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The Eurasian Big Bang: How China & Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington
Authored by Pepe Escobar, originally posted at TomDispatch.com,
Let’s start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: from now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of an interlocking set of organizations -- the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization), the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), the AIIB (the new Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), and the NDB (the BRICS' New Development Bank) -- whose acronyms you’re unlikely to recognize either. Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.
Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, and New Delhi have been actively establishing interlocking security guarantees. They have been simultaneously calling the Atlanticist bluff when it comes to the endless drumbeat of attention given to the flimsy meme of Iran’s "nuclear weapons program." And a few days before the Vienna nuclear negotiations finally culminated in an agreement, all of this came together at a twin BRICS/SCO summit in Ufa, Russia -- a place you’ve undoubtedly never heard of and a meeting that got next to no attention in the U.S. And yet sooner or later, these developments will ensure that the War Party in Washington and assorted neocons (as well as neoliberalcons) already breathing hard over the Iran deal will sweat bullets as their narratives about how the world works crumble.
The Eurasian Silk Road
With the Vienna deal, whose interminable build-up I had the dubious pleasure of following closely, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his diplomatic team have pulled the near-impossible out of an extremely crumpled magician’s hat: an agreement that might actually end sanctions against their country from an asymmetric, largely manufactured conflict.
Think of that meeting in Ufa, the capital of Russia’s Bashkortostan, as a preamble to the long-delayed agreement in Vienna. It caught the new dynamics of the Eurasian continent and signaled the future geopolitical Big Bangness of it all. At Ufa, from July 8th to 10th, the 7th BRICS summit and the 15th Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit overlapped just as a possible Vienna deal was devouring one deadline after another.
Consider it a diplomatic masterstroke of Vladmir Putin’s Russia to have merged those two summits with an informal meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). Call it a soft power declaration of war against Washington’s imperial logic, one that would highlight the breadth and depth of an evolving Sino-Russian strategic partnership. Putting all those heads of state attending each of the meetings under one roof, Moscow offered a vision of an emerging, coordinated geopolitical structure anchored in Eurasian integration. Thus, the importance of Iran: no matter what happens post-Vienna, Iran will be a vital hub/node/crossroads in Eurasia for this new structure.
If you read the declaration that came out of the BRICS summit, one detail should strike you: the austerity-ridden European Union (EU) is barely mentioned. And that’s not an oversight. From the point of view of the leaders of key BRICS nations, they are offering a new approach to Eurasia, the very opposite of the language of sanctions.
Here are just a few examples of the dizzying activity that took place at Ufa, all of it ignored by the American mainstream media. In their meetings, President Putin, China's President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi worked in a practical way to advance what is essentially a Chinese vision of a future Eurasia knit together by a series of interlocking “new Silk Roads.” Modi approved more Chinese investment in his country, while Xi and Modi together pledged to work to solve the joint border issues that have dogged their countries and, in at least one case, led to war.
The NDB, the BRICS’ response to the World Bank, was officially launched with $50 billion in start-up capital. Focused on funding major infrastructure projects in the BRICS nations, it is capable of accumulating as much as $400 billion in capital, according to its president, Kundapur Vaman Kamath. Later, it plans to focus on funding such ventures in other developing nations across the Global South -- all in their own currencies, which means bypassing the U.S. dollar. Given its membership, the NDB’s money will clearly be closely linked to the new Silk Roads. As Brazilian Development Bank President Luciano Coutinho stressed, in the near future it may also assist European non-EU member states like Serbia and Macedonia. Think of this as the NDB’s attempt to break a Brussels monopoly on Greater Europe. Kamath even advanced the possibility of someday aiding in the reconstruction of Syria.
You won’t be surprised to learn that both the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the NDB are headquartered in China and will work to complement each other’s efforts. At the same time, Russia’s foreign investment arm, the Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), signed a memorandum of understanding with funds from other BRICS countries and so launched an informal investment consortium in which China’s Silk Road Fund and India’s Infrastructure Development Finance Company will be key partners.
Full Spectrum Transportation Dominance
On the ground level, this should be thought of as part of the New Great Game in Eurasia. Its flip side is the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Pacific and the Atlantic version of the same, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, both of which Washington is trying to advance to maintain U.S. global economic dominance. The question these conflicting plans raise is how to integrate trade and commerce across that vast region. From the Chinese and Russian perspectives, Eurasia is to be integrated via a complex network of superhighways, high-speed rail lines, ports, airports, pipelines, and fiber optic cables. By land, sea, and air, the resulting New Silk Roads are meant to create an economic version of the Pentagon’s doctrine of “Full Spectrum Dominance” -- a vision that already has Chinese corporate executives crisscrossing Eurasia sealing infrastructure deals.
For Beijing -- back to a 7% growth rate in the second quarter of 2015 despite a recent near-panic on the country’s stock markets -- it makes perfect economic sense: as labor costs rise, production will be relocated from the country’s Eastern seaboard to its cheaper Western reaches, while the natural outlets for the production of just about everything will be those parallel and interlocking “belts” of the new Silk Roads.
Meanwhile, Russia is pushing to modernize and diversify its energy-exploitation-dependent economy. Among other things, its leaders hope that the mix of those developing Silk Roads and the tying together of the Eurasian Economic Union -- Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan -- will translate into myriad transportation and construction projects for which the country’s industrial and engineering know-how will prove crucial.
As the EEU has begun establishing free trade zones with India, Iran, Vietnam, Egypt, and Latin America’s Mercosur bloc (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela), the initial stages of this integration process already reach beyond Eurasia. Meanwhile, the SCO, which began as little more than a security forum, is expanding and moving into the field of economic cooperation. Its countries, especially four Central Asian “stans” (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) will rely ever more on the Chinese-driven Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the NDB. At Ufa, India and Pakistan finalized an upgrading process in which they have moved from observers to members of the SCO. This makes it an alternative G8.
In the meantime, when it comes to embattled Afghanistan, the BRICS nations and the SCO have now called upon “the armed opposition to disarm, accept the Constitution of Afghanistan, and cut ties with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other terrorist organizations.” Translation: within the framework of Afghan national unity, the organization would accept the Taliban as part of a future government. Their hopes, with the integration of the region in mind, would be for a future stable Afghanistan able to absorb more Chinese, Russian, Indian, and Iranian investment, and the construction -- finally! -- of a long-planned, $10 billion, 1,420-kilometer-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline that would benefit those energy-hungry new SCO members, Pakistan and India. (They would each receive 42% of the gas, the remaining 16% going to Afghanistan.)
Central Asia is, at the moment, geographic ground zero for the convergence of the economic urges of China, Russia, and India. It was no happenstance that, on his way to Ufa, Prime Minister Modi stopped off in Central Asia. Like the Chinese leadership in Beijing, Moscow looks forward (as a recent document puts it) to the “interpenetration and integration of the EEU and the Silk Road Economic Belt” into a “Greater Eurasia” and a “steady, developing, safe common neighborhood” for both Russia and China.
And don’t forget Iran. In early 2016, once economic sanctions are fully lifted, it is expected to join the SCO, turning it into a G9. As its foreign minister, Javad Zarif, made clear recently to Russia's Channel 1 television, Tehran considers the two countries strategic partners. "Russia,” he said, “has been the most important participant in Iran's nuclear program and it will continue under the current agreement to be Iran's major nuclear partner." The same will, he added, be true when it comes to “oil and gas cooperation,” given the shared interest of those two energy-rich nations in “maintaining stability in global market prices."
Got Corridor, Will Travel
Across Eurasia, BRICS nations are moving on integration projects. A developing Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor is a typical example. It is now being reconfigured as a multilane highway between India and China. Meanwhile, Iran and Russia are developing a transportation corridor from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the Caspian Sea and the Volga River. Azerbaijan will be connected to the Caspian part of this corridor, while India is planning to use Iran’s southern ports to improve its access to Russia and Central Asia. Now, add in a maritime corridor that will stretch from the Indian city of Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas and then on to the southern Russian city of Astrakhan. And this just scratches the surface of the planning underway.
Years ago, Vladimir Putin suggested that there could be a “Greater Europe” stretching from Lisbon, Portugal, on the Atlantic to the Russian city of Vladivostok on the Pacific. The EU, under Washington’s thumb, ignored him. Then the Chinese started dreaming about and planning new Silk Roads that would, in reverse Marco Polo fashion, extend from Shanghai to Venice (and then on to Berlin).
Thanks to a set of cross-pollinating political institutions, investment funds, development banks, financial systems, and infrastructure projects that, to date, remain largely under Washington’s radar, a free-trade Eurasian heartland is being born. It will someday link China and Russia to Europe, Southwest Asia, and even Africa. It promises to be an astounding development. Keep your eyes, if you can, on the accumulating facts on the ground, even if they are rarely covered in the American media. They represent the New Great -- emphasis on that word -- Game in Eurasia.
Location, Location, Location
Tehran is now deeply invested in strengthening its connections to this new Eurasia and the man to watch on this score is Ali Akbar Velayati. He is the head of Iran's Center for Strategic Research and senior foreign policy adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Velayati stresses that security in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the Caucasus hinges on the further enhancement of a Beijing-Moscow-Tehran triple entente.
As he knows, geo-strategically Iran is all about location, location, location. That country offers the best access to open seas in the region apart from Russia and is the only obvious east-west/north-south crossroads for trade from the Central Asian “stans.” Little wonder then that Iran will soon be an SCO member, even as its “partnership” with Russia is certain to evolve. Its energy resources are already crucial to and considered a matter of national security for China and, in the thinking of that country’s leadership, Iran also fulfills a key role as a hub in those Silk Roads they are planning.
That growing web of literal roads, rail lines, and energy pipelines, as TomDispatch has previously reported, represents Beijing’s response to the Obama administration’s announced “pivot to Asia” and the U.S. Navy’s urge to meddle in the South China Sea. Beijing is choosing to project power via a vast set of infrastructure projects, especially high-speed rail lines that will reach from its eastern seaboard deep into Eurasia. In this fashion, the Chinese-built railway from Urumqi in Xinjiang Province to Almaty in Kazakhstan will undoubtedly someday be extended to Iran and traverse that country on its way to the Persian Gulf.
A New World for Pentagon Planners
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month, Vladimir Putin told PBS's Charlie Rose that Moscow and Beijing had always wanted a genuine partnership with the United States, but were spurned by Washington. Hats off, then, to the “leadership” of the Obama administration. Somehow, it has managed to bring together two former geopolitical rivals, while solidifying their pan-Eurasian grand strategy.
Even the recent deal with Iran in Vienna is unlikely -- especially given the war hawks in Congress -- to truly end Washington’s 36-year-long Great Wall of Mistrust with Iran. Instead, the odds are that Iran, freed from sanctions, will indeed be absorbed into the Sino-Russian project to integrate Eurasia, which leads us to the spectacle of Washington’s warriors, unable to act effectively, yet screaming like banshees.
NATO's supreme commander Dr. Strangelove, sorry, American General Philip Breedlove, insists that the West must create a rapid-reaction force -- online -- to counteract Russia's "false narratives.” Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter claims to be seriously considering unilaterally redeploying nuclear-capable missiles in Europe. The nominee to head the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Commandant Joseph Dunford, recently directly labeled Russia America’s true “existential threat”; Air Force General Paul Selva, nominated to be the new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, seconded that assessment, using the same phrase and putting Russia, China and Iran, in that order, as more threatening than the Islamic State (ISIS). In the meantime, Republican presidential candidates and a bevy of congressional war hawks simply shout and fume when it comes to both the Iranian deal and the Russians.
In response to the Ukrainian situation and the “threat” of a resurgent Russia (behind which stands a resurgent China), a Washington-centric militarization of Europe is proceeding apace. NATO is now reportedly obsessed with what’s being called “strategy rethink” -- as in drawing up detailed futuristic war scenarios on European soil. As economist Michael Hudson has pointed out, even financial politics are becoming militarized and linked to NATO’s new Cold War 2.0.
In its latest National Military Strategy, the Pentagon suggests that the risk of an American war with another nation (as opposed to terror outfits), while low, is “growing” and identifies four nations as “threats”: North Korea, a case apart, and predictably the three nations that form the new Eurasian core: Russia, China, and Iran. They are depicted in the document as “revisionist states,” openly defying what the Pentagon identifies as “international security and stability”; that is, the distinctly un-level playing field created by globalized, exclusionary, turbo-charged casino capitalism and Washington's brand of militarism.
The Pentagon, of course, does not do diplomacy. Seemingly unaware of the Vienna negotiations, it continued to accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons. And that “military option” against Iran is never off the table.
So consider it the Mother of All Blockbusters to watch how the Pentagon and the war hawks in Congress will react to the post-Vienna and -- though it was barely noticed in Washington -- the post-Ufa environment, especially under a new White House tenant in 2017.
It will be a spectacle. Count on it. Will the next version of Washington try to make it up to “lost” Russia or send in the troops? Will it contain China or the “caliphate” of ISIS? Will it work with Iran to fight ISIS or spurn it? Will it truly pivot to Asia for good and ditch the Middle East or vice-versa? Or might it try to contain Russia, China, and Iran simultaneously or find some way to play them against each other?
In the end, whatever Washington may do, it will certainly reflect a fear of the increasing strategic depth Russia and China are developing economically, a reality now becoming visible across Eurasia. At Ufa, Putin told Xi on the record: "Combining efforts, no doubt we [Russia and China] will overcome all the problems before us."
Read “efforts” as new Silk Roads, that Eurasian Economic Union, the growing BRICS block, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those China-based banks, and all the rest of what adds up to the beginning of a new integration of significant parts of the Eurasian land mass. As for Washington, fly like an eagle? Try instead: scream like a banshee.
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Let The Eurotards choke on deadbeat Greece.Putin will and energy star Iran to his team
Add also a pissed-off Saudi Arabia agreeing to China (It's largest customer) paying for oil in CNY much sooner than would otherwise have been the case. Then too the peoples of Europe are waking up to the fact that sanctions against Russia are unwarranted and are not in the best interests of Europe itself and that further tensions with Russia, created by the US, could result in nuclear war IN EUROPE whilst the US mainland would probably be unaffected,
So, all in all, yes a brilliant strtategy by the neocons who seem to be living in the past....
Not without goldman sachs and other scum jew bankster approval.
The same Russia that had a currency crisis last year and nearly slipped into hyperinflation? The same China that is experiencing the popping of the most obvious equity bubble of all time and frankly could not be dealing with it any worse? Yes. Ok just wanted to get that straight.
better worry about your own country...
+100. Yes, Russia has a Debt/GDP ratio of around 14% and has a trade surplus. China indeed has a multitude of problems BUT its debt is ALL internal and it has huge Reserves and a trade surplus. In short, the problems of both countries are manageable. As for The US...........I assume that the "DebtCrash" in the moniker refers to the US?
Debt is all internal? How is that fundamentally different that the FED buying most Treasury debt? The FED is about as internal as it gets. We can clear what we owe to other nations in a single day and nobody would even blink. So what if China has a trade surplus. They have an enemic internal market, so that makes them the slaves of the foreign markets they sell to. Those things coming out of the unicorn's ass aren't skittles.
It is actually spelt "Anemic". FYI China alone holds about $1.4 Trillion of US Treasuries and Japan about the same, so get your facts straight before you criticise. Yes the Fed is also buying a large propertion of Treasuries, like Japan BUT the Treasury market is still, atleast as of now, Global. China's debt IS entirely internal and all those Airports, Ring Roads (Beijing has 4) and Apartments will be used and lived in one day. So it seems to me that is a more productive investment than funneling money into Wall Street which has ZERO benefit to the overall economy and We the People. Just MO.
The FED is buying US debt with freshly printed money (it could as well be Monopoly or Mickey Mouse money. This game can only last as long as savers play by this scam. US Dollar saver-wake up!
Because Obama.....the marxist muslim.....what did you think was going to happen?
wake up my airplane, the fed is asleep at the wheel as the train gets away from casey.
"It is actually spelt "Anemic"."
Sorry to double-down on your pedantry, philipat, but it is actually spelt anaemic.
Funny as fuck watching someone criticizing another's spelling when he can't get it right himself.
Yours is the Brit version. Both are acceptable, but the commonly used term in the U.S. is: 'Anemic'.
Yes, that's right at least according to my (US) dictionary. Funny as fuck is right.......
Nonsense-boy, this would leave the US practically without any liquidity and would cut-off the flow of foreign goods the US pays so far with IOU's. I.e., a complete break-down of what remains from the US "economy".
Never read such a drivel in the past 5 years.
Russia and China have REAL money you stupid cunt! They have vast stockpiles of real money, not some worthless toilet paper scams and frauds which can be produced in any wanted quantities, or how the saying goes, "out of thin air," you stupid, ignorant cunt!
China is dealing with it like the Communists they are, but don't worry we're all commies now.
No, you aren't. You will wish to live in a country like Cuba after you'll have found out that you Mericans are just another sort of Ukrainians, i.e., slaves in a oligarch-run failed state.
Yes, those would be the ones.
All this strategizing and conferencizing is very much a Hail Mary pass for China, which is inches away from a full-on economic implosion and subsequent breakup.
When did attack on Russian ruble "slipped into hyperinflation" you stupid cunt? In your corporate Western media whose owners have orchestrated the attack on Russian currency, hm?
But know one thing, Russia, as well as China, has thousands of tons of gold and silver, and in opportune moment Russia can easily restore all lost faith in its currency. How are you going to restore yours after so loooong and so vasssst period of fiat, toilet paper frauds, scams, cons and gimmicks, hm? The level of corruption it has wrecked is immense, never seen in history of the world. 1.6 quadrillion dollars in derivatives are ready to blow off. You know how huge that number is, hm?
It appears the Sanhedrin are a bit pissed too.
O & Mr Ed have received summons.
https://youtu.be/mq6BDdbcXRo
"Then too the peoples of Europe are waking up to the fact that sanctions against Russia are unwarranted and are not in the best interests of Europe itself..."
The European people are very awake. They just need some regime change. But for that they have to turn off their TV and get off the couch.
Its called "ascendancy" -and in a muti-faceted, muti-polar heterogenous world, the driver of ascendancy is "relative freedom"-which allows the blossoming of all that is different.
"Relative Freedom" -Historically it is why the USA became the melting pot of the world and thrived up until its oligarchs took control. People came here because of the freedoms.
The West led the world since WWII because it was relatively MORE free than the rest of the world. The Western Anglo-American Oligarchy has put an end to all that.
It now follows because EuroUSA is relatively the least free political-economic organization to be associated with in the world.
Its really not all that complex-unless you're trying to obfuscate the otherwise obvious.
An awful lot of people and organizations in the West will either need to eat their egos or worse if things are to change anytime soon.
doctor10
your notion of "ascendency" left out the part about the colonization of the world
by the military powers of the "west", from Vietnam to Guatemala.
Indeed, the slave may be allowed less "relative freedom" than the master.
Detroit, Watts, the world's biggest prison system ... perhaps any generalization about relative freedom bears closer examination.
Perhaps why Iraq, Libya, Honduras, Haiti, Mexico, Kosovo, Saudi Arabia, Gaza, etc. ostensibly have less relative freedom bears closer examination.
And perhaps we all should be asking: "Free to do what? To plunder the planet? To help our leaders conquer and rule? Is the goal to eat our relatively less poisoned food, breathe our relatively less poisoned air, and accept living under relatively less martial law?"
"human freedoms" -simply the freedom from corporate and government coercion.
Lack of coercion provides for the need for negotiation and compromise-between humans and organizations
for the last 20 years American foreign policy has become basically "a gun in your ear and you do what we say" foreign policy. You wind up encircled and shut out.
That's the consequence of a powerful MIC -the tools of which easily become confused with the accoutrements of diplomacy-to the MIC's benefit
This is regurgitated/repackaged news from Wednesday or Yesterday.
I'm going to go and do some T/A so I don't get too rusty when "real" market pricing returns.
Tits, and ass is good for the soul, not sure about which market you're working on though.
Winston, respectfully... I'm taking a break from this place.
There's some beautiful people here, but I'm focused on other things right now.
Thanks for the kind words.
Geez, someones a grumpy bear...
Commodities Winston.
Cable is going to trade sideways for several years. It's clasified as a commodity currency and rich by 15-20 percent%
The most important part of the mantra> "it's different this time" revolves around the massive infusion of FAKE money injected into the system.
For people like you and me it's a blip. To the retards trading ZIRP that graduated after 2008 it's a lifetime. They've been sold the ponzi, hook line and sinker.
Go Pepe'....
That's a regular Gordian Knot, that one is, blimey.
What a fantasy. Washington's Obama, McCain, Graham, Yellin, assorted neocons and neoliberals, along with neosexists, and affirmative neointellectuals are the uebermenschen to rule the world? Shall stupid inherit the world?
The gods praise those whom they'll destroy. The stupid praise themselves before the fall. There are no chosen by god nor history to rule the world. Hubris is a fatal narcotic.
The U.S.A. deserves to have rings run around it; we have been incredibly arrogant, and fomented war instead of heeding the instructions of our Founding Fathers and our Constitution (which has been trampled by those sworn to protect it).
Nice to see Cruz shoved it up McConnell's ass yesterday.
Perhaps there is hope yet....not Obama hope.....actual real hope.
Cruz is a self-described national security conservative (read neo-con.) He wants to be in everyone's face abroad, which means he wil inevitably be in everyone's face at home. He talks about small government and adherence to the constitution, but these are incompatible with a foreign policy of "globals strategic predominance," "begin global hegemony," and "full-spectrum dominance" (all euphemisms for empire). He seems blithely unaware of the contradiction between his foregn and domestic policies.
Don't expect any change from Cruz (not that he has any chance of winning.)
Let the oligarch looting proceed unabated as the modern-day replay of banana republic scoundrels kick it into high gear. We are worse than banana republics, my how this country went to hell overnight.
Hang tough, ZH, it appears a groundswell is mounting.
This is interesting, thanks for the post. I am glad there are still people looking at new ways to achieve growth and stability in the future. The old US EU axis just seems so irrelevant. I hope China and Russia somehow fully embrace Latin America and through that region transform the US. We deserve so much better than what we have.
For those following the changes within the DC US military, especially the strategic (nuke) arms, it would seem that Zion is cooking up some more Goy stew.
As Zion exits back to Europe, they desire to not leave a military rival behind.
This does not end well.
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Zion back to Europe? Are you smoking cow shit? They have a growing Muslim population that is already begining to persecute the Jewish population. They've had what 150K boat refugees just this year so far, and most have been Muslim. There won't be any Jews in Europe in 50 years.
I don't see where he wrote the word - jew.
+1,000.
That always makes me laugh. That is, when I say Zion, and they call, or imply, that I am antisemitic. Never said Jew, and as a matter a fact, Zion is abhorrent to real Jews and Judaism.
Sort of like if every time one used the world "slave" someone called you racist, as if only blacks can be slaves.
LOL
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission..
The Saudi visit to Russia makes greater sense now.
The US has been playing India/Pakistan & Saudi/Iran off against each other for tooooooooo looooooooong.
The ISIS/AlciaD'uh funds will dry up swiftly especially with the new strategic partnerships being forged.
Can't see Germany sitting on the fence much longer. Probably why their Ally NSA have been peeping toms up Merkel's muff.
Have been working for 3/4 years myself to get in on all this action and like my gold & silver investments, patience being a virtue the future looks bright. Expecting my phone to get hot in the coming months with some Euro friends wanting on board. Everyone's welcome but it'll cost them as my ass has been through the ringer.
Peace
Did everyone just gloss over the development of regional economic spheres for Eurasia just like the US is building through TPP.
The building of superhighways just like they wanted to do during the Bush II administration. Superhighways straight out of Mexico into the heart of the US.
Build super ports on the Pacific coast of Mexico while shipping goods on rail and truck traffic up the superhighways in to the US.
Sorta sounds like the NWO the globalists have always dreamed of is coming to fruition.
Get the Russian's and the Chinese involved in building super highways, involve the Iranians as the hub, and the Indians and the South Americans and you'll have the US foaming at the mouth due to their childish competitive nature and volia we have the North American Union Economic sphere of prosperity and 75% of Mexico's population living in the Continental US so the globalists can rape and pillage what's left of Mexico.
So, what are they gonna do. Turn Mexico into the retirement capitol of the NAU and steal the moniker of "God's Waiting Room" away from Florida?
They have about 2.5 billion people over here too that hate the neocons.
This is possibly the most naive shit I've ever read at ZH. I agree that the U.S. needs to free itself from foreign entanglements, but this guy spins a fairy tale that overlooks regional conflicts and some of those are millenial in length. He never even mentions Islam, and it's history of aggression toward it's neighbors. It's unicorns shitting skittles.
Wait till next week; Tyler's going to try the "Two Headed Baby Born in Indianna"--play to see if it gets any page clicks.
Aggressive as you libtards, you Western scum, hm? No they are not. They are fanatical in defending their way of life, in the same manner you are fanatical in pursuing your imperial and parasitical desires. That is why your aim of Westernizing them has failed so miserably. You cannot fathom there are people and cultures out there who were old when you did not even exist, and that they will not be pushed around... they will not be Westernized, turned into libtard pigeons like yourself you stupid, ignorant cunt! ehehehehehe
Nor does he mention China's history of revolution during economic collapse
Boy, are you dumb. DFC, your comments are so childlike, I wonder if you're kidding us.
Bullshit,
If the Chinese and the Russians were not in bed with western bankers, it would have been impossible to crush precious metals prices.
All the Russians had to do to take power away from JPM, CITI and Goldman, was to demand gold or silver in payment for their natural resources. Instead, they got a bigger seat at SWIFT/IMF as we all know.
PM prices could never have been manipulated lower without Chinese and Russian acquiescence. So,
Fuck you Putin.
Fuck you Chinese.
And fuck you Zerohedge and the Tylers for lying to us. Seems like you're no different from the rest.
So do like the Chinese and Russians.
You won't have a better opportunity to,
Stack On
Yes, Putin is certainly in cahoots with Washington. And on the orders of Washington, Putin defeated Saakashvili's army!
Cockroaches in your head, listen a your great ideas with a standing ovation!
"Instead, they got a bigger seat at SWIFT/IMF as we all know."
Well, officially I don´t know that. Because Germen MSM thought, that wasn´t newsworthy, because before their song was to throw Russia out of SWIFT.
Although I appreciate that analysis as being correct, namely that the international banksters that control NATO countries want to consolidate their global control through being able to enforce fraudulent "money" supplies, and hence, the overall history of debt slavery, backed by wars based on deceits, the BIGGER PROBLEM is that Russia, China and Iran, et alia, are still social pyramid systems based upon being able to back up lies with violence, which have learned under duress from Western powers to do basically similar things, enough to be able to resist their continued subjugation by the Western powers.
HOWEVER, guys like Pepe Escobar are so focused upon the geopolitical events happening at the present time that he does not regard the BIGGER PICTURE that human civilization has become based on strip-mining the planet's natural resources. Russia, China and Iran, et alia, are not able to resist Western powers other than by adopting the same technologies and social organization, in ways which overall are extremely problematic. We are still trapped within the overall problems that the human species has developed a civilization based on being able to back up lies with violence, that has enabled there to be attitudes of evil deliberate ignorance towards the longer term consequences of what we are really doing to ourselves.
(I made similar comments under another recent article republished on Zero Hedge, about Russia assisting Middle Eastern Countries developing nuclear power plants: The Middle East Nuclear Power Play No One Is Talking About)
Generally speaking, I find Pepe Escobar's view of how wonderful the economic development of Russia, China and Iran, et alia, is, simply because it is putting up significant resistance to the Western bankster controlled NATO, to be DISTURBING, because there never seems to be the slightest degree of concern expressed that those kinds of economic developments are based upon even more unsustainable strip-mining of the planet's natural resources.
While I do NOT like the Western banksters' systems. I also do NOT like those who are emerging to be able to resist them, because they are only able to resist them by doing the same things. Overall, global human civilization continues to be based on ENFORCED FRAUDS. That it may not be the Western banksters' ENFORCED FRAUDS, but rather come to be more of the other countries organizing more collectively to ENFORCE THEIR FRAUDS, does nothing about the BIGGER PICTURE, that ALL those social pyramid systems have become runaway criminal insanities, to the degree that they are ALL based upon being able to indulge in maximization of the short-term strip-mining of the planet's natural resources, while simultaneously being able to deliberately ignore the longer term consequences of doing that.
the human species has developed a civilization based on being able to back up lies with violence
More like elites as a subset of the human species because when they start a war all the dumb sheep trundle off to war for them whilst they sit at home laughing at the sheep. So dumb sheep are the problem as much as elites becase they accept the violence against them and do nothing to stop the rot.
The poor lambs of the sheep because their sheepish parents did nothing actually consigned their own lambs to the slaughter then baaaaaaaaaaa about it. Hilarious!
Yes, GreatUncle,
that is the way it looks to me too:
Western soft power is cultural and in that respect Silk Road is a desert.
Nonetheless, it seems like a new Drone Alley is developing.
Its a fob off to Israel
Their ingratitude is cos they know now US energy independent they will be abandoned.
The great US print of 80 billion MOM revealed how easy it was for those in control to manipulate the economic position to preserve their position. After that it is curtains as countries seeing this "and not getting a cut" will look to form their own trade mechanisms.
Well would you? Or would you sit their and continue on with the game that is rigged against you?
The Council on Foreign Relations members have no idea if their water is fluoridated.
Americanism become less than a cliche.
Corridors + agreements = trade
Trade = wealth
Wealth = defensive capability
Hopefully, for the world's benefit, the abandoned tenets of the American constitution will eventually find a home in the Eurasian alliance. America, Europe, and other such tribally infested areas have no use for such principles anyway.
Back in April I arranged a lunch meeting with a well capitalized investor/ day trader in China. I used an interpreter to set up the meeting and facilitate the discussion. It was an interesting and friendly meeting with lots of curious questions about investing and trading from both American and Chinese perspectives. He spoke at length about the silk road. It is the future. I came away from the meeting with the understanding that China, metaphorically speaking, follows the "monthly chart mentality" while most Americans, spurred on by CNBS, are staring at the "one minute charts."
There are still people, who believe that all this is not possible and that China, Russia, india must be in on it with the anglo-zionists and that they are part of NWO. I dont think so. Why?
This is simple human psychology called arrongance, racial hatred and on the other side - newly found pride and identity. Remember, the anglo-zionists will never let other races/ethnics rule together with them. They are just way too arrogant for that. And now those other races/ethnics, who have been enslaved to them for so long (centuries), have obtained more wealth than ever and the new non-Western elites are suddenly proud of themselves and simply do not want to be pushed anymore by the old "colonizers". I heard a rant from a rich South-African businessman, who said that Westerners have always only used them. I heard a similar rant from the Chinese (who remember well the opium issue and other things they suffered from the West, the most recent one was the USA bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, which many Chinese consider a deep offense). As for Russians, how often (ironically) I hear anglo-zionist elites say that "Russians are not "white enough", that they are really Mongols, that they have Tatar blood and such stupid statements (which especially the Brits have been saying for centuries). Here in EU our media keeps writing about those "barbarian Russian hordes, who are not civilised enough etc. etc." So yes, ironicaly even Russians belong to that group. BTW I still remember one interview with Putin, when he lashed out in a similar way: "You Europeans are still the same. You still want to impose something on other cultures. It was like this with colonisation of Africa, and now you do it under the guise of "democratisation", but the only truth is that you want to dominate and to have control! Quit lecturing us on democracy! We will decide ourselves what is good for us, we will go our own way based on our history and culture."
You should have watched the BRICS meetings, where they all just shined with happiness and the most frequent comments went like this: "Here we are at last among equals and we decide collectively, nobody tells us what to do. Lets make it this way from now on."
And for those, who still dont get it, another funny piece to the puzzle, a recent stunning scandal in British media: "India PM Modi backs calls (from Indian politicians) for UK to pay reparations for colonial-era damage." They say: "We do not really want that money, but we require an APOLOGY from the colonizers, so that we can move on."
I, myself, am rooting for them. They also deserve their place in the sun after so many centuries of suffering. Besides, it seems that this time it will be a much more collective and multipolar world - as no one wants any new hegemon telling the rest of the world what to do anymore.
Let's hope you're right!
As usual ZH presents an idea as self evident truth. Most of the alliances are loose associations of Have-nots willing to exploit both hopes and facts This lack of balance keeps ZH from being taken seriously by rational folks. Some editing of Articles is the very least we deserve. Stripping the planet?? YOU WASTE our TIME.
it is easy to understand when you realize that russia,china, the islamonazis and marxist 0bamao all have the same goal: the destruction ofAmerica and the citizens be damned.
it is easy to understand when you realize that russia,china, the islamonazis and marxist 0bamao all have the same goal: the destruction ofAmerica and the citizens be damned.
How about some facts to back that up.
You know, like the ones reported in the article.
It's an art.
And yet here you are...
Pehaps you should consider that maybe it is YOU that is wasting OUR time.
"If I had 10 rubles for every time a Russian politician, publication, or pro-Kremlin political analyst crowed triumphantly about BRICS, I’d have a pretty nice amount of money. It wouldn’t be nearly as much as I’d have prior to last year’s ruble flop, but I could definitely afford a new gaming laptop at the least. The fundamental problem with Russia’s understanding of BRICS is that they think it is some kind of alliance, aimed at creating a “multipolar world” in opposition to the United States and the European Union. Hardly a day goes by on the Russian social networks that you don’t see some cartoon or meme suggesting that Russia’s part of a global team of America-haters who will soon turn the tables on Uncle Sam. The poor things. They won’t know until it’s too late.
Here in the real world, the very concept of BRICS is highly flawed. It wasn’t anything even remotely like an alliance in the beginning (nor is it now). It was simply a term to describe emerging markets with rapid growth and which were attracting a lot of foreign investment. And again, based on that criteria, Russia is out. Therefore it is BICS.
None of this keeps the Russian press from charging ahead with their fantasy that BRICS is a reality that is here to stay. In Ufa, BRICS leaders are getting together to finalize the creation of their own development bank to rival the World Bank and IMF. This might sound like a great idea, but Russia, being increasingly isolated from the West, has more of a stake in this than its “allies.”
This article highlights this and other problems with the whole BRICS concept, and note that the author pays special attention to Russia’s misconceptions about BRICS. I’m no expert, but I’m not sure that the leaders of the other nations, particularly India, Brazil, and South Africa, have any illusions as to BRICS being some kind of anti-US, anti-NATO alliance.
And while we’re on the topic of shattering Kremlin dreams, here’s an interesting article on the topic of Russia’s energy level, i.e. its purported ability to lean on other countries thanks to its control of oil and gas. As we all know, that oil advantage is gone, pissed away by Putin and his pals. Gas is not far behind. One can speculate as to the time frame, but Dear Leader Putin is clearly driving Russia back to the 90’s, and this time it won’t be rescued by high oil prices."
http://nobsrussia.com/2015/07/10/russia-vs-reality-round-427/
If you had 10 rubles, you'd buy a six pack of potatoes. Fortunately for your unfortunate wife, you don't even have 2 rubles.
There are to possible Eurasian Big bang scenarios:
1. Both RU and CN go bust together. The result will be even harder-line regimes and more repressions. They will find a way to blame USA for their own incompetence and corruption.
2. CN, as they often do and as Trump recently highlighted, stabs Puti-Poo in the back and demand even lower nat gas and oil prices. Puti-poo, unable to sell to EU, is out of options and will respond by ratcheting up tariffs, expelling 3+ million Chinese from Siberia, and will arm India. Boy, would I love to see this scenario unfold: RU and CN at the brink of another nuclear conflict!
I'm not saying you're retarded or anything, but you are incapable of even writing a scenario for "Dick and Jane touch each other's Critical Mass."
Stick to hamburger flipping. You'll never go hungry.
The Last Zero-Sum Game
If the global economy is a zero-sum game and the US/EU have the dominate share of it and the Russo-Chinese faction is making a move to reduce that share, one scenario for the West is their time honored tactic of "We had to destroy the village, in order to save it."
No doubt the US believes that the global economy can be collapsed by it's provocation of ethnic, religious and border wars, by covertly stirring up terrorism, and debasing the currency. Then the US military can, after an extreme depression grips the world, remind the other players who they are up against by mobilizing their 20 aircraft carriers, 70 subs, and thousands of aircraft in the ultimate example of 'show and tell'.
America has distributed hundreds of nuclear bombs to euroPeons (NATO) , is it justified? And they force others not to have any nuclear bomb.
I think time has come when , BRICS also should do the same among themselves, because sooner or later , west will attack BRICS allies in order to maintain its monopoly.
See , BarackHomObamma has brought CHANGE to the ENTIRE WORLD.
Hats off to BarackHomObamma.