as transportation, water and sanitation, clean energy, digital infrastructure, social infrastructure and urban development. On September 2, NDB President Marcos Troyjo announced that the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Bangladesh were the first members of the bank’s expansion.

“New members will have in NDB a platform to foster their cooperation in infrastructure and sustainable development,” said NDB President Marcos Troyjo in a statement. “We will continue to expand the bank’s membership in a gradual and balanced manner.”

The UAE, Uruguay and Bangladesh will become fully fledged members once internal processes of the NDB is complete. However, the NDB’s ambitions do not end there, and according to Brazilian newspaper Estadão, a fourth partner, likely from Africa, should be announced by the end of the year. In fact, the Shanghai-based bank anticipates three to four new members per year, reaching up to 20 members in the coming years.

Although BRICS is obviously already represented in South America and South Asia by Brazil and India respectively, the accession of Uruguay and Bangladesh into the NDB allows the bank to act on a regional scale. It also opens the possibility for future membership in BRICS. With NDB members neighboring each other in South America and South Asia, the bank has the possibility to finance binational projects that promotes regional economic and transportation integration.

For his part, Emirati Minister of State for Financial Affairs, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, said: “The United Arab Emirates membership in the New Development Bank represents a new step to enhance the role of the UAE economy on the global stage, especially in light of the great capabilities and expertise that the country possesses in supporting infrastructure projects and sustainable development. This monumental step would not have been achieved without the vision and direction of the UAE leadership, who believe in the importance of supporting development projects around the world, especially in emerging economies.”

The UAE has undergone a massive transformation in the past quarter of a century, turning desert wastelands into thriving economic hubs and progressing from reactionary Salafi ideology to one of tolerance and open-mindedness. As recently as the beginning of the Syrian War in 2011, the UAE was backing jihadist groups, but in a matter of only a few years reverted from this policy and became far more moderate and independent in their decision making and pursuit of partnerships.

Originally a major oil exporter, and still is, the UAE has now diversified its economy so that it is in line with the UN 2030 agenda to end poverty and hunger, protect human rights and gender equality, and protect the planet from degradation. The UAE has immense resources that can be directed towards projects that are in line with not only the UN’s vision, but also the NDB’s.

BRICS signed an agreement on Tuesday involving 28 projects in the fields of computer programming, technical services, culture, art, economy, commerce, logistics and transportation – with a total value of more than $2.1 billion. The UAE’s contribution to such projects will be fundamental in deciding whether the mega-rich Arab country should ascend into BRICS and not only the NDB.

The selection of the UAE, Uruguay and Bangladesh as the first three non-founding partners of the NDB indicates the intentions of BRICS – regional expansion with a focus on economic and transportation cooperation. This cooperation, as well as integration, is especially crucial as the world struggles to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic fallout. Because of this, the NDB will likely focus in the short to medium term on the rejuvenation of member countries following the pandemic, particularly in transitioning to a digital economy and green energy.

It was estimated that emerging economies needed about $2 trillion in infrastructure investments per year for the next 20 years to maintain growth rates, however, commercial banks have refused to meet the gap. Essentially, the NDB partly fills the gap that Western financial institutions refuse to do.

By positioning itself to take advantage of a unique opportunity to project a new vision for financing, the NDB is challenging the dominance of Western financial institutions and also progressing the prestige of BRICS in its endeavour to advance a multipolar world order. The accession of the UAE sees one of the Middle East’s most influential countries join the NDB, whilst Uruguay and Bangladesh open the path for regional integration under the context of BRICS, something that has not occurred since the group was established in 2006.

infobrics.org

Sebastien Guistinian, Venetian Ambassador to England’s Henry VIII

The Russia-China alliance has become an unstoppable powerhouse of visionary infrastructure projects across the Arctic, Eurasia, Africa and Europe exemplified beautifully by the evolving Belt and Road Initiative and BRICS. This cooperative alliance has tapped into a strategic reality of mankind’s genuine common interests which is so powerful that even countries formerly at war with each other and subjects of imperial manipulation have increasingly broken free in order to participate in this new paradigm.

This coalition of nations working with a common sense of both the manipulative hand behind the scenes and common focus for future cooperation may be a new phenomenon in our modern age, but it is certainly not without historical precedent. Not only did such an international coalition form in the wake of the 1865 union victory in the Civil War which saw nations like Germany, France, Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Japan form an anti-British Empire alliance for industrial progress and public works, but it also occurred during a peak of the European Golden Renaissance with an alliance known as the League of Cambrai (1508-1512).

However, just as the 19^th century coalition of progress was derailed by a wave of assassinations, revolutions and wars, so too was the earlier League of Cambrai sabotaged before its mission to cleanse the world of oligarchism could be consummated.

With the knowledge that history doesn’t repeat, but rather fools repeat history- a brief analysis of the causes of the formation of the League of Cambrai and its ultimate self-destruction under the sophisticated intrigues of Venice (then the seat of an international financier oligarchy) can be best understood, and potentially foolish decisions can avoid repetition. Among the many authors I am indebted to for this research report, includes Gerald Rose, Robert Ingraham and finally Webster Tarplay whose 1981 studies published in Campaigner magazine continue to stand as some of the most thorough analyses available to modern researchers.

From Whence Sprince Today’s Potential?

The Russia-China alliance has become an unstoppable powerhouse of visionary infrastructure projects across the Arctic, Eurasia, Africa and Europe exemplified beautifully by the evolving Belt and Road Initiative. This cooperative alliance has tapped into a strategic reality of mankind’s genuine common interests which is so powerful that even countries formerly at war with each other and subjects of imperial manipulation have increasingly broken free in order to participate in this new paradigm.

The leadership of both Russia, China and a growing array of allied nations have taken a sober look at the geopolitical landscape which arose in the wake of the disastrous regime change wars-with-no-end in the Arab world and the inevitable nuclear war that would arise from an intended NATO confrontation with Russia or China and the decision to survive by changing the “rules of the game” was a no-brainer.

This coalition of nations working with a common sense of both the manipulative hand behind the scenes and common focus for future cooperation may be a new phenomenon in our modern age, but it is certainly not without historical precedent. Not only did such an international coalition form in the wake of the 1865 union victory in the Civil War which saw nations like Germany, France, Argentina, Brazil, Russia and Japan adopt the “American system” of protectionism and dirigism for industrial progress and public works, but it also occurred during a peak of the European Golden Renaissance with an alliance known as the League of Cambrai (1508-1512).

However, just as the 19^th century coalition of progress was derailed by a wave of assassinations, revolutions and wars, so too was the earlier League of Cambrai sabotaged before its mission to cleanse the world of oligarchism could be consummated.

With the knowledge that history doesn’t repeat, but rather fools repeat history- a brief analysis of the causes of the formation of the League of Cambrai and its ultimate self-destruction under the sophisticated intrigues of Venice (then the seat of an international financier oligarchy) can be best understood, and potentially foolish decisions can avoid repetition.

Why did the League Arise?

The Golden Renaissance is an incredible singularity in the human experience.

Coming out of a centuries’ long Dark Age, what we today call “the Renaissance” is characterized on first approximation by a spike of human population, longevity and productive capabilities. Rather than treat this anomaly as “proof” that we are simply a cancer infesting the mother Gaia as modern radical ecologists are wont to do, it is more valuable to see it for what it was: The material EFFECT of a blossoming of creative ideas, and discoveries touching all fields of knowledge: medical, artistic, musical, architectural, scientific, and economic. The underlying cause of this was a deeper profound shift in understanding of Natural Law based upon a notion that mankind’s laws were only legitimate if they cohered with the discoverable laws (moral and physical) of nature. This was expressed by early Renaissance philosopher Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa who stated in 1433:

“There is in the people a divine seed by virtue of their common equal birth and the equal natural rights of all men, so that all authority – which comes from God as does man himself – is recognized as divine when it arises from the common consent of all the subjects… This is that divinely ordained marital state of spiritual union based on a lasting harmony by which a commonwealth is guided in the fullness of peace toward eternal bliss.”

This was a profound insight which rejected the popular notion of “man made in the image of mud” that had governed Europe under the feudal structures of oligarchism since the destruction of the Carolingian Empire of Charlemagne.

It took a bit of time for these concepts to become active organizing principles in the formation of the first nation state system of Louis XI of France in 1461, but when they demonstrated their effectiveness at organizing a nation and actualizing the creative powers of the citizens, it spread like wildfire. Louis XI qualified himself as a serious philosopher king which both Plato and Confucius in their times knew was the key for society’s salvation when he said: “When Justice reigns in a kingdom, the common good is well guarded, and so is the particular: Because Justice is such a virtue that maintains human company and common life, providing that everyone makes a wise use of common things as common; and of particular things as particular.”

After re-organizing his nations’ corrupt banking system and taxation system while re-directing the treasuries towards public works and mass education, France under Louis XI grew in power and managed to avoid military enmeshments that characterized Europe for centuries. His success was soon replicated in England as Henry VII of Tudor left France to overthrow the evil Plantagenet dynasty of Richard II in 1485 and followed Louis XI’s example. This “new statecraft” was simultaneously gaining steam across Italy’s city-states of Florence and Milan manifesting with the rise to prominence of such figures as Cosimo de Medici, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Nicollo Machiavelli. Leading humanist Aeneas Piccolomini, a follower of Cusa, was elected Pope in 1460 becoming Pius II which influenced the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich III to the humanist cause.

Once Machiavelli became 2^nd Chancellor of Florence in 1502, he immediately appointed Da Vinci as Chief Engineer to Cesar Borgia and the two worked closely together reforming military practices in defense of Florence for years.

Machiavelli, Leonardo, Borgia (who became the leader of Milan with Machiavelli’s help) understood well the nature of the evil that was trying to undo the new paradigm that they championed. It is here at this moment that it was realized that for the renaissance process to survive, a source of evil that plagued mankind for centuries had to be destroyed. As we shall later see, it was Venice that had been the primary force actively keeping the world at war and the population in the mud for centuries and those leading humanists knew that this force would not rest until the renaissance was undone and humanity was brought under total subjugation. Together they and leading co-thinkers across Italy, France and Spain organized an alliance which nearly wiped this evil from the face of the earth in 1508 called the League of Cambrai.

What Was Venice?

While Venice esteemed itself a republic (literally calling itself “the Serene republic”) it was in all pretenses a total oligarchy. The City-state was founded by leading families of the Roman oligarchy who sought refuge from Visigoths and Huns as the Empire collapsed in 450. It grew as a junior partner to the Byzantine Empire for centuries and formed a unique form of government. A senate amounting to nearly 1500 members of the nobility was formed which itself was headed by a Council of 10. Atop this pyramid was a council of three which utilized the figure of an elected doge to justify itself. The system was so effective that in its 1000+ years, only one attempt was made by a doge to go renegade- a crime for which he was publicly beheaded in 1355.

From below, the population was one of pure cattle living under a continuity of carnivals, prostitution, plague and poverty.

From 1201-1204, Venice had managed to run a coup on the Byzantine Empire with the pillage of Constantinople during the 4^th Crusade. This was a masterstroke of evil genius that utilized fanatical European forces from France and the Holy Roman Empire who foolishly thought they were embarking on a Crusade to fight the Turks in the Holy Land. These fools were convinced to first pay debts they owed to Venice (for use of the latter’s transportation ships) by laying siege and looting the Christian City of Constantinople. This duplicitous scheme allowed Venice to not only destroy their older sister, but also took control of all her sea-based trade routes to boot. Venice also received a huge bribe from the Ottoman Empire for having kept Crusaders out of their way- thus freeing the Turks to destroy the remnants of the renaissance-Humanist culture of Baghdad in 1258.

By 1350, Venice had control over world finance through its monopoly of gold and silver bullion, maritime trade and the most sophisticated intelligence network on earth. Venice’s mastery of manipulating wars among potential allies while financing all sides was not limited to Europe. This “new Rome” had even spread its tentacles through Asia gaining a monopoly of trade in Mongol-controlled territories in exchange of offering political intelligence to the Khans whose success penetrating Russia, Kiev, Bulgaria, Hungary and beyond was made possible through such Venetian agents as Marco Polo and his father (Polo even became the Advisor to Kublai Khan).

Venetian Evil Called Out

Cosimo de Medici (sponsor of Cusa and the 1438 Council of Florence) said of the Venetians: “Association with the Venetians brings two things which have always been rejected by men of wisdom: perdition and disgrace” and Ludovico Sforza, an ally of Machiavelli said: “Venetians are obstinate and hardened, always keeping their mouths open to be able to bite off power and usurp the state of all their neighbors to fulfill the appetite of their souls to conquer Italy and then beyond as did the Romans, thinking to compare themselves to the Romans when their power was at its apex.”

Another ally of the League, Louis XII of France said the venetians “were traders in human blood, traitors to the Christian faith who have tacitly divided up the world with the Turks and who are already planning to throw bridgeheads across the Danube, the Rhine, the Seine, the Tagu and the Ebro, attempting to reduce Europe to a province and to keep it subjugated to their armies”.

Most eviscerating in his attack was Pope Pius II who said “As among brute beasts, aquatic creatures have the least intelligence, so among the human beings the Venetians are the least just and the least capable of humanity… They are hypocrites. They wish to appear as Christians before the world but in reality they never think of God and except for the state, which they regard as a deity, they hold nothing sacred, nothing holy… All law and right may be violated for the sake of power.”

The Success of the League

The League of Cambrai was established on December 10, 1508 uniting the highly corruptible Pope Julius II, the Holy Roman Empire Maximilian, France of Louis XII and Ferdinand I of Spain under the common cause of crushing this “new Rome” out of existence. Machiavelli was the driving force behind the league putting the project into motion in 1507 when he arranged for Maximilian to get on board with the agreement that Florence and Milan would finance the cause and provided strategic intelligence throughout.

Utilizing hired mercenary armies, the Venetians were unable to defend themselves against the onslaught that fell upon them. Venetian-controlled territories like Padua and Pisa were won by Florentine Citizen-soldiers organized by Machiavelli, Da Vinci and Borgia and with the decisive victory of France at Agnadello, the Venetian armies were obliterated on May 14, 1509. The Doge messaged the Pope begging for mercy and Machiavelli celebrated the victory writing that in one day, the Venetians “lost what it had taken them 800 years’ exertion to conquer.”

The Venetians were as good as finished… with no army left to defend themselves and the most powerful coalition of powers united together with all the capabilities to finish them off… so what happened?

The Failure of the League

Utilizing the weakest link in the coalition, Pope Julius II, the Venetians pulled off a secret bribe offering all of Rome’s lost territories and more to the Pope as well as a promise to buy alum from Papal territories at inflated values rather than with the Turks. This bribe turned the pope, and accordingly Maximilian against France and Florence as the League was left to disintegrate and a new Venetian-controlled alliance was created in 1512 called the Holy League which soon included England’s Henry VIII and Ferdinand I of Spain. Louis XII’s armies were decimated at the Battle of Ravenna in 1512 forcing a retreat to France and leaving Florence to be soon defeated. Machiavelli’s citizen army was promptly slaughtered, and the great leader tortured and exiled while Da Vinci evaded death by fleeing to Rome and later France.

The moment of great potential had collapsed an age of turmoil and war was unleashed which wouldn’t see a major respite until the establishment of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia (itself sabotaged by the same Venetian forces who by this time were in the midst of moving their center of power to the more strategic location of England and the Netherlands).

In the 2008 manuscript The Modern Anglo-Dutch Empire: It’s Origins, Evolution and Anti-Human Outlook, historian Bob Ingraham recounts in sordid detail how the leading families of Venice moved their operation out of the lagoons during the 17^th century in order to become the Anglo-Dutch Empire. This valuable research recounts the creation of a new system of private central banking innovated by Venice’s Banco della Piazza di Rialto of 1587 which morphed into the Bank of Venice in 1619. This new banking paradigm created the model that was used in the creation of the Bank of Amsterdam in 1609 and later with the Bank of England in 1694 after the Venetian Party of England orchestrated a coup known as the “Glorious Revolution”.

This financial innovation was based on the realization that it is better to control a nation’s issuance of banknotes and bills of credit while masquerading a private corporation as a national institution rather than simply attempting to impose simple usury on a nation as had been previously done for centuries.

How Not to Repeat History

While the 1648 Peace of Westphalia saw a re-activation of the renaissance principle enunciated by Cusa, Europe soon fell back into organized warfare leaving the beautiful principles of the treaty mere words on parchment. While the 1776 American Revolution again saw a re-activation of this principle, its spread throughout Europe and beyond was also crushed with the perversion of the French revolution which turned into an irreparable bloodbath by 1791. While the 19^th century alliance of sovereign nations adopting Lincoln’s system also nearly resulted in a new age of progress and win-win cooperation, it too was destroyed by small-minded fools falling prey to short-term games and their own egos.

Today, 135 nations have been brought into solidarity with the Russia-China’s alliance and this new momentum for progress and cooperation has inspired a renewed nationalism across even the Trans-Atlantic Community which had fallen so deeply under Anglo-Dutch financial control throughout the 20^th Century that few had believed hope could still exist. Even America’s constitutional traditions once believed lost to its post-JFK conversion into Britain’s dumb giant appears to be experiencing a much-needed revival under President Trump.

With nearly 8 billion souls on the planet and the power of the atom at our fingertips, the stakes have never been higher and the liberty to act the fool in the face of Venetian evil never so intolerable.

This week’s 11^th Annual BRICS Summit saw leading representatives of the world’s dominant cultures come together in Fortaleza Brazil for two days of planning and collaboration around policies that are tied to the common aims of humanity. Such events which celebrate mutual respect, and cooperation amongst nations are good reminders that not only has the ideology of geopolitics entirely collapsed, but that a higher, more truthful concept of human self-organization has asserted itself.

The Mushy Nothingness of Cultural Relativism

The rampant anti-Chinese (and Russian) bias pervasive in today’s society has a lot to do with the fact that people have been conditioned by a very messy world outlook known as “cultural relativism”. While attractive on the surface due to its promotion of “respect and toleration” for other cultures on the one hand and its condemnation of imperialism on the other, an ugly paradox sits below the surface of such ideology which ironically facilitates modern imperialism’s grip on the world. The paradox is most easily seen by exposing the core assumption of reasoning that lay at the foundation of all cultural relativist theory which follows:

ASSUMPTION: Because every culture is unique and equally precious, no culture has a right to influence another culture since: A) all influence could only be exerted by force of the stronger upon the weaker and B) if such influence were to occur, it can only be to the detriment of the culture being “influenced”.

CONCLUSION: Cross pollination of cultures can never occur organically as there is nothing intrinsically universal amongst all cultures that can serve as a basis for their poetic, artistic, scientific exchanges. Since all cultural groups contain no universality, “truth” is reduced to the subjective personal experience of each culture. The very definition of “knowledge” and “truth” is thus rendered totally impotent.

An embarrassing moral and political problem thus arises.

Since the “whole” of humanity objectively exists in the form of many people, cultures and nations spread over the surface of the earth in space and time, it is a fact of life that cultures will and must co-exist. The questions then follow: in what form will those cultures co-exist and how will the whole be defined? How can diverse cultures interact with each other in such a way where that each contributes the best of their own discoveries and poetic treasures with their neighbors if there is no such thing as “better or worse” (as everything is relative to personal experience and “feelings”)? How can any harmony of the parts relative to a whole exist if there is no such thing as “truth and beauty” (or inversely “lies and ugliness”)? How can one’s mind cease from turning into reason-free ooze?

Ugly Twins: Cultural Relativism and Imperial Geopolitics

It was blindly asserted by such modern “geopolitical philosophers” as Samuel Huntington and Sir Bernard Lewis whose ideology exerts such powerful influence over western thinking today; humanity could only exist as a sum of infinitely divisible parts within a “multi-cultural mosaic”, at best ignoring each other and tolerating differences but never taking the time to understand or appreciate our sameness.

Huntington famously concluded in his influential book “Clash of Civilizations” that peace on earth is fundamentally impossible since Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism are all fundamentally incapable of coexisting peacefully due to their distinct ideologies and intrinsic differences. This cynical perspective fundamentally denied each cultures’ parallel characteristics, and common discoveries clothed behind different appearances yet containing the same substance of Love, Justice, Truth, Beauty and morality shaping both the universe and human condition as a living expression of the force guiding the creative unfolding of that universe.

The Reality of Universal Progress

The annoying fact which such thinkers as Huntington and his followers choose to ignore is that the greatest renaissances and rates of progress recorded in the human experience never occurred by distinct cultural groups simply transforming themselves at random, or doing what ones’ ancestors did, but rather all periods of progress were shaped by the cross pollinating of the best ideas of various cultures, never just replacing one set of ideas FOR another, or adding one set of ideas TO another, but rather creating new wholes that are more than the sum of their parts and containing ever greater degrees of power to creatively discover and communicate truths of those universal principles guiding mankind and nature. This is the proper definition and purpose of “science” and “art” and their effects as technological progress as expressed across ALL cultures.

The explosion in Population growth is not a proof that humanity is a cancer as some misguided modern environmentalists are want to do, but rather that we are a species of constant perfectibility.

This was true when the Greeks Solon, Pythagoras and Plato ventured to North Africa to learn the greatest philosophical and scientific discoveries of their day. It was true when greatest ideas of India and China cross pollinated during the Gupta Period. It was true when African/Greek ideas and modes of thinking were re-discovered and applied by the Jewish, Christian and Arab scholars who organized the great 8th Century Ecumenical Alliance of the Carolingian Empire under the leadership of the Caliph of Baghdad and Charlemagne. It was again a reality when the Abbasid Dynasty and the later Andalusian Renaissance when Islamic scholars such as Haroun Al-Rashid and Ibn Sina again collected the greatest poetic and scientific works of the east and west to reform of the Islamic world. It was also true when those same Greek/African/Arabic works were then transmitted to the Christian world in the form of the 15th century Florentine renaissance whose application saw the greatest rise in the potential population density humanity has ever experience (yet) (1).

The renaissance principle, whose lawful obedience is so vital for the successful survival of the human species is expressed in every major culture’s history at various periods. Several leading representatives are pictured above (top row): Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, Rabbi Philo of Alexandria, and the Ibn Sina (bottom row): Confucius, Plato and Gupta Empire Leader Chandragupta I.

The New Silk Road Manifests as the Basis for a New Global Renaissance

Today, a new paradigm has arisen through the multi-cultural BRICS process, Shanghai Cooperation Organization and New Silk Road. This new paradigm is not based on a passive co-existence of parts as they are managed by a Hobbesian Leviathan, but rather on the commitment to common goals and principles of progress which all participating cultures aspire to. As Chinese President Xi Jinping stated clearly in his November 6, 2019 address at the China International Expo:

“Of the problems confronting the world economy, none can be resolved by a single country alone. We must all put the common good of humanity first rather than place one’s own interest in front of all… I have faith in the bright prospects of China’s economic development. China’s development, viewed through the lens of history, is an integral part of the lofty cause of human progress… The Chinese civilization has always valued peace under heaven and harmony among nations. Let us all work in that spirit and contribute to an open global economy and to a community with a shared future for mankind”

This is not rhetoric.

This is the natural state of mankind whenever we allow our creative reason to actively shape the experience of our senses rather than allowing our blind senses to shape our reason. The collective experience of universal history and human progress testify to the fact that this outlook is the natural way human beings survive and grow within the universe whose Creator may be called by many names, yet whose law of moral and creative reason is the same. Whether one is Confucian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian, we are absolutely distinct from the other living beasts due to our capacity to discover, and change the principles of creation making our lives happier, more purposeful and ensuring ever greater peace and security for the generations to come after us.

(1) This was elaborated upon beautifully in a 2003 speech on a Dialogue of Cultures prepared by Schiller Institute chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

The recent executive order signed by US President Donald Trump encompasses all entities that do business with Venezuela, thus creating an embargo that will further isolate the nation, even as the US moves to open a “Venezuela Affairs Unit” unit in its embassy in Bogota, Colombia. The unit would engage in diplomacy with the US-backed Juan Guaido, who is recognised by the Trump administration and its allies as the purported interim Venezuelan president. Its aim, according to US Special Representative to Venezuela Elliot Abrams, is in anticipation of “the day this regime falls”.

In a report titled “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela”, it is estimated that 40,000 people have died as a result of the US-imposed sanctions from 2017 to 2018. According to the US, Venezuela poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to its national security – unfounded claims as Trump continues with overt attempts to bring down Maduro’s democratically-elected presidency.

Political pressure against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is instigated by the US, yet there is a backdrop of support from its allies in the region and, globally, from countries that spout the democracy line, even if there is nothing democratic about foreign interference.  While mostly in the background in comparison to the US, Canada has facilitated support for the Venezuelan opposition. In Europe, countries which have not explicitly backed Guaido have assumed an allegedly neutral stance which constitutes tacit agreement in terms of opposition support. The EU criticised US sanctions on Venezuela but has also threatened the country with similar punitive measures, as the European Parliament expressed its support for Guaido.

The international community is dominated by discourse that promotes foreign intervention according to the undemocratic agendas of the so-called democratic countries. Venezuela is urgently in need of a unified political strategy that stands in political solidarity against imperialist interests.

BRICS has positioned itself as one such alternative in terms of economic prospects, international security and stability. Russia and China have repeatedly affirmed their support for Maduro. South Africa and India have likewise followed suit. On the other hand, Brazil under President Jair Bolsonaro is preventing BRICS from promoting a political discourse that fully repudiates US interference in Venezuela.

Contrary to the rest of the BRICS countries, Brazil recognised Guaido as Venezuela’s interim president and it has expressed support for the international community to pay heed to “Venezuela’s cries for freedom”. Brazil has also adopting measures in line with the Lima Group, as well as prohibited Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials from entering Brazil.

At the G20 summit in Japan, BRICS stated it supported dialogue between Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition to reach a solution. Yet the call is marred by the political divide between Brazil and the other BRICS members. This lack of consensus, including the divergence in terms of recognition of who is Venezuela’s legitimate leader, weakens its political diplomacy in the international arena. As Brazil aligns with the US, although reportedly holding back from endorsing military intervention in Venezuela, It is moving away from one of the organisation’s main aims, which is to establish itself in opposition to capitalist and imperialist exploitation.

In a recent interview, former Brazilian President Luis Ignacio Lula da Silva expressed his disappointment at BRICS not moving further politically. “BRICS was not created to be an instrument of defence, but to be an instrument of attack.” If this momentum is to be built, BRICS needs to find equilibrium in its politics, rather than allow itself to be swayed into a seemingly neutral position due to the US allegiances of Brazil under Bolsonaro. It is not enough to preach dialogue like the rest of the international community have done while weakening Venezuela’s autonomy. BRICS must evaluate its relevance, especially when it comes to one of its members demonstrating political opportunism that is contrary to the group’s aims.

Brazil is once again in the eye of a political hurricane, after President Jair Bolsonaro’s appearance at Davos and explosive revelations directly linking his clan to a criminal organization in Rio de Janeiro.

With his administration barely a month old, Bolsonaro is already being seen as expendable to the elites that propelled him to power – from the powerful agribusiness lobby to the financial system and the military.

The new game among the elites of a major actor in the Global South, BRICS member and eighth biggest economy in the world consists of shaping a scenario capable of rescuing one the great frontiers where global capitalism is expanding from total irrelevancy.

Under these circumstances, a conversation with former Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim is more than sobering. Amorim is universally recognized as one of the top diplomats of the young 21st century, a symbol of the recent past, under President Lula, when Brazil was at the top of its game as a resource-rich continental nation actively projecting power as a BRICS leader.

I had the pleasure of meeting Ambassador Amorim, who is also the author of ‘Acting Globally: Memoirs of Brazil’s Assertive Foreign Policy’ in Sao Paulo. Here are some highlights of our conversation – from the birth of BRICS to the current Venezuela crisis.

BRICS – the most important group in the drive towards a multipolar world – is a very dirty word in Washington. How did it all start?

I had met [British economist] Jim O’Neill a few times, who first talked about BRIC, which was not yet a group and nobody saw as a group. This may sound pretentious, but it’s a curious story. I told him, ‘It is you that invented the BRICS, right?’ He said, ‘Yes, of course, I’m very proud of it’. Then I replied, ‘Yes, but I’m the one who made it happen’. Well, it was not exactly me – under the Lula government and all that it entails. The first action in terms of creating the BRIC group – still without an “S” – came from Sergey Lavrov, in a meeting we had in New York in 2006. They had the RIC [Russia, India, China], but they did not hold many summits. And we had IBAS [India, Brazil, South Africa]. Both China and Russia were always trying to get into IBAS. There was the idea that these were three great democracies, each one in a continent and in a major developing country – so the Russians and Chinese might have thought, ‘we also want to get in, why not, because we are not democracies?’ IBAS was also present in the commercial G-20 at the WTO, and IBAS had similar ideas about reform of the UN Security Council; so the geopolitical interests were not the same.

Then Lavrov proposed BRIC as a forum, I think maybe to find some more equilibrium inside the RIC. I always talked in terms of BRICS, so one day he asked me ‘Why do you say BRICS?’ and I replied, “because it’s plural, in Portuguese’, so in a sense, we were already anticipating the entry of South Africa.

We first agreed we would have a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Lavrov and I already had something more substantial, the Indians and the Chinese just read a speech, so it looked like there would not be a consequential follow-up. Next year we met at the Brazilian UN mission, outside of the UN, and decided to do it later out of New York. Lavrov then offered Yekaterinburg, where we had the first ministerial meeting in 2008, and then next year the first presidential summit, also in Yekaterinburg, and in Brazil in 2010. It was here that the idea of BRIC was expanded into BRICS – through a dinner that concluded IBAS and inaugurated BRICS.

At the time, did you think about expanding to other top emerging economies, such as Indonesia, South Korea, Turkey, Iran?

IBAS was born on the second day of President Lula’s government [in January 2003], out of an idea to create a group of developing countries, around seven or eight. I thought a larger group would be very complicated, based on my experience – how to coordinate positions and engage in concrete projects. For instance, Egypt would have to be a member.

When did you start to seriously discuss practical steps towards the emergence of a multipolar world – such as trade in members’ currencies? Was it in 2010?

In 2010 certainly, we had the idea of trade using each member’s currency, not yet the idea – that happened under the Dilma government – of the BRICS bank. But we were already talking about the coordination of our development banks. The concept of multipolarity, the Russians may have been the first to outline it. What I do remember about the use of the concept was by the French, especially when there were serious divergences about the attack on Iraq.

Former French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin insisted on it.

Villepin, yes, but even Hubert Vedrine [foreign minister under Jacques Chirac from 1997-2002] before him, who came up with the concept of ‘hyperpower’. So the ones who spread the concept were the French, and we adhered to it, among developing countries. The French, when they talked about the expansion of the UN Security Council, they said they were in favor regarding Germany and Japan, but also ‘three great nations of the South’, Brazil included.

The Lula government started in January 2003. Geopolitics at the time was conditioned by the war on terror. We were already expecting the invasion of Iraq. How did you, in the first days of January 2003, knowing that Dick Cheney and the neocons were about to turn the Middle East upside down, with direct and indirect repercussions on the Global South, how did you start conceiving a multi-vector Brazilian foreign policy? Which were the priorities?

I think neither President Lula nor myself used the term “multipolar” – even though the concept was already on the table. We wanted to have good relations with the US but also with the largest developing countries. When we started the greatest problems were the Free Trade Area of the Americas [FTAA], so we had to look for other partners; the WTO and negotiations in the Doha round; and Iraq. The combination of all these led Brazil to get closer to India and South Africa, to a great extent via the WTO, and because of Iraq, we got closer to Russia, Germany and France. When President Lula went to Davos…

That was Lula’s first Davos, right?

Yes, but first he went to the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre [in Brazil], then he went to Davos. The message was the search for an equilibrium; to do business, of course, but based on the idea of democratic social change.

Were you discussing Iraq in detail with Russia, Germany and France?

Yes, we were, with Schroeder in Germany and Chirac, as well as Villepin at the Security Council. And there was a fourth problem: Venezuela. Lula had already talked about it with Chavez. During the inauguration of President Gutierrez of Ecuador, Lula’s first foreign trip, on January 15, Lula proposed, in a meeting in a room full of presidents, the creation of the Friends of Venezuela Group, at a moment when the crisis was acute, even though the country was not as debilitated as today.

Already in January 2003 was there neocon pressure on Brazil in relation to Venezuela?

I think they did not know how to deal with Lula and the new government. But they were very strong on Venezuela – especially [US diplomat] Roger Noriega. And yet they saw Brazil was proposing something and accepted it. Fidel was against it, but Chavez, in the end, was convinced by Lula. And this is also relevant for today. Lula said it in so many words; this is not a Friends of Chavez group, it’s a Friends of Venezuela group. So this must also include the United States, Spain and Portugal – under conservative administrations. That was a way to escape from the OAS [Organisation of American States] and its penchant for the Monroe doctrine [the US policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas].

I used to talk to Colin Powell quite frequently – and not to receive instructions. There were many issues he wanted to know about, and he trusted Brazil. He had a notion of the importance of Brazil, our capacity for dialogue.

Switching to the Obama era, tell us about the role of Brazil, alongside Turkey, in the Iran nuclear negotiation, when you clinched a deal in Tehran in less than 24 hours, only for it to be smashed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the next day.

It was a long process, followed by 19 hours of negotiations, the Iranians tried to reopen one of the issues, both Lula and Erdogan refused. What facilitated our role as mediators was that the US had its hands full in the Middle East. I already had contacts with Javier Solana, then a sort of Foreign Affairs Minister of the EU, and also [Egyptian diplomat] ElBaradei, from my time at the UN. Obama, in a meeting of the G-8 + 5 in Italy, during a bilateral with us, he said three things: ‘I extended my hand and they did not answer’; ‘We need to solve the nuclear dossier’; ‘And I need friends to say what I cannot say’. What we did in the end, because we thought it was the right thing to do, with a lot of work and facing hardships, was exactly what the Americans wanted. One month before the deal I thought it would not happen. But then we received a letter from Obama, and to my greatest surprise, that was a reiteration of the same initial three points.

Hillary always had a different position. I foresaw her reaction as a possibility. We talked on the phone, in Madrid, when I was coming back from Iran, and I said, ‘Look, in Brazil we have this expression, ‘I didn’t read it, and I didn’t like it’. She did not want a deal. In a phone call before my trip, she was adding some other points of discussion and I said, ‘Hillary, this is a trust-building agreement. And these points that you mention were not in the letter delivered by your own President’. I’m not exaggerating, what followed was a silence lasting half a minute. So I thought; did she read the letter? Or she read it, and because they are a great power they can do what they want, and we have to take it, and adapt to it?

So what about China and Russia accepting the American line – no deal, more sanctions?

I know the sweeteners that made them accept it – concessions on the sanctions front. But geopolitically…

What’s your informed hypothesis?

There are two. This was a problem they did not solve. Who’s part of the global directory? The five permanent members of the Security Council. Now we have two developing countries, who are not even part of the Security Council, and they solve it? By coincidence, both were non-permanent members of the Security Council at the time. The other thing is whenever we are discussing a nuclear issue, the five get closer, because they are all nuclear powers.

What’s your insider view, as a statesman, of Vladimir Putin, demonized 24/7 in the US as a major existential threat to the West?

The first time I saw Putin face to face was when he received three nations from the Group of Rio, and the main topic of discussion was Iraq. That was before the invasion in March 2003. What most impressed me was his great knowledge of the dossiers – something you usually don’t expect from presidents. He’s extremely sharp, very intelligent, obviously cares for Russian interests but at the same time pays attention to the balance of power. A very realist politician. I don’t see him as a great idealist. He’s like a 19th-century politician, very conscious geopolitically.

Now, in the South American chessboard, regarding the Venezuelan crisis, we are seeing a direct confrontation between the four major poles of Eurasia – Russia, China, Iran, Turkey – against the US. And with another BRICS member, Brazil, siding against Russia and China.

In a multipolar world, we now have a huge test, because Brazil presides over the BRICS in 2019. How is Brazil going to be seen inside BRICS? There used to be an atmosphere of trust inside BRICS.

I’ve got to say that based on my experience at the Security Council, when I was ambassador, during the government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso [from 1995 to 2003], the Russians and the Chinese gave immense weight to respect for national sovereignty. In terms of international law, they always stress non-intervention. I hope we won’t have a confrontation like Vietnam in our region. But when President Trump says that all options are on the table, he’s obviously accepting a military solution. This is very dangerous. I see a very sound Brazilian position coming from General Mourao [the Brazilian vice-president]. And yet the Foreign Ministry says Brazil will support politically and economically a government that does not exist – so that already means intervention.

On a personal level, in the drive towards multipolarity, what is the most important story in the world for the next 10 or 20 years? What is the issue that drives you the most?

I think that the fundamental theme is psychological – and also civilizational. It’s respect for The Other – and the acceptance of alterity. And this also concerns international relations. We need to understand that the common good is part of our well-being. This reflects on individual attitudes, in internal attitudes in politics, and in international relations. Look at the current, violent attack on multilateralism. We should see that it’s better to work multilaterally than capitulate to the law of the jungle.

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The recent BRICS summit reaffirmed Ankara’s commitment to the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) that is geared toward de-dollarizing its member states’ economies, and the agreement to quickly launch a Local Currency Bond Fund gives that policy teeth. Turkey has also expressed its desire to join BRICS.

Ankara is gradually moving toward membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). It has been accepted as a dialog partner of that organization. Last year Turkey became a dialog partner with ASEAN. On Aug. 1, the first ASEAN-Turkey Trilateral Ministerial Meeting was held in Singapore, bringing together Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, ASEAN Secretary General Dato Lim Jock Hoi, and Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who is serving as the 2018 ASEAN term chairman. The event took place under the auspices of the 51st ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting that attracted foreign ministers and top diplomats from 30 countries.

Ankara is mulling over a free-trade area (FTA) agreement with the Eurasian Union. This cooperation between Ankara and the EAEU has a promising future.

Meanwhile, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has provided a $3.6-billion loan package for the Turkish energy and transportation sector. Turkey and China have recently announced an expansion of their military ties. As one can see, Turkey is inexorably pivoting from the West to the East.

Russia has a special role to play in this process. The US Congress has prohibited the sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey because of the risk associated with Ankara's purchase of the S-400 air-defense system. In response, Turkey is contemplating a purchase of Russian warplanes. Ankara prefers Russian weapons over the ones offered by NATO states. As President Erdogan put it, “Before it is too late, Washington must give up the misguided notion that our relationship can be asymmetrical and come to terms with the fact that Turkey has alternatives.”

On Aug. 10, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan discussed the prospects for boosting economic cooperation. Both nations are parties to the ambitious Turkish Stream natural-gas pipeline project. Ideas for ways to join forces in response to the US offensive were also on the agenda during the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Turkey, Aug. 13-14, although Syria was in the spotlight of the talks. One mustn’t forget that Russia was the first country to be visited by the Turkish president after the failed 2016 coup.

As a result of some tough times resulting from US sanctions, Iran is redoubling its efforts at building foreign relationships. Under US pressure, European companies are leaving Iran, with China gradually filling the void. Now that US and European airspace companies are moving their business ventures out of Iran, this presents a good opportunity for Russian aircraft, such as the MS-21 or IL-96-400M. The Russian automaker GAZ Group is ready to supply Iran with commercial vehicles and light trucks powered by 5th generation engines.

Tehran is an observer state in the SCO, and it is to become an essential hub for the Chinese Belt Road Initiative (BRI). On June 25, a freight train arrived in the Iranian city of Bandar-e Anzali, a port on the Caspian Sea, having passed through the China-Kazakhstan-Iran transportation corridor and entering the Anzali Free Zone that connects China to both the Kazakh port of Aktau and to Iran, thus creating a new trade link to the outside world. This gives a boost to the BRI. On Aug. 12, the five littoral states (the Caspian Five) signed the Caspian Sea Convention — the fruit of 22 years of difficult negotiations. This opens up new opportunities for Iran and other countries of the region as well as the BRI. The idea to form a new economic forum was floated at the Caspian Five summit.

China and Russia back the idea of Iran’s full-fledged SCO membership. In May Tehran signed an interim FTA agreement with the EAEU. Greater EAEU-BRI integration under the stewardship of the SCO is also on the horizon.

According to the Daily Express, Iran could band together with Russia and China in an anti-US alliance. Iran may also get an observer status in the CSTO. Iran-Turkey trade has recently revived, and that bilateral relationship includes burgeoning military cooperation.

Nothing can be viewed in just black and white, and every coin has two sides. The US sanctions do negatively affect the economies and finances of the targeted countries, but in the long run, they will also push the nations hit by them to move closer to each other, thus encouraging the emergence of the multipolar world the US is trying so hard to resist.

Photo: Aluminium Insider

The key take away from the BRICS summit in Johannesburg is that Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – important Global South players – strongly condemn unilateralism and protectionism.

The Johannesburg Declaration is unmistakable: “We recognize that the multilateral trading system is facing unprecedented challenges. We underscore the importance of an open world economy.”

Closer examination of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech unlocks some poignant details.

And that also implies reaching to the next level; “It is important that we continue to pursue innovation-driven development and build the BRICS Partnership on New Industrial Revolution (PartNIR) to strengthen coordination on macroeconomic policies, find more complementarities in our development strategies, and reinforce the competitiveness of the BRICS countries, emerging market economies and developing countries.”

If PartNIR sounds like the basis for an overall Global South platform, that’s because it is.

In a not too veiled allusion to the Trump administration’s unilateral pullout from the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA), Xi called all parties to “abide by international law and basic norms governing international relations and to settle disputes through dialogue and differences through consultation,” adding that the BRICS are inevitably working for “a new type of international relations.”

Relations such as these certainly do not include a superpower unilaterally imposing an energy export blockade – an act of economic war – on an emerging market and key actor of the Global South.

Xi is keen to extol a “network of closer partnerships.” That’s where the concept of BRICS Plus fits in. China coined BRICS Plus last year at the Xiamen summit, it refers to closer integration between the five BRICS members and other emerging markets/developing nations.

Argentina, Turkey and Jamaica are guests of honor in Johannesburg. Xi sees BRICS Plus interacting with the UN, the G20 “and other frameworks” to amplify the margin of maneuver not only of emerging markets but the whole Global South. 

So how does Iran fit into this framework?

An absurd game of chicken

Immediately after President Trump’s Tweet of Mass Destruction the rhetorical war between Washington and Tehran has skyrocketed to extremely dangerous levels.

Major General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force – and a true rock star in Iran – issued a blistering response to Trump: “You may begin the war, but it is us who will end it.”

The IRGC yields massive economic power in Iran and is in total symbiosis with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. It’s no secret the IRGC never trusted President Rouhani’s strategy of relying on the JCPOA as the path to improve Iran’s economy. After the unilateral Trump administration pullout, the IRGC feels totally vindicated.

The mere threat of a US attack on Iran has engineered a rise in oil prices. US reliance on Middle East Oil is going down while fracking – boosted by higher prices – is ramping up. The threat of war increases with Tehran now overtly referring to its power to cripple global energy supplies literally overnight.

In parallel the Houthis, by forcing the Yemen-bombing House of Saud to stop oil shipments via the Bab al-Mandeb port, are configuring the Strait of Hormuz and scores of easily targeted pipelines as even more crucial to the flow of energy that makes the West tick. 

If there ever was a US attack on Iran, Persian Gulf analysts stress only Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela might be able to provide enough oil and gas to make up for lost supplies to the West. That’s not exactly what the Trump administration is looking for.

Iranian “nuclear weapons” was always a bogus issue. Tehran did not have them – and was not pursuing them. Yet now the highly volatile rhetorical war introduces the hair-raising possibility of Tehran perceiving there is a clear danger of a US nuclear attack or an attack whose purpose is to destroy the nation’s infrastructure. If cornered, there’s no question the IRGC would buy nuclear weapons on the black market and use them to defend the nation.

This is the “secret” hidden in Soleimani’s message. Besides, Russia could easily – and secretly – supply Iran with state-of-the-art defensive missiles and the most advanced offensive missiles.

This absurd game of chicken is absolutely unnecessary for Washington from an oil strategy point of view – apart from the intent to break a key node of Eurasia integration. Assuming the Trump administration is playing chess, it’s imperative to think 20 moves ahead if “winning” is on the cards.

If a US oil blockade on Iran is coming, Iran could answer with its own Strait of Hormuz blockade, producing economic turmoil for the West. If this leads to a massive depression, it’s unlikely the industrial-military-security complex will blame itself.

There’s no question that Russia and China – the two key BRICS players – will have Iran’s back. First there’s Russia’s participation in Iran’s nuclear and aerospace industries and then the Russia-Iran collaboration in the Astana process to solve the Syria tragedy. With China, Iran as one of the country’s top energy suppliers and plays a crucial role in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Russia and China have an outsize presence in the Iranian market and similar ambitions to bypass the US dollar and third-party US sanctions.

Beam me up, Global South

The true importance of the BRICS Johannesburg summit is how it is solidifying a Global South plan of action that would have Iran as one of its key nodes. Iran, although not named in an excellent analysis by Yaroslav Lissovolik at the Valdai Club, is the quintessential BRICS Plus nation.

Once again, BRICS Plus is all about constituting a “unified platform of regional integration arrangements,” going way beyond regional deals to reach other developing nations in a transcontinental scope.

This means a platform integrating the African Union (AU), the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as well as the South Asian Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).

Iran is a future member of the SCO and has already struck a deal with the EAEU. It’s also an important node of the BRI and is a key member, along BRICS members India and Russia, of the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), essential for deeper Eurasia connectivity.

Lissovolik uses BEAMS as the acronym to designate “the aggregation of regional integration groups, with BRICS Plus being a broader concept that incorporates other forms of BRICS’ interaction with developing economies.”

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has defined BRICS Plus and BEAMS as the “most extensive platform for South-South cooperation with a global impact.” The Global South now does have an integration road map. If it ever happened, an attack on Iran would be not only an attack on BRICS Plus and BEAMS but on the whole Global South.

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