NBC News has a new report out citing multiple anonymous US officials, humorously titled “In a break with the past, U.S. is using intel to fight an info war with Russia, even when the intel isn’t rock solid”.

The officials say the Biden administration has been rapidly pushing out “intelligence” about Russia’s plans in Ukraine that is “low-confidence” or “based more on analysis than hard evidence”, or even just plain false, in order to fight an information war against Putin.

The report says that toward this end the US government has deliberately circulated false or poorly evidenced claims about impending chemical weapons attacks, about Russian plans to orchestrate a false flag attack in the Donbass to justify an invasion, about Putin’s advisors misinforming him, and about Russia seeking arms supplies from China.

Psyops in the U.S. targeting the public used to be illegal, even though the way they got around it was to plant stories in the foreign press. But over the last five years beginning with Russiagate & now Ukraine, it is clear that U.S. public is fair game: https://t.co/gcEWoCZbkB

— Ajamu Baraka (@ajamubaraka) April 6, 2022

Excerpt, emphasis mine:

It was an attention-grabbing assertion that made headlines around the world: U.S. officials said they had indications suggesting Russia might be preparing to use chemical agents in Ukraine.

President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.

It’s one of a string of examples of the Biden administration’s breaking with recent precedent by deploying declassified intelligence as part of an information war against Russia. The administration has done so even when the intelligence wasn’t rock solid, officials said, to keep Russian President Vladimir Putin off balance.

So they lied. They may hold that they lied for a noble reason, but they lied. They knowingly circulated information they had no reason to believe was true, and that lie was amplified by all the most influential media outlets in the western world.

Another example of the Biden administration releasing a false narrative as part of its “information war”:

Likewise, a charge that Russia had turned to China for potential military help lacked hard evidence, a European official and two U.S. officials said.

The U.S. officials said there are no indications China is considering providing weapons to Russia. The Biden administration put that out as a warning to China not to do so, they said.

On the empire’s claim last week that Putin is being misled by his advisors because they are afraid of telling him the truth, NBC reports that this assessment “wasn’t conclusive — based more on analysis than hard evidence.”

I’d actually made fun of this ridiculous CIA press release when it was uncritically published disguised as a breaking news report by The New York Times:

Breaking News: The most influential newspaper in the English-speaking world routinely passes off CIA press releases as “Breaking News”. https://t.co/aBzhidbozv

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 30, 2022

We’d also had fun with State Department Spokesman Ned Price’s bizarre February impersonation of Alex Jones, where he wrongly claimed that Russia was about to release a “false flag” video using crisis actors to justify its invasion:

US Again Tries To Pass Off Government Assertions As Evidence

“This is the kind of evidence you can’t see. The evidence is invisible.”https://t.co/mEqIsS0cUS

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) February 4, 2022

Other US government lies discussed in the NBC report were less cute:

In another disclosure, U.S. officials said one reason not to provide Ukraine with MiG fighter jets is that intelligence showed Russia would view the move as escalatory.

That was true, but it was also true of Stinger missiles, which the Biden administration did provide, two U.S. officials said, adding that the administration declassified the MiG information to bolster the argument not to provide them to Ukraine.

So the Biden administration knew it was sending weapons to Ukraine that would be perceived by a nuclear superpower as a provocative escalation, sent them anyway, and then lied about it. Cool, cool, cool.

This NBC report confirms rumors we’ve been hearing for months. Professional war slut Max Boot said via The Council on Foreign Relations think tank in February that the Biden administration had ushered in “a new era of info ops” with intelligence releases designed not to tell the truth but to influence Putin’s decisions. Former MI6 chief John Sawers told The Atlantic Council think tank in February that the Biden administration’s “intelligence” releases were based more on a general vibe than actual intelligence, and were designed to manipulate rather than to inform.

Amazing interview with of the former MI6 chief with the Atlantic Council’s @B_judah (the whole gang present) where the intel goon *admits* that many western “intel leaks” media outlets are dutifully conveying aren’t real leaks but propaganda messages designed to undercut Putin. pic.twitter.com/UOzBxG5F5H

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) February 17, 2022

And in case you were wondering, no, NBC did not just publish a major leak by whistleblowers within the US government who are bravely exposing the lies of the powerful with the help of the free press. One of the article’s authors is Ken Dilanian, who in 2014 was revealed to have worked as a literal CIA asset while writing for The LA Times. If you see Dilanian’s name in a byline, you may be certain that you are reading exactly what the managers of the US empire want you to read.

So why are they telling us all this now? Is the US government not worried that it will lose the trust of the public by admitting that it is continuously lying about its most high-profile international conflict? And if this is an “information war” designed to “get inside Putin’s head” as NBC’s sources claim, wouldn’t openly reporting it through the mainstream press completely defeat the purpose?

Well, the answer to those questions is where it gets really creepy. I welcome everyone’s feedback and theories on the matter, but as near as I can figure the only reason the US government would release this story to the public is because they want the general public to know about it. And the only plausible reason I can think of that they would want the public to know about it is that they are confident the public will consent to being lied to.

To get a better sense of what I’m getting at, it helps to watch the televised version of this report in which Dilanian and NBC anchor Alison Morris enthuse about how brilliant and wonderful it is that the Biden administration is employing these psychological warfare tactics to mess with Putin’s mind:

The message an indoctrinated NBC viewer will get when watching this segment is, “Isn’t this awesome? Our president is pulling off all these cool 3D chess moves to beat Putin, and we’re kind of a part of it!”

It’s been obvious for a long time that the US empire has been working to shore up narrative control to strengthen its hegemonic domination of the planet via internet censorship, propaganda, Silicon Valley algorithm manipulation, and the normalization of the persecution of journalists. We may now simply be at the stage of imperial narrative control where they can begin openly manufacturing the consent of the public to be lied to for their own good.

Just as the smear campaign against Julian Assange trained mainstream liberals to defend the right of their government to keep dark secrets from them, we may now be looking at the stage of narrative control advancement where mainstream liberals are trained to defend the right of their government to lie to them.

The US is ramping up cold war aggressions against Russia and China in a desperate attempt to secure unipolar hegemony, and psychological warfare traditionally plays a major role in cold war maneuverings due to the inability to aggress in more overt ways against nuclear-armed foes. So now would definitely be the time to get the “thinkers” of America’s two mainstream political factions fanatically cheerleading their government’s psywar manipulations.

A casual glance around the internet at what mainstream liberals are saying about this NBC report shows that this is indeed what is happening. In liberal circles there does appear to be widespread acceptance of the world’s most powerful government using the world’s most powerful media institutions to lie to the public for strategic gains. If this continues to be accepted, it will make things a whole lot easier for the empire managers going forward.

caityjohnstone.medium.com

By Gabriel HONRADA

Australia has announced plans to accelerate its missile procurement program years ahead of schedule due to perceived threats from China. According to a statement made by Australian Defense Minister Peter Dutton on Tuesday (April 5), the accelerated program will cost US$2.6 billion and increase Australia’s deterrent capabilities.

Under the revised timeline, Australia’s F/A-18F Super Hornet jets will be armed with improved US-made missiles by 2024, three years earlier than planned. The missiles would likely be the AGM-158B JASSM-ER, a stealthy cruise missile with a range of 900 kilometers.

Australia’s Anzac-class frigates and Hobart-class frigates will be equipped with Norwegian-made Kongsberg Naval Strike Missiles by 2024, five years earlier than scheduled, and would effectively double the warships’ strike range.

This comes as a follow-on to the Australian government’s promise last year to invest US$761 million to build guided missiles in the country.

Australia, the US and UK have also announced that they will be working together to develop hypersonic missiles. According to a statement released this month, the three countries will commence trilateral cooperation on hypersonics, counter-hypersonics and electronic warfare capabilities, as well as expand information-sharing and deepen cooperation on defense innovation.

This development comes after Australia-based firm Hypersonix presented its 3D-printed hydrogen-powered hypersonic scramjet engine to US officials last month, and entered into a partnership with US-based firm Kratos to launch the DART AE, a multi-mission, hypersonic vehicle powered by a hydrogen-fueled scramjet engine. Hypersonix says that the DART AE is designed to a reusable space launch platform that emits no CO2 for clean spaceflight.

This spate of hypersonic and other missile developments have no doubt been triggered by Australia’s growing concern over China’s creeping presence near its territories and perceived sphere of influence.

The announcements also mark a certain reversal of policy in Canberra, which came under pressure during the previous Donald Trump administration in 2019 to position US ground-based missiles in Darwin in northern Australia, a proposal that was refused at the time.

Then-US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said at the time a request to base American missiles in Australia would take into account the “mutual benefit” to both countries. Local Australian reports at the time noted that if the US deployed missiles with a range of 5,500 kilometers at Darwin, southern China would be comfortably within range.

The US proposal, which was declined at the time despite moves to boost America’s military presence at Darwin, was made before Australia-China diplomatic and economic relations went into a tailspin over Canberra’s call for an independent inquiry into the origins of Covid-19, an investigation Beijing sees as anathema.

Last month the Solomon Islands announced that it has “initialed” elements of a proposed security deal with China, to be signed at a later date, that would potentially give China temporary stationing rights for its naval vessels and allowance for a Chinese police presence. The deal is still undergoing revision and awaiting the signatures of both countries’ foreign ministers.

The China-Solomon Islands pact was leaked last month by opponents of the deal, and verified as authentic by the Australian government. While still in draft form that cites the need for restoring social order to send in Chinese forces, a Chinese base in the Solomon Islands would immediately undermine Australia and New Zealand’s security.

A Chinese naval presence in the Solomons could cut off Australia and New Zealand from critical sea lines of communication from the US, forcing both countries to rely on their own defense capabilities. The Solomon Islands’ strategic location made it a key battleground during World War II.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated that “there are others who may seek to pretend to influence and may seek to get some sort of hold in the region,” and New Zealand raised concerns over the militarization of the Pacific.

The Solomon Islands is a point of increasing geopolitical tension between the US and China in the Pacific. Last year, protests erupted in the capital Honiara over allegations that Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare was accused of using money from a national development fund that comes from China.

Other factors leading to last year’s protests in the Solomon Islands were unequal distribution of resources, the lack of economic support, poor government services, corruption, and a controversial decision in 2019 to drop diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of China.

In February the US announced plans to reopen its embassy in the Solomon Islands, which has been closed since 1993, in a bid to counter China’s growing presence.

In 2019, China attempted to lease Tulagi in the Solomon Islands, which has a natural deep-water harbor suitable for a naval base. However, the Solomon Islands government later vetoed China’s attempt to lease Tulagi, saying that the provincial government did not have the authority for such negotiations.

asiatimes.com

Although it is now 20 years since the English edition of my Japan: The Toothless Tiger best seller first appeared, everything that has since happened has confirmed its thesis that East Asia is a powder keg that Japan cannot contain.

Although China’s Belt and Road Initiative is inexorably falling into place, so too is the South China Sea. Although a British convoy, supported by German and American cruisers, recently sailed through the area, they, like the Australians, who are being butt hurt by Chinese sanctions, are not serious players.

South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are the region’s heavy hitters. Though Taiwan would give an excellent account of itself in any future encounter, there is little they could do when faced with overwhelming Chinese firepower. Taiwan could be East Asia’s Arch Duke Ferdinand moment.

South Korea, however, remains the real dagger to Japan’s heart. There are more than five million men under arms on the Korean peninsula – far more armed soldiers than either the United States or Russia maintains. Vladivostock, Russia’s military headquarters in the Far East, is only fifty miles away from North Korea! The resulting geostrategic rivalries make Korea the most militarized piece of real estate on the planet and it is the only place the United States has (repeatedly) declared it has locked and loaded nuclear weapons. As there is no way Seoul can be defended from a determined attack, the USMC is heavily embedded in Okinawa to where they hastily retreated at the height of the Korean War and to where they most likely will have to retreat again. Though Japan needs South Korea as a buffer state against North Korea and its historical Russian and Chinese sponsors, the Belt and Road Initiative would marginalize Japan and make her almost irrelevant to this Chinese minted version of The Great Game.

China views its own naval expansion as vital to protecting her sea routes and, just like Washington, Beijing is deploying her navy to ensure that the black gold continues to arrive to her shores. The fact that this policy poses a threat to Japan is not Beijing’s primary concern. They have the much more daunting task of keeping their vast nation afloat. For that overriding purpose, they need a strong navy to guarantee their oil supplies and a steely determination to defend and promote their national objectives.

Japan’s looming quandary is that, with Taiwan and South Korea, it has been a vassal of America’s East Asian policy, trading economic advancement for American political and military hegemony in contrast to China’s unfettered development. That bill is now due.

China is involved in a great strategic game that she cannot afford to lose. Kazakhstan is China’s natural bridge to the lucrative Iranian and Iraqi fields. Such a link-up would advance China’s standing as a world power. It would also cripple United States’ efforts to secure the Caspian Sea’s oil for the West. China also wants to secure central Asia’s economic cooperation to help mollify Xinjiang, which Erdoğan’s Muslim Uighur fifth columnists are charged with subverting. About 200,000 Uighurs live in Kazakhstan and opposition Islamic terrorist groups have their bases in Almata, its largest city. China hopes to neutralize this U.S. sponsored internal ISIS threat by its oil diplomacy in Kazakhstan, and its arms diplomacy in Pakistan, Iran and Iraq.

NATO’s ongoing belligerence in Eastern Europe has transformed the pipeline poker China has been playing with Russia and the other regional powers, forcing Russia and oil rich Kazakhstan to fully throw their lot in with China. Siberian oil will flow southwards to China and, if Korea and Japan wish it, onwards to them as well.

Iran meanwhile, is helping China wrest the vast oil reserves of the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf from Uncle Sam . If Iran and China control the flow of oil from the region, the United States will lose control not only of the Caspian Sea but also of the Persian Gulf’s vast and vital oil supplies. Japan best urgently take stock.

China’s missiles nullify America’s capacity to militarily dominate Asia’s vast geography with its small, dispersed pockets of marine forces, whose forward deployment policy bases are much too vulnerable. Without forward bases in Asia, there can be no concentration of American military power: weapons cannot even be stored, let alone massed for use.

This vulnerability of their bases to Chinese missiles is America’s singular military weakness in Asia. America’s powerful Seventh Fleet cannot make up for the loss of Asian land bases. The Seventh Fleet cannot generate anything like the military power or psychological effect of fixed bases.

The most important of these forward bases are those in Japan. Guam, like mainland America, is simply too far away to fill this role. Okinawa is the pivotal, preferred spot. And China’s missiles are gradually making those bases redundant to America’s strategic thinkers.

China is devoting vast resources to her missile program. This is a war of nerves where time and, ultimately, technology, is on the side of Mainland China. This psychological aspect explains China’s widespread use of ballistic missiles, which are, in essence, really psychological weapons – paper tigers if you will. Although Taiwan might protect itself from an amphibious assault, protecting Taipei from surgical missile strikes – or the threat of surgical strikes – by Beijing’s ballistic missile units is a more daunting task. Beijing knows this and will continue to tighten and loosen the screws, as she deems appropriate.

Japan has a glass jaw, one that China could easily break if Japan does not act responsibly over the next few years. Japan is the only major nation in the world that has explicitly renounced war as a tool of policy. Article 9.1 of the Japanese constitution renounces war “as a sovereign right of the nation”. Article 9.2 asserts that “land, sea and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained”.

That said, Japan maintains very substantial “land, sea and air forces”. Japan’s military expenditures are, in fact, the third highest in the world. Tokyo has stockpiled over 100 tons of plutonium that would be relatively simple to transform into weapons’ grade material. Japan’s fast-breeder reactors (FBRs) have the capacity to squeeze over 60 times more energy from uranium fuel than can the light-water reactors of most other countries. Japan will, in other words, have the capacity to make more nuclear weapons than the combined arsenals of the United States and Russia hold. If nothing else, this arsenal makes an impressive bundle of bargaining chips.

Because its major challenges will come from the air, Japan has developed formidable anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile defense systems. Japan’s radar and its accurate Tomahawk missile technology far excel their American prototypes. Other Japanese strengths in miniaturization, automation, telecommunications and the development of durable, lightweight advanced materials further enhance their military capabilities.

Japan’s plutonium purchases have allowed it develop the necessary nuclear submarine technology to counter China’s blue water navy. Though impressive, a handful of nuclear submarines and a couple of batteries of missile defenses do not make Japan impregnable.

Bizarre as it seems, Japan’s expertise in these niche areas is a cause for concern in Washington. America fears lost market share if Japan exports its expertise – and, to develop the required expertise, Japan would have to copy the examples of Israel, Sweden, South Africa and other small countries and aggressively export. The United States fears that Japan would win export orders at its expense.

Japanese dual-use technological capabilities in commercial fields related to military use threatens the preeminent position American producers currently enjoy in the world’s arms’ markets. This is ironic as, historically, the United States encouraged Japan in its development of dual use capabilities. Spin-offs from the radio industry, for example, helped kick-start the Japanese commercial television industry, which eventually obliterated their American competitors.

Japan’s defense industry is, however, an inconsequential part of Japan’s overall industrial output. It accounts for less than 1 percent of Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) and even those firms, such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), which are most heavily involved in it, are there mostly because of the spin-off technological benefits it has given them.

Whereas Japan has some particularly strong trees of knowledge, the forest overwhelmingly belongs to America. Japan just does not have the logistical depth of America or the European Union to be a major league player. While Japanese industry has established a global position in a wide range of critical modern technologies, Japan’s defense industry has lagged behind. At the systems level, military technology has simply moved faster than Japan’s ability to catch up.

Japan, in other words, does not have an autonomous arms industry. Today, the defense industry accounts for less than 0.6 percent of total industrial production, an almost insignificant amount in Japan’s overall context. Though Japan produces about 90 percent of its own military requirements, much of that is built under license from American firms and a considerable amount of the technology is black-boxed – sealed so that Japanese engineers cannot study and copy them.

In summary then, East Asia is in a state of chassis. Although Japan has neither the heart nor the materiel for what lies ahead, she, together with South Korea and Taiwan, must develop not only their autonomous defense systems but their own autonomous diplomatic voices as well. Japan’s future, whether she likes it or not, will be with its East Asian neighbors’ Belt and Road Initiative when the U.S. 7^th Fleet, however belatedly, scuttles back to Pearl Harbor.

The Pentagon has produced its latest National Defense Strategy (NDS), a report made every four years to provide the public and the government with a broad overview of the US war machine’s planning, posturing, developments and areas of focus.

You might assume with all the aggressive brinkmanship between Moscow and the US power alliance this year that Russia would feature as Enemy Number One in the 2022 NDS, but you would be assuming incorrectly. The US “Defense” Department reserves that slot for the same nation that’s occupied it for many years now: China.

Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp writes the following:

The full NDS is still classified, but the Pentagon released a fact sheet on the document that says it “will act urgently to sustain and strengthen deterrence, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as our most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department.”

The fact sheet outlines four priorities for the Pentagon:

1. Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC
2. Deterring strategic attacks against the United States, Allies, and partners
3. Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary, prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe
4. Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem

China Identified as Top ‘Threat’ in New National Defense Strategy
US military activity near China increased significantly in 2021
by Dave DeCamp@DecampDave #China https://t.co/L8gkis0WTF pic.twitter.com/22wbJFyEF6

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) March 29, 2022

“The Pentagon says that while China is the focus, Russia poses ‘acute threats’ because of its invasion of Ukraine,” DeCamp writes, showing the empire’s view of Moscow as a second-tier enemy.

Ahead of a meeting with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has made some comments which clearly illustrate the US-centralized empire’s actual problem with Moscow.

“We, together with you, and with our sympathisers will move towards a multipolar, just, democratic world order,” Lavrov said to the Chinese government on Wednesday.

And that right there ladies and gentlemen is the real reason we’ve been hearing so much hysterical shrieking about Russia these last five or six years. It’s never been about Russian hackers. Nor about a Kremlin pee pee tape. Nor about Trump Tower. Nor about GRU bounties in Afghanistan. Nor about Manafort, Flynn, Bannon, Papadopoulos or any other Russiagate Surname of the Week. It’s not even actually about Ukraine. Those have all been narrative-shaping constructs manipulated by the US intelligence cartel to manufacture support for a final showdown against Russia and China to prevent the emergence of a multipolar world.

The US government has had a policy in place since the fall of the Soviet Union to prevent the rise of any powers which could challenge its imperial agendas for the world. During the (first) Cold War the strategy promoted by empire managers like Henry Kissinger was to court China out of necessity to pull it away from the USSR, which was when we saw business ties between China and the US lead to immense profits for certain individuals in both nations and the influx of wealth which now has China on track to surpass the US as an economic superpower.

Once the USSR ended, so too did the need to remain on friendly terms with China, and subsequent decades saw a sharp pivot into a much more adversarial relationship with Beijing.

Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, Hillary Clinton admits there was an expectation in Washington Russia would have no choice but to become the West’s junior partner due to the fear China could take over the Russian Far East. /1https://t.co/pJQeF0eCxf

— Artyom Lukin (@ArtyomLukin) November 20, 2021

In what history may one day view as the US empire’s greatest strategic blunder, empire managers forecasted the acquisition of post-soviet Russia as an imperial lackey state which could be weaponized against the new Enemy Number One in China. Instead, the exact opposite happened.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last year that she’d “heard for years that Russia would become more willing to move toward the west, more willing to engage in a positive way with Europe, the UK, the US, because of problems on its border, because of the rise of China.” But that’s not what occurred.

“We haven’t seen that,” Clinton said. “Instead what we’ve seen is a concerted effort by Putin maybe to hug China more.”

The empire’s expectation that Moscow would come grovelling to the imperial throne on its own meant that no real effort was expended trying to establish goodwill and win over its friendship. NATO just kept on expanding and the empire got increasingly aggressive and belligerent in its games of global conquest. This error has led to the strategist’s ultimate nightmare of having to fight for global domination against two separate powers at once. Because empire architects incorrectly predicted that Moscow would end up fearing Beijing more than it fears Washington, the tandem between China’s economic power and Russia’s military power that experts have been pointing to for years has only gotten more and more intimate.

And now here we are with Russian and Chinese officials openly discussing their plans to create a multipolar world while Chinese pundits crack jokes about the US empire’s transparent ploys to turn Beijing against Moscow over the Ukraine invasion:

Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?

— CGTN LIU Xin 刘欣 (@LiuXininBeijing) March 19, 2022

On the empire’s grand chessboard, Russia is the queen piece, but China is the king. Just as with chess it helps to take out your opponent’s strongest piece to more easily pursue checkmate, the US empire would be well advised to try and topple China’s nuclear superpower friend and, as Consortium News editor-in-chief Joe Lauria recently put it, “ultimately restore a Yeltsin-like puppet to Moscow.”

Basically all we’re looking at in the major international news stories of our time is the rise of a multipolar world crashing headlong into an empire which has espoused the belief that unipolar domination must be retained at all cost, even if it means flirting with the possibility of a very fast and radioactive third world war.

This is the Hail Mary pass of the US hegemon. Its last-ditch effort to secure control before forever losing any chance at it. Many anti-imperialist pundits I read regularly seem quite confident that this effort will fail, while I personally think those forecasts may be a bit premature. The way the chess pieces are moving it definitely does look like there’s a plan in place, and I don’t think they’d be orchestrating that plan if they didn’t believe it had a chance to succeed.

One thing that does seem clear is that the only way the empire has any chance of stopping the rise of China is by maneuvers that will be both highly disruptive and existentially dangerous for the entire world. If you think things are crazy now, just you wait until the imperial crosshairs move to Beijing.

caityjohnstone.medium.com

By Pepe ESCOBAR

Very occasionally, a single anecdote can almost completely summate a moment in history. And this one did: In 2005, Zbig Brzezinski, the architect of Afghanistan as quagmire to the Soviet Union, and the author of The Grand Chessboard (which embedded the Mackinder dictum of ‘he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world’ into U.S. foreign policy), sat down in Washington with Alexander Dugin, Russian political philosopher and advocate for a ‘heartland’ cultural and geo-political renaissance.

Brzezinski had already written in his book that, absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with it, Russia can and would. The meeting had been set with a photo-prop of a chessboard placed between Brzezinski and Dugin (to promote Brzezinski’s book). This arrangement with a chessboard prompted Dugin to ask whether Brzezinski considered Chess to be a game meant for two: “No, Zbig shot back: It is a game for one. Once a chess piece is moved; you turn the board around, and you move the other side’s chess pieces. There is ‘no other’ in this game”, Brzezinski insisted.

Of course, the single-handed chess game was implicit in Mackinder’s doctrine: ‘He who controls the heartland’ dictum was a message to the Anglo powers to never allow a united heartland. (This, of course, is precisely what is evolving at every moment).

And on Monday, Biden channelled Brzezinski out loud, whilst addressing the Business Roundtable in the U.S. His remarks came toward the end of his brief speech where he talked about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and America’s economic future:

“I think this presents us with some significant opportunities to make some real changes. You know, we are at an inflection point, I believe, in the world economy: [and] not just the world economy – in the world [which] occurs every three or four generations. As one of my, as the one of the top military people said to me in a secure meeting the other day, 60 million people died between 1900 and 1946; and since then we established a liberal world order and that hadn’t happened in a long while. A lot of people died, but nowhere near the chaos. And now’s the time when things are shifting. We’re going, there’s gonna be a new world order out there; and we’ve got to lead it and we’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.”

Again there is no ‘other’ at the board. When the moves are made, the board is turned around 180º to play from the other side.

The point here is that the carefully deliberated counter-attack on this Brzezinski zeitgeist was formally launched in Beijing with the joint-declaration that neither Russia nor China accept for America to play chess alone with no others at the board. This represents the defining issue of this coming era: The opening-up of geo-politics. It is an issue for which the excluded ‘others’ are prepared to go to war (they see no choice).

A second chess-player has stepped forward and insists to play – Russia. And a third stands ready: China. Others are silently lining up to witness how the first engagement in this geo-political war fares. It seems from Biden’s comments quoted above that the U.S. intends to use sanctions, and the full unprecedented extent of U.S. treasury measures, against Brzezinski dissidents. Russia is to be made an example of that which awaits any challengers demanding a seat at the board.

But it is an approach that is fundamentally flawed. It stems from Kissinger’s celebrated dictum that ‘he who controls money controls the world’. It was wrong from the ‘get go’: It was always ‘he who controls food, energy (human as well as fossil) and money can control the world. But Kissinger just ignored the first two required conditions – and the last has imprinted itself on the Washington mental circuits.

And here is the paradox: When Brzezinski wrote his book, it was a very different era. Today, whilst Europe and the U.S. never have been more closely aligned, the ‘West’ paradoxically has also never been more alone. Opposition to Russia may have seemed at the outset a slam dunk global unifier: That world opinion would so robustly oppose Moscow’s attack, that China would pay a high political price for failing to jump onto the anti-Russia bandwagon. But that is not how it is working out.

“While the U.S. rhetoric pillories Russia for “war crimes” and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, et al”, former Indian Ambassador Bhadrakumar notes, “the world capitals view this as a confrontation between America and Russia. Outside of the western camp, the world community refuses to impose sanctions against Russia or even to demonise that country”.

The Islamabad Declaration issued on Wednesday after the 45th meeting of the foreign ministers of the fifty-seven member Organisation of Islamic Conference refused to endorse sanctions against Russia. Not a single country in the African continent or West Asian, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asian region has imposed sanctions against Russia”.

There may well be a further factor at play here: For when these latter states hear phrases such as the ‘Ukrainians, through their heroism, have won the right to enter our “club of values”’, they scent a whiff of debilitated ‘white’ Europe clutching at the life-rafts.

The reality is that the sanctions to which Biden referred in his speech have already failed. Russia has not defaulted; the Moscow stock exchange is open; the Rouble is on the rebound; their current account is in rude good health and Russia is selling energy at windfall prices (even after discount).

In short, trade ‘will be diverted’, not destroyed (the benefit of being an exporter of goods almost fully produced locally – ie. a fortress economy).

The second oddity in Biden’s policy is that whilst Clausewitzian doctrine (to which Russia broadly adheres) argues for the dismantling of ‘the enemy’s centre of gravity, to achieve victory’, in this case presumably, the western control of the global reserve currency and payments systems. Today, however, it is Europe and the U.S. that have been dismantling it themselves: and further locking themselves into soaring inflation and contracting economic activity, in some unexplained fit of moral masochism.

As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard notes in the Telegraph, “What is clear is that western sanctions policy is the worst of all worlds. We are suffering an energy shock that is further inflating Russia’s war-fighting revenues … There is a pervasive fear of a gilets jaunes uprising across Europe, a suspicion that a fickle public will not tolerate the cost-of-living shock once the horrors of Ukraine lose their novelty on TV screens”.

Again, perhaps we can attribute this paradoxical behaviour to Kissinger’s obsession with the power of money, and his forgetfulness of other major factors.

All of this has led to a certain unease creeping into the corridors of power in some NATO capitals over the course that the Ukraine conflict is taking: NATO will not intervene; it will not implement a no-fly zone; and has pointedly ignored Zelensky’s new plea for additional military equipment. Ostensibly, this reflects the ‘selfless’ gesture by the West to avoid a nuclear war. In reality, however, the development of new weaponry can transform geopolitics in a moment (for example, Russia’s Kinzhal hypersonic smart bunker-buster). The fact is that across the board, NATO cannot prevail militarily against Russia in Ukraine.

It seems the Pentagon has – for now – won in the war with State Department and has begun the process of ‘correcting the narrative’.

Contrast these two U.S. narratives:

The State Department on Monday signalled that U.S. is discouraging Zelensky from making concessions to Russia in return for a ceasefire. The spokesman “made it very clear that he is open to a diplomatic solution that does not compromise the core principles at the heart of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. When asked to elaborate on his point, Price said that the war is “bigger” than Russia and Ukraine. “The key point is that there are principles that are at stake here that have universal applicability everywhere”. Price said Putin was trying to violate “core principles”.

But, the Pentagon “drop[ed] two truth bombs” in its battle with State and Congress to prevent confrontation with Russia: “Russia’s conduct in the brutal war tells a different story than the widely accepted view that Putin is intent on demolishing Ukraine and inflicting maximum civilian damage—and it reveals the Russian leader’s strategic balancing act”, reported Newsweek in an article entitled, “Putin’s Bombers Could Devastate Ukraine But He’s Holding Back. Here’s Why.”

One quotes an unnamed analyst at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) saying, “The heart of Kyiv has barely been touched. And almost all of the long-range strikes have been aimed at military targets. A retired U.S. Air Force officer now working as an analyst for a Pentagon contractor, added: “We need to understand Russia’s actual conduct. If we merely convince ourselves that Russia is bombing indiscriminately, or [that] it is failing to inflict more harm because its personnel are not up to the task or because it is technically inept, then we are not seeing the real conflict””.

The second ‘truth bomb’ directly undermines Biden’s dramatic warning about a false flag chemical attack. Reuters reported: “The United States has not yet seen any concrete indications of an imminent Russian chemical or biological weapons attack in Ukraine but is closely monitoring streams of intelligence for them, a senior U.S. defence official said.”

Biden is positioned in the middle, saying ‘Putin’s a war criminal’, but also that there will be no NATO fight with Russia. “The only end game now,” a senior administration official said at a private event earlier this month, “is the end of Putin regime. Until then, all the time Putin stays, [Russia] will be a pariah state that will never be welcomed back into the community of nations. China has made a huge error in thinking Putin will get away with it”.

There it is – the bottom line: Allow the carnage in Ukraine to continue; sit back and watch the ‘heroic Ukrainians bleed Russia dry’; do enough to sustain the conflict (by providing some weapons), but not enough to escalate it; and play it as the heroic struggle for democracy, in order to satisfy public opinion.

The point is that it isn’t working out that way. Putin may surprise all in DC by exiting Ukraine when Russia’s military operation is complete. (When Putin speaks of Ukraine, by the way, he usually discounts the western part added on by Stalin as Ukrainian).

And it isn’t working out with China. Blinken said in justification of new sanctions imposed on China last week: “We are committed to defending human rights around the world and will continue to use all diplomatic and economic measures to promote accountability”.

The sanctions were imposed because China had failed to repudiate Putin. Just that. The language of accountability and (of atonement) used however, can be understood only as an expression of woke contemporary culture. It is enough to present some aspect of Chinese culture as politically incorrect (as racist, repressive, misogynist, supremacist or offensive), and immediately it becomes politically incorrect. And that means that any aspect of it can be adduced at will by the Administration as meriting sanctioning.

The problem again reverts to the West’s refusal to accept ‘others’ at the chessboard. What can China do, but shrug at such nonsense.

Biden, in his speech to the Roundtable, fore-staged – yet again – a new world order; he suggested that a Great Re-set is coming.

But maybe a ‘Re-set Reckoning’ of a different order is on the cards; one that will return many things to that which, until relatively recently, had actually worked. Politics and geo-politics are metamorphosing at every moment.

All lies, all the time reflects longstanding MSM editorial policy on nations free from US hegemonic control.

During Trump’s tenure, China was in the eye of his regime’s storm.

Since undemocratic Dems usurped power by brazen election fraud, Russia became hegemon USA’s main target of choice.

For months ahead of and since Russia’s special military operation began in Ukraine, MSM editorial warfare on the nation escalated to an unparalleled level against any nation throughout the post-WW II period.

If words could kill, MSM press agents for diabolical US interests would be serial killers — the likes of which never existed before.

A daily war of words onslaught continues against Russia by MSM across the board.

No Big Lies are left behind, new ones invented daily — based on talking points supplied by US/Western regimes.

Leading offender in print NYT never misses as opportunity to miss an opportunity to set the record straight about Russia’s special military operation.

Big Lies and mass deception are featured instead. Some examples:

“Russian artillery…destro(yed) (Mariupol’s) basic services (sic).”

No Russian air, ground or naval strikes occurred against Ukrainian civilians or nonmilitary infrastructure.

What the Times knows it consistently suppresses.

“Vicious street fighting rages in Mariupol (sic).”

The Donbass city has been illegally occupied by Nazified Ukrainian battalions.

The campaign to liberate it and its people is proceeding as planned.

Fighting is mainly between Donetsk and Lungansk freedom fighters against US/NATO supported Ukrainian neo-Nazis.

Russian forces are providing ground and aerial support.

Occupying Ukrainian troops are on their back foot, steadily pulling back.

So far, around 58,000 city residents were safely evacuated from the city through Russian established humanitarian corridors.

On Friday, Russian General Mikhail Mizintsev said the following:

“From the platform of the Russian Joint Coordination Headquarters for Humanitarian Response, we are warning the whole civilized world, international organizations, and first of all the UN, the OSCE and the ICRC.”

“You should expect new crimes with grave consequences for civilians and further attempts to blame it on indiscriminate strikes by the Russian Armed Forces from these notorious bandits who have entrenched themselves in Mariupol, maddened by hopelessness and the absence of any prospects for the future.”

None of the above was reported by the Times.

Instead, it quoted Big Lies by US-installed puppet Zelensky, falsely claiming heavy Russian losses, “14,000 corpses and tens of thousands of wounded” — presenting no evidence because there is none.

What the Times calls the 2014 Maidan “revolution” in Kiev was the Obama/Biden regime’s coup — what replaced democratic rule in Ukraine with Nazi-infested fascist tyranny.

What the Times call “annexed” Crimea ignored the overwhelming will of its people to join Russia — expressing it by what independent monitors called an open, free and fair referendum, reflecting the popular will.

Cheerleading the supply of more heavy and other weapons to Ukraine for prolonged war by the Times ignored the greater price of reconstruction to pay ahead when Russia triumphs.

WaPo featured op-ed rubbish by extremist neocon Senator Marco Rubio.

Accusing China of involvement in what’s going on in Ukraine was a bald-faced Big Lie.

WaPo knows it, but featured his rubbish anyway.

His op-ed included an array of China-bashing Big Lies, ones indisputable evidence long ago debunked.

Notably he turned truth on its head by calling the Sino/Russian alliance “a growing threat to the US and freedom worldwide (sic).”

Their alliance for peace, stability, and cooperative relations with the world community of nations according to the rule of law poses a significant “threat” to the diabolical US drive for global hegemony.

CNN gave US war secretary Austin a platform to lie and mass deceive viewers about Russia’s ongoing campaign, failing to explain that it’s going as planned.

At the same time, he noted added US military support for the coup d’etat regime, ignoring its illegitimacy, and failing to explain 8 years of Pentagon/CIA orchestrated and directed aggression by Kiev on Donbass.

AP (fake) News falsely claimed that Russia now seeks “reduced” goals in Ukraine.

According to noted military expert Andrei Martyanov on Friday:

“We are witnessing a US foreign policy debacle of unimaginable scale.”

“But considering what passes in the US for Russia ‘strategy,’ I have to point out yet again the fact that the US establishment has NO understanding or knowledge of Russia.”

On Friday, Vladimir Putin spoke to around 100,000 Crimeans in the Russian republic.

He came to commemorate the 8th anniversary of its liberation from Nazi-infested Ukraine — at a time when his approval rating is 79.6%, based on polling data reported in mid-March.

Rejoining Russia by Crimeans at long last also corrected a post-WW II mistake.

Martyanov stressed that individuals in the West who think Russia is intimidated by freezing of its assets should think again.

Retaliation is coming. On arrival “it will hurt like hell Western financial system” — notably by increasingly bypassing the US dollar in oil, gas and other international trade.

China, Russia and other nations are rising in political and economic prominence on the world stage — while hegemon USA grows increasingly weaker by paying the price of imperial arrogance.

stephenlendman.org

The Ukraine war is setting new geopolitical precedents around the world, which is making it hard for analysts to draw up the usual ‘winners and losers’ listicle usually offered. China, without question is looking more like a winner when we consider not only the new deals it has struck both in Russia, buying up oil firms’ assets at bargain prices, but also setting a new paradigm for its relations with Washington which recently sent one of its top mandarins to threaten it, if it continued to assist Russia in its war in the Ukraine. It ignored Washington and has come out of the closet and backed Russia on many levels, firming up the triplet of eastern powers – Russia, China and India – and their positioning in the world’s economy even more.

And then there is Saudi Arabia, whose mercurial leader, the young crown prince called “MBS” has never really got over how Donald Trump abandoned him during a rather awkward baptism of opprobrium from the world’s press over the ghastly murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Fast forward to Joe Biden taking office and the Saudis didn’t lose anytime in opening up channels of diplomacy and cooperation brainstorming with Moscow, confident that when their own people’s uprising kicks off – and it will one day – that Russia might be there for them, as it was in Syria for Assad.

The Saudis are actually doing alright now with much higher oil prices and their relations with China improving every day. As a smack in the face from MBS to Biden, the former recently just ignored his calls to produce more oil as the midterms loom, which will be felt by the Democrats at the polls when votes are lost due to high energy prices blamed on Biden. It’s a similar story with Boris Johnson and MBS who recently sent the British leader away with a flea in his ear when he asked the Crown Prince for a better oil deal. So much for the special relationship with the very country that created the very family – Saud – which now owns what is now called Saudi Arabia. No prisoners, Boris.

With China, it’s a win-win. MBS gets revenge against the U.S. which still wants it to be a lap dog and accept the tenets of U.S. hegemony, while selling more oil to China, in Yuan which hits the U.S. even harder. China also gets to show the Americans that they really aren’t the superpower they think they are by dumping the dollar for oil sales and looking at the new ‘Eastern bloc’ model which is where really the whole Ukraine war is taking us.

A brutal and simple binary world, where everything is neatly divided into two groups, whose people and businesses are discouraged from crossing the line into one and other’s camp. Think new Cold War with Russia, China, India and most of Asia on one side with its own banking system which replaces Swift, its own internet and internet rules, own eBay, own Facebook, own currencies (including crypto) and a new world order which probably dumps U.S. weapons and banking altogether, as well as western energy markets.

But there will be casualties when the body bags are counted and an analysis done. Relations between Russia and Turkey are probably going to be very bad, certainly as long as Recep Erdogan remains in office as Putin is not going to forgive him for supplying deadly Turkish drones to the Ukrainian forces and closing the Bosporus – despite the charade of both countries foreign ministers’ meetings in Moscow. Other divisions will be notable within NATO and EU countries as it becomes clear that both these organisations have deeply rooted cultural and political problems both internally and across the board which simply don’t allow them to take on bold tasks when the moment is presented. The three eastern European countries presently visiting Ukraine will feel very let down by most other EU member states and NATO partners, when their fears are not adhered to. They will inevitably develop stronger ties with the Zelensky administration while becoming more acerbic towards Brussels and its authoritarian manner.

And the EU hardly come out well either. Some may ask, when peace finally comes and it will be the EU expected to bankroll at least 100 billion euros in reconstruction aid, could the EU have done something earlier to have prevented the escalation, given that it was Brussels as far back as 2004 which has been signalling to Ukraine to consider itself a candidate for membership. Let’s not forget also that part of the price of playing tough, the EU will have to accept that its own actions also have led to Moscow dumping euros as part of its cash reserves and using the Chinese clearing system for its banks more and more. We can certainly expect more division and in-fighting, as we saw earlier when EU member states couldn’t agree on the terms of Covid restructuring aid, when it is discussed how much money should go to Ukraine and Zelensky’s deeply corrupt business elite. Putin, in the meantime, has already won the war in Ukraine by Zelensky already conceding that he’s dumped the idea of NATO membership, which is a considerable blow to its credibility as an amalgamation of new countries join the Russia-China-India business/geopolitical bloc. Those who point to Putin and lamely accuse him of being a Soviet anachronism fail to see the irony of the West playing a big role in provoking him since the early nineties when the broken promises of NATOs expansion east begun. Or, for that matter, the Stalinist mentality behind the EU’s decision to cut off Russia’s media from the rest of the world which reminds me of Nazis burning books in the late 30s.

By Joe LAURIA

The United States is setting up China as a second target of its intense economic war against Russia in what could have cataclysmic effects on the world economy, including the West.

The U.S. could not impose the most stringent sanctions on Moscow without the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and now the U.S. is trying to link China to the war.

Washington’s move to frame Beijing emerged Monday when unnamed U.S. officials told its allies that Russia had asked China for military aid in Ukraine. Reuters reported: “The message, sent in a diplomatic cable and delivered in person by intelligence officials, also said China was expected to deny those plans, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.”  China indeed denied it.

Importantly, Reuters added: “The U.S. government offered no public evidence to back its assertions of China’s willingness to provide such aid to Russia.”

On that same day Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, led a delegation to Rome to meet with Yang Jiechi, a member of the Chinese politburo. After the meeting, an unnamed senior U.S. official in Rome told reporters: “We have deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia at this time, and the national security adviser was direct about those concerns and the potential implications and consequences of certain actions.”

The next day NATO Secretary-General Jen Stoltenberg remarked:

“China should join the rest of the world condemning strongly the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russia. So China has an obligation as a member of the U.N. Security Council to actually support and uphold international law. And the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a blatant violation of international law so we call on [China] to clearly condemn the invasion and of course not support Russia. And we are closely monitoring any signs of support from China to Russia.”

The English-language, government-owned, Chinese newspaper Global Times accused Stoltenberg of trying to accuse China of being an “accomplice” with Russia in Ukraine and dismissed NATO as a “puppet” of the United States.

After these statements it seemed clear the U.S. was trying to lay the groundwork for a truly reckless idea: to tie China to the war so it could sanction it perhaps along the lines of what the West has already laid on Russia.

Then on Thursday U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spelled it out: “We believe China in particular has a responsibility to use its influence with President Putin and to defend the international rules and principles that it professes to support. Instead, it appears that China is moving in the opposite direction by refusing to condemn this aggression, while seeking to portray itself as a neutral arbiter.” He added: “We will not hesitate to impose costs.”

In retrospect, evidence that the U.S. is trying to open a second front in its economic war first surfaced just before Russia intervened in Ukraine’s civil war, when Blinken implored China to stop Russia from invading. It was portrayed in Western media as a desperate last chance at peace from a concerned United States.

Of course China rebuffed Blinken. It seemed like a ridiculous gambit at the time. But in hindsight it may well have been the first U.S. step in constructing a case for sanctions against China. It allows Washington to say China was given every opportunity to try to stop the invasion and failed to do so and therefore was somehow complicit.

Biden Threatens Xi

President Xi during his summit with Biden on Friday. (Chinese FM)

All this was preparation for President Joe Biden’s video-call on Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping, in which Biden warned Chinese President Xi Jinping not to help Russia’s war effort in Ukraine or there would be “consequences” to pay.

Biden “detailed the implications and consequences” if Beijing were to give “material support to Russia” in the war, the White House said in a readout. While the White House didn’t spell out what those consequences would be, it said Biden went into detail about the severe sanctions the U.S. had imposed on Russia, including on its central bank and a number of imports, including oil. In other words, he read China the riot act. Biden was in essence threatening Xi with similar sanctions if China helped Russia.

Xi, however, warned Biden that the U.S. sanctions on Russia could trigger a worldwide economic crisis, apparently implying that the crisis would be far worse if the sanctions were extended to China.  Commodities prices, especially in energy and food, have already soared.

China is the world’s second largest economy and its biggest exporter. The U.S. imported $506 billion in Chinese goods in 2021, according to the U.S. Census Department, an amount that would be extremely difficult for the US to replace. China also owns $1.05 trillion in Treasury securities, the second most after Japan. It could not be easily cut off from the Western financial system as Russia has been.

Before the summit on Friday, Global Times wrote in an editorial: “The close relationship between China and Russia has been a thorn in the US’ side, especially against the backdrop of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. With the simmering of the situation, it couldn’t be any clearer that Washington is eager to exploit the Russia-Ukraine conflict to drive a wedge between Beijing and Moscow.”

The U.S. recognizes that its economic war against Russia could well fail because of the close and expanding economic and financial ties between Moscow and Beijing. But it is too late for the United States.

Since the invasion, China is buying more oil and other commodities from Russia, Beijing has allowed Russia to use its Union Pay banking system, replaced Russia’s use of SWIFT with China’s Interbank System (CIPS), and China and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which Russia is a part of, are designing a new monetary and financial system that would bypass the U.S. dollar, threatening it as the world’s reserve currency.

Can you help me fight your friend so that I can concentrate on fighting you later?

— CGTN LIU Xin ?? (@LiuXininBeijing) March 19, 2022

The Global Times added:  “It’s the US that should put out the fire it lit in Ukraine. Ridiculously, it is demanding Beijing to do this job at the cost of damaging China-Russia relations. This is unreasonable and insidious.”

Russia has committed only a fraction of its military capacity to Ukraine. Other than replacing ordnance, it’s not clear what military aid Russia would need from China.

Substitute War and Economic Catastrophe

The U.S. already has sanctions on China, as it had earlier on Russia. However, if the United States is seriously planning similar types of sanctions on Beijing that it has leveled on Moscow — against its major banks, against the central bank, removing it from SWIFT and cutting off key exports — the impact on the world economy — including on Europe and the United States — could be catastrophic.

The U.S. national security strategy for several years has been aimed at both Russia and China. Knowing it must avoid a direct military confrontation against either, given the potential consequences, the U.S. is turning to economic warfare to ultimately attempt to bring down both governments through popular uprisings. Washington wants to replace them with Western-friendly leaders who would open up their economies to Western exploitation — just like Boris Yeltsin did in the 1990s.

The United States is acting as though the whole world is the West and that this is the China of 30 years ago. In its bull-headed effort to impose its unilateral rule on the world, while its domestic social problems mount, the U.S. has not only driven Russia and China closer together than ever, but it has now brought in India, much of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, (all of whom have refused to sanction Russia and continues to trade with it), into a new bloc with economic power that exceeds the West.

The U.S. has turned the majority of the world’s population against it. And it is now threatening to blow up the world economy. Cutting off trade and finance to Russia has already boomeranged on Western countries, driving up prices, especially at the pump. Instead of prompting a popular uprising in Russia as a result of its sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has actually risen since the invasion.

Adding China as a target of its economic war could drive the populations of the U.S. and Europe against their own governments instead.

consortiumnews.com

By As`ad ABUKHALIL

It is premature to determine the exact shape of the world in the wake of the Russian military intervention in the Ukraine. At the risk of repeating dreaded cliches, it is clear that the world order has been irrevocably altered. The post-cold war era is over, forever.

The U.S. established global supremacy after the collapse of the U.S.S.R. and ensured that NATO would form a security siege around Russia to keep it weak and vulnerable — and to maintain American hegemony throughout the continent. Never has America been challenged in such a direct and focused way as by Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.

The old rules that the U.S. imposed — by force — will be no more. While China has been cautious in expressing support for Russia in its official pronouncements, its media have been clear in refuting U.S. propaganda claims. The reverberations of the cataclysmic event will be felt for years to come and will affect regional and international conflicts.

The impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war will also be felt in the Middle East, which has a long history of involvement in the Soviet and Russian-U.S. rivalry.

Despite U.S. pressure, no Arab states are participating in the economic war on Russia by imposing sanctions, joining most of Latin America and Africa, as well as Iran, India, Pakistan and China. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have resisted U.S. pressure to pump more oil to make up for the U.S. ban on Russian oil imports.

Most significantly, Riyadh is in talks with China to trade some of its oil in yuan, which would deal a blow to the U.S. dollar that is used in 80 percent of world oil sales. Until now, the Saudis have exclusively used the dollar.

Moscow is trying to defeat the West’s ferocious economic assault on Russia by creating a separate economic and financial system with China. Arab nations could play an important part in it, effectively turning their backs on the U.S. (In a sign of the Gulf’s coolness to Washington, The Wall Street Journal, for instance, reported that Emirati and Saudi leaders have refused to take Biden’s phone calls.)

Background to Geopolitical Shift

U.N. Security Council approving no fly zone in Libya, March 2011. (C-Span screenshot)

The shape of international relations was shaken in 2011 with the passage of U.N. Security Council resolution 1973, which was limited to setting up a no-fly zone to protect civilians in Libya supposedly in danger of a massacre at the hands of Libyan leader Moamar Qadhafi. (A British parliamentary report later found there were no such threats and was based on inaccurate intelligence and “erroneous assumptions.”)

The resolution did not permit ground forces to enter Libya. The language was clear. It said the Security Council:

“Decides to establish a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya in order to help protect civilians. [and] AuthorizesMember States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory. ”

Despite these limitations, the U.S. and NATO took the resolution to mean a license for NATO to overthrow a government that the U.S. had long complained about. It didn’t matter that the Libyan dictatorial regime was cooperating with the U.S. in the years leading up to its overthrow. Then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had even met the chief of Libya’s secret police, who happened to to be the ruler’s son.

Russia, ruled at the time by President Dmitry Medvedev, abstained on the resolution, as had China. Both countries had evidently believed the mission would be restricted to the non-fly zone. Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, was reportedly furious with Medvedev over the abstention.

After it became clear NATO was violating the resolution by overthrowing Qadhafi, China and Russia, both veto holders, were determined to change the course of the Security Council to prevent the U.S. from again using it as cover for military interventions and regime change. The U.S. started to lose its undisputed global supremacy at that point.

Moscow and Beijing were both building up their military capabilities and were becoming more assertive on the international stage. Fearful of changes in the global configuration of power, the Biden administration incorporated strong language into its National Security Strategy (issued by successive administrations) to make clear U.S. rejection of any competition from Russia and China. (Biden’s strategy complained about Chinese assertiveness. (How dare any country but the U.S. be assertive in the world?) It is one thing for the U.S. to insist on global supremacy and another to guarantee it without a cost in blood and money.

Russia, in fact showed its assertiveness four years after the Libya resolution when Russia intervened to support the Syrian regime.  Putin at the General Assembly asked the U.S. to join Moscow in the fight, an offer the U.S. rejected.

Middle East Reverberations

Dubai: A safe haven for Russian billionaires? (Robert Bock/Wikimedia Commons)

In the Middle East, the effects of the new global conflict have already reverberated within U.S. client regimes, many of whom also have good relations with Russia. The United Arab Emirates is one of those U.S. clients. Washington supplies it with advanced military technology, (despite its abysmal human rights record). In return, the UAE works with the U.S., recently establishing a strong alliance with Israel. The U.S. rewarded the UAE with the sale of advanced fighter jets.

And yet the UAE abstained on a March 3 Security Council resolution condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine that was vetoed by Russia, while it voted in favor of a General Assembly resolution saying the same thing. Now the UAE, and especially Dubai, is being seen as a refuge for Russian billionaires who have been heavily sanctioned by the West.

Gulf countries like the UAE are caught between their complete loyalty to the U.S. and their increasing closeness to the Russian government, especially as they lament what they regard as American retrenchment from the Middle East. Many Gulf despots are still unhappy that the U.S. let Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Zein Abidin Bin Ali on Tunisia fall during the 2011 Arab uprisings.

Only Qatar among the Gulf countries took a strong stance in support of Ukraine, but has not joined the economic war against Russia. Qatar’s emir was recently welcomed in the Oval Office and the country was awarded the status of “major non-NATO ally.” Furthermore, the U.S. wants Qatar to fill the gap of Europe’s gas needs in the wake of sanctions on Russian gas sales (it is curious that the White House worked with Qatar on that before the first Russian soldier moved towards Ukraine.)

US Consensus Fractured

Chinese and Russian presidents meeting in Beijing, 2019. (Chinese MFA)

The U.S. will no longer achieve a consensus in the world according to its own interests. While China is neither prepared, nor willing, to challenge U.S. foreign policy head-on for now, its cooperation and treaties with U.S. foes (Iran chiefly) is an indication that China is planning to operate in a world not subject to U.S. dictates.

Chinese government statements during the crisis have been cautious, but social media in China and Chinese diplomats’ pronouncements via social media have been squarely sympathetic to the Russian stance. China has increased economic ties with Russia to soften the blow of the sanctions, including allowing Russia to use its UnionPay system to replace Western credit cards.

Russia’s ejection from the SWIFT international banking system has seen Russia rely on it own System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS) and that may be linked to China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS). Russia has begun making payments to China in renminbi, weakening the dollar as the world’s premier currency. The blowback effects on the West of its economic war is leading to separate economic and financial systems that is fracturing U.S. global dominance.

Gulf regimes, and other developing countries, will adjust to a new world where the power configuration is changing. It is no longer the world the U.S. shaped after the Cold War.

Russia doesn’t have America’s power or influence. But Russia is an influential regional actor; its role in Syria in support of the Syrian regime showed its ability to shore up a weak regime and to operate free of U.S. plots to overthrow Bashar al-Assad. Gulf governments are already planning for a world in which the U.S. is less militarily assertive than before. Toward that end, the UAE established its strong alliance with Israel.

Impact on Arab-Israeli Conflict

Gulf regimes aren’t favored in Washington quite the same way Israel is. Israel followed the U.S., expressing support for Ukraine. It can’t afford to antagonize the Biden administration in the wake of the damage to its image during the Obama-Netanyahu era.

The Russian-Ukrainian crisis will undermine U.S. and E.U. rhetoric on the Arab-Israeli conflict. It won’t be easy to sell the so-called peace-process after the West adamantly refusing to support diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine, while the U.S. preaches strict pacifism for Arabs in the face of decades of Israeli occupation and aggression.

After the first two days of conflict, some 30 countries sent advanced missiles and arms to Ukraine and championed the right of resistance. Palestinians, on the other hand, are denied even the right to peaceful resistance. The U.S. and Europe have gone so far as to ban BDS (boycott, sanctions, and divestment in Israel) while wielding sanctions around the world. How can Palestinians ever take seriously Western insistence that their struggle against occupation should never resort to violent means?

The world we live in is changing, and the Russian intervention in Ukraine will not be confined to Ukraine, or even to Europe. The U.S. is learning that the world is slipping from its hands. It won’t tolerate it.

It will resort to force in its attempt to maintain its grip over humanity. Violent conflicts are very likely to now dominate our world.

consortiumnews.com