At present, the choice between the two available models on the planet seems stark indeed: Eurasian integration or a spreading empire of chaos. China and Russia know what they want, and so, it seems, does Washington. The question is: What will the other moving parts of Eurasia choose to do? All these interlocked developments suggest a geopolitical tectonic shift in Eurasia that the American media simply hasn’t begun to grasp. Which doesn’t mean that no one notices anything. You can smell the incipient panic in the air in the Washington establishment. So long to the unipolar moment... 2015 is "going to be a real hardcore year."
Escobar discusses:
- his new book “Empire of Chaos;” [10]
- the geopolitical worries of the Washington-New York axis
- Russia’s countermoves in the Ukraine crisis
- the Sino-Russian strategic energy relation
- and last but not least his expectations for 2015. “It’s going to be a real hardcore year”
Here are two articles, that Pepe Escobar mentions during the interview:
China pivot fuels Eurasian century
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/CHIN-01-190514.html [11]
Can China and Russia Squeeze Washington Out of Eurasia? – The Future of a Beijing-Moscow-Berlin Alliance
new_silk_roads_and_an_alternate_eurasian_century/ [12]
Furthermore, here is Pepe Escobar’s latest take on the issue:
Empire of Chaos vs. Eurasian integration.
eurasian_integration_vs._the_empire_of_chaos [13]
* * *
And finally some concluding excerpts from Escobar...
At the same moment that China is proposing a new Eurasian integration, Washington has opted for an “empire of chaos,” a dysfunctional global system now breeding mayhem and blowback across the Greater Middle East into Africa and even to the peripheries of Europe.
In this context, a “new Cold War” paranoia is on the rise in the U.S., Europe, and Russia. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who knows a thing or two about Cold Wars (having ended one), couldn’t be more alarmed. Washington’s agenda of “isolating” and arguably crippling Russia is ultimately dangerous, even if in the long run it may also be doomed to failure.
At the moment, whatever its weaknesses, Moscow remains the only power capable of negotiating a global strategic balance with Washington and putting some limits on its empire of chaos. NATO nations still follow meekly in Washington’s wake and China as yet lacks the strategic clout.
Russia, like China, is betting on Eurasian integration. No one, of course, knows how all this will end. Only four years ago, Vladimir Putin was proposing “a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok,” involving a trans-Eurasian free trade agreement. Yet today, with the U.S., NATO, and Russia locked in a Cold War-like battle in the shadows over Ukraine, and with the European Union incapable of disentangling itself from NATO, the most immediate new paradigm seems to be less total integration than war hysteria and fear of future chaos spreading to other parts of Eurasia.
Don’t rule out a change in the dynamics of the situation, however. In the long run, it seems to be in the cards. One day, Germany may lead parts of Europe away from NATO’s “logic,” since German business leaders and industrialists have an eye on their potentially lucrative commercial future in a new Eurasia. Strange as it might seem amid today’s war of words over Ukraine, the endgame could still prove to involve a Berlin-Moscow-Beijing alliance.
At present, the choice between the two available models on the planet seems stark indeed: Eurasian integration or a spreading empire of chaos. China and Russia know what they want, and so, it seems, does Washington. The question is: What will the other moving parts of Eurasia choose to do?
* * *
But Russian stocks are down and US stocks are up... so America must be winning?
