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Aujourd’hui — 28 mars 2024Vos flux RSS

Plucked Peacocks in Françafrique..

Par : AHH

Lost in the thunder of the two incendiary battlegrounds of the Ukraine and the Holy Land, the end of the western Age of Plunder is vividly demonstrated in the West African Sahel. Calm business arrangements are conducted with friendly states, even as the last US garrisons are dismantled, one by one.


💠 @Intel Slava Z:
⭕ 🇷🇺🇫🇷🇸🇳 SENEGAL: how Russia is destroying French neocolonialism

Historical events are brewing in another West African country, Senegal. Getting rid of the country’s neocolonial dependence on its former official metropolis – France.

Over the weekend, presidential elections took place here, in which the opposition candidate Bashiru Jumaye Faye is confidently leading (and may even win them in the first round, which will become known tomorrow), who, as part of his election promises, promised to review oil and gas deals with Western campaigns, including agreements with British Petroleum, Endeavor Mining and Kosmos Energy.

He also advocates a radical revision of relations between Senegal and France. And as part of this, Faye is going to follow neighboring Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso to leave the French currency system (by abandoning the CFA franc). And the French military will have to leave the country. By the way, sensing something was wrong, Paris had already announced a little earlier that it was sharply reducing the military contingent in the country (probably so that it would not be so shameful later). In return, he promises to take a course towards rapprochement with Russia.

Thus, France’s next major foreign policy defeat on the African continent looms on the horizon. Moreover, Senegal was a key player in the issue of the blockade of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, which had previously freed themselves from the influence of Paris. And the departure of Senegal from the CFA franc zone puts a final and fat cross on this system (which brought huge profits to France) and on which the entire system of French neocolonialism was essentially built.

And hence all of Macron’s current anti-Russian hysteria. He, like a plucked rooster, understands that he is losing to Russia and therefore becomes hysterical. And Ukraine for him is the last chance to spoil Moscow. But I think he will be disappointed here too.


💠 @Russian MFA:
⭕ 🇷🇺🇳🇪📞 President Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone with President of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland of the Republic of Niger Abdourahamane Tchiani, who expressed solidarity with the Russian people and heartfelt condolences over the numerous victims of the heinous terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall.

In discussing the bilateral agenda, the Leaders expressed determination to step up political dialogue and develop mutually beneficial cooperation in various spheres.

They also exchanged views on the developments in the Sahel-Sahara region with an emphasis on coordination of security and counterterrorism efforts. 

💠 @Sputnik Africa:
⭕ 🇳🇪 US will plan for the “disengagement” of troops from Niger after its military pact with Washington ends, Niger’s interior minister says.

The statement was published on social media after Mohamed Toumba hosted US Ambassador Kathleen FitzGibbon for talks.

A spokesperson for the Nigerien military said in mid-March that the country’s transitional government, which took power in a coup last July, ended the agreement with immediate effect, citing the interests of the Nigerien people.

💠@Africa Intel:
⭕ 🇷🇺🌍 Putin discusses security cooperation with West and Central African leaders.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed security and economic cooperation with Mali’s junta leader Assimi Goita by phone on Wednesday, both countries said, a day after Putin held a similar call with the junta leader in neighbouring Niger.

“We discussed bilateral issues, particularly the security and economic areas,” Goita said. “We agreed to cooperate further in the fight against terrorism.” The Kremlin confirmed.

The call appeared to be part of a round of diplomatic exchanges Putin has made with West and Central African leaders since his re-election earlier this month.

The Kremlin said on Wednesday Putin and the leader of the Republic of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, had agreed in a phone call to deepen political, economic and humanitarian ties.

On Tuesday, Putin spoke by phone with Niger’s junta leader, Abdourahamane Tiani and discussed a need to reinforce their security cooperation, according to Nigerien state television.


💠 @Arab_Africa:
⭕ 🇺🇸 The US is worried that Niger will replace its military with Russian mercenaries

This was stated by the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Mike Rogers, at a hearing on the US military posture in the Middle East and Africa.

According to him, the recent expulsion of the US military from Niger may be linked to security talks with Iran and Russia that took place the day before.

“It looks like Niger will soon join Mali, Libya, Sudan, Mozambique and Burkina Faso in welcoming Russian troops and mercenaries into their country,” Rogers suggested. He also noted that China is at the same time seeking to expand its military presence beyond the PLA naval base in Djibouti.

“And they set up bases on the west coast to give the PLA strategic access to the Atlantic. China has already built and currently operates several major trading ports along the west coast of Africa,” the Republican reported.

Finally, Rogers warned that the US could lose the initiative due to inaction on the continent.

“Africa is of vital strategic importance to the United States. We cannot allow China or Russia to become their preferred security or business partner,” the American worries.
#нувыпонимаете
LOL


💠@Sputnik Africa:
⭕ “Atomexpo-2024,” the largest international forum on nuclear energy, was held on March 25-26 in Russia. Here are our publications not to be missed
🔸 Atomexpo-2024 nuclear industry forum breaks attendance record;
🔸 Rosatom signs roadmaps for developing cooperation on nuclear energy with Mali, and Burkina Faso and AlgeriaNOTE: the first two are members of the Sahelian Junta Belt..
🔸 “Russia will be able to better support Burkina Faso towards its energy independence,” a Burkinabe minister reveals details of the roadmap with Rosatom;
🔸 “Gold mined in Mali should be processed in Mali,” Malian minister of mines comments on the gold processing plant project with Russia;
🔸 Cooperation with Russia can help eliminate power shortages in Africa and advance Zimbabwe’s healthcare system, says minister;
🔸 Russia attracted Africans’ interest in nuclear energy because it’s a reliable partner, says a Rosatom official;
🔸 With the help of the agreements with Rosatom, Burundi intends to have a nuclear power plant that will help launch the country into industrial production, says a minister from the African country.

Point de vue sur l’attaque terroriste au Crocus City hall de Krasnorgorsk

Il est hasardeux de prétendre commenter un évènement de guerre clandestine surtout « à chaud ». La petite expérience de l’auteur lui

L’article Point de vue sur l’attaque terroriste au Crocus City hall de Krasnorgorsk est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

UN MONDE QUI CHANGE ENTRETIEN AVEC ERIC DENECE

Eric Dénécé est un spécialiste français du renseignement et de l’intelligence économique. Directeur du Centre français de Recherche sur le Renseignement, qu’il a fondé. SOMMAIRE : I) Analyse de l’attentat de Moscou II) Instabilité stratégique et dissuasion nucléaire III) Le… Lire la suite

Le conseiller de Zelensky, Podolyak, regrette la stagnation du front

stagnation front

stagnation frontL’armée ukrainienne est confrontée à une stagnation au front. Le conseiller du chef de cabinet du président ukrainien, Mikhaïl Podolyak,

L’article Le conseiller de Zelensky, Podolyak, regrette la stagnation du front est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Poutine : “La Russie ne va pas se battre avec l’OTAN”

poutine otan

poutine otanLa Russie ne va pas se battre avec l’OTAN, c’est tout simplement absurde, la différence dans les dépenses militaires est

L’article Poutine : “La Russie ne va pas se battre avec l’OTAN” est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

To Rafah, or not to Rafah, that is the question

Par : AHH

All eyes are on Rafah as Israel prepares to mount an invasion to expel Palestinians or decimate them. It is this pivotal battle that will either force Israel into a ceasefire or thrust the region into an all-out, multi-front war.

By Tawfik Chouman at The Cradle.

The Battle of Rafah: a short step to regional war

The temporary truce struck on 24 November between the Hamas resistance movement and the Israeli government could have paved the way toward successive truces and potentially a sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

But the opportunity was squandered by Tel Aviv, who viewed the continuation of its genocidal war as a means to reshape Gaza’s political and security landscape under the guise of ‘restoring deterrence’ and mitigating domestic fallout from Hamas’ 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood Operation.

Now, nearly six months since the commencement of what Israel calls a ‘war of survival and existence’ against Gaza, it has become clear that the occupation state’s military aggression cannot unseat Hamas from either the Strip or the broader Palestinian political arena.

The recent flurry of indirect Hamas–Israel negotiations held in Paris, Cairo, and Doha have revealed a stark political reality: Hamas is the primary Palestinian negotiating party where Gaza is concerned. This tacit acknowledgment by Tel Aviv marks the strategic failure of one of Israel’s dual objectives set forth last October, aimed at eradicating Hamas and its allied resistance factions in the Strip.

Bibi’s political interests v domestic backlash

This reality raises questions about the potential pathways available to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he struggles with immense international pressure to stop the carnage. Will he persist with the war on Gaza and risk global pariah status, or will he be compelled to pursue a politically costly settlement? The latter option, it should be noted, will not be an easy fix. It could potentially unleash a storm of domestic backlash within Israel, with various political factions eager to hold him accountable from multiple angles.

Since Netanyahu abandoned the truce in November, prominent Israeli political commentators and even former prime ministers have been surprisingly unanimous in their assessment. They argue that Netanyahu’s decision to prolong the war serves mainly his personal political interests, allowing him to project an illusion of victory while evading political, security, and judicial scrutiny.

Accordingly, Netanyahu’s stance remains firmly opposed to a war settlement. He has instead doubled down on the necessity of eliminating the military capabilities of Hamas and its allies, and is ostensibly pursuing an ‘absolute victory’ through total war.

The prime minister’s roadmap hinges on continuing the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. In this scenario, he envisions the Battle of Rafah as the decisive climax that will definitively render the already terminal ‘two-state solution’ obsolete and permanently sever any ties between Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The Battle of Rafah thus emerges as a pivotal juncture, delineating two competing trajectories: one driven by regional and international efforts towards a negotiated settlement, and the other dictated solely by Netanyahu’s ambitions.

Regional ramifications and Egypt’s dilemma

This raises complex questions about whether Netanyahu can prolong the war and influence regional and international actors – to buy time, if you will – all while factoring in the delicate balance of power involving Egypt and the wider regional war against other members of the Axis of Resistance.

Indeed, the Battle of Rafah presents a multi-level challenge for Egypt, encompassing political, security, and popular dimensions. Should the Israeli army invade Rafah, it will have significant implications for Cairo’s relations with Tel Aviv, in addition to severely impacting Egypt’s domestic security landscape.

A recent poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Studies revealed that three-quarters of Egyptians view Hamas positively. This popular sentiment influences Egyptian policy regarding potential Israeli actions in Rafah.

On 10 March, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported warnings from Egyptian officials on the potential suspension of the Camp David Accords if Israel were to attack Rafah.

Diaa Rashwan, head of the Egyptian Information Service, emphasized the seriousness of Israel’s occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor – a buffer zone on the Sinai–Gaza border designated by the Camp David agreement – stating it poses a grave threat to Cairo–Tel Aviv relations.

Dealing with the potential mass influxes of Gazan civilians seeking refuge and Palestinian fighters crossing into Egyptian territory also poses significant logistical and security challenges. This scenario also raises questions about the Israeli army’s potential incursions into Egyptian territory and how the Egyptian military would respond.

Moreover, any intensification of pressure on Rafah or a full-scale Israeli invasion will lead to widespread regional ramifications, potentially including the unraveling of the Abraham Accords. The Axis of Resistance has made it clear that the elimination of Hamas is unacceptable and, if threatened, may trigger a regional war.

Complicating matters further is the lack of substantive US pressure on Israel to halt its actions in Gaza. While the Biden White House seeks a ‘credible operational plan,’ it has not unequivocally opposed an attack on Rafah. This ambivalence enables and even emboldens Netanyahu to continue his military operations.

Rafah could reshape the region 

Regardless of the outcome of the Battle of Rafah, both Israeli and US perspectives interpret it as a campaign directed against Hamas, which they view as an extension of Iranian influence in the region. This narrative aligns with what Thomas Friedman, writing for the New York Times, referred to as the new “Biden Doctrine,” which emphasizes confronting Iran and its allies in West Asia. This marks a significant shift in US strategy since 1979.

The convergence of US and Israeli interests casts suspicion on ongoing efforts to bring about a long-term ceasefire, with all eyes focused on the current round of talks in Doha. Amos Harel, writing for Haaretz, frames the discussions as a race toward either a negotiated ceasefire or a potentially expansive regional conflict involving multiple fronts.

Yemen’s Ansarallah movement, which last week expanded its naval operations into the Indian Ocean, has issued a stark warning against a Rafah invasion, threatening a sharp escalation in both sea and air operations, including the closure of the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Similarly, the Lebanese front remains sensitive to developments in Rafah. Despite the northern front’s expansion since the onset of 2024, recent Israeli attacks targeting Baalbek, over 100 kilometers from the southern border, suggest Tel Aviv’s misguided willingness to escalate.

This possibility could spill over into reality if Israel invades Rafah, as the occupation army may resort to preemptive actions to mitigate perceived threats from Lebanese resistance forces.

Overall, the Battle of Rafah will likely reshape the regional conflict, adding new layers to existing pressure fronts. Importantly, it challenges the notion that Hamas stands alone, abandoned in Rafah, as various regional actors, including Iran and its allies, are closely watching and prepared to intervene.

Hier — 27 mars 2024Vos flux RSS
À partir d’avant-hierVos flux RSS

The Nuland – Budanov – Tajik – Crocus connection

Par : AHH

The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.

By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.

Let’s start with the possible chain of events that may have led to the Crocus terror attack. This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation.

December 4, 2023. Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, only 3 months after his retirement, tells CIA mouthpiece The Washington Post: “There should be no Russian who goes to sleep without wondering if they’re going to get their throat slit in the middle of the night (…) You gotta get back there and create a campaign behind the lines.”

January 4, 2024: In an interview with ABC News, “spy chief” Kyrylo Budanov lays down the road map: strikes “deeper and deeper” into Russia.

January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.

February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.

February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian intel does not already know.

Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Privileged scenario: Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). Rival Deep State factions got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian intel would have inevitably connected the dots.

Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver).

Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.

March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”.

March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.

March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.

March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.

March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.

ISIS-K: the ultimate can of worms

The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi– similar to previous Ukraine intel terror attacks against Daria Dugina and Vladimir Tatarsky: close reconnaissance for days, even weeks; the hit; and then a dash for the border.

And that brings us to the Tajik connection.

There seem to be holes aplenty in the narrative concocted by the ragged bunch turned mass killers: following an Islamist preacher on Telegram; offered what was later established as a puny 500 thousand rubles (roughly $4,500) for the four of them to shoot random people in a concert hall; sent half of the funds via Telegram; directed to a weapons cache where they find AK-12s and hand grenades.

The videos show that they used the machine guns like pros; shots were accurate, short bursts or single fire; no panic whatsoever; effective use of hand grenades; fleeing the scene in a flash, just melting away, almost in time to catch the “window” that would take them across the border to Ukraine.

All that takes training. And that also applies to facing nasty counter-interrogation. Still, the FSB seems to have broken them all – quite literally.

A potential handler has surfaced, named Abdullo Buriyev. Turkish intel had earlier identified him as a handler for ISIS-K, or Wilayat Khorasan in Afghanistan. One of the members of the Crocus commando told the FSB their “acquaintance” Abdullo helped them to buy the car for the op.

And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K.

The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Balochistan in Pakistan.

Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles.

Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”.

Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley crue Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS.

Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.

Some of the four hapless Tajiks seem to have followed ideological/religious indoctrination on the internet dispensed by Wilayat Khorasan, or ISIS-K, in a chat room called Rahnamo ba Khuroson.

The indoctrination game happened to be supervised by a Tajik, Salmon Khurosoni. He’s the guy who made the first move to recruit the commando. Khurosoni is arguably a messenger between ISIS-K and the CIA.

The problem is the ISIS-K modus operandi for any attack never features a fistful of dollars: the promise is Paradise via martyrdom. Yet in this case it seems it’s Khurosoni himself who has approved the 500 thousand ruble reward.

After handler Buriyev relayed the instructions, the commando sent the bayat – the ISIS pledge of allegiance – to Khurosoni. Ukraine may not have been their final destination. Another foreign intel connection – not identified by FSB sources – would have sent them to Turkey, and then Afghanistan.

That’s exactly where Khurosoni is to be found. Khurosoni may have been the ideological mastermind of Crocus. But, crucially, he’s not the client.

Oleh Tyahnybok, with McCain and Nuland

The Ukrainian love affair with terror gangs

Ukrainian intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.

Following the symbiosis of any Ukrainian government post-1991 with assorted terror/jihadi outfits, Kiev post-Maidan turbo-charged these connections especially with Idlib gangs, as well as north Caucasus outfits, from the Chechen Shishani to ISIS in Syria and then ISIS-K. GUR routinely aims to recruit ISIS and ISIS-K denizens via online chat rooms. Exactly the modus operandi that led to Crocus.

One “Azan” association, founded in 2017 by Anvar Derkach, a member of the Hizb ut-Tahrir, actually facilitates terrorist life in Ukraine, Tatars from Crimea included – from lodging to juridical assistance.

The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.

The FSB investigation is also unveiling the standard modus operandi of online terror, everywhere. A recruiter focuses on a specific profile; adapts himself to the candidate, especially his – low – IQ; provides him with the minimum necessary for a job; then the candidate/executor become disposable.

Everyone in Russia remembers that during the first attack on the Crimea bridge, the driver of the kamikaze truck was blissfully unaware of what he was carrying,

As for ISIS, everyone seriously following West Asia knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban.

Ace Russian war correspondent Marat Khairullin has added another juicy morsel to this funky salad: he convincingly unveils the MI6 angle in the Crocus City Hall terror attack (in English here, in two parts, posted by “S”).

The FSB is right in the middle of the painstaking process of cracking most, if not all ISIS-K-CIA/MI6 connections. Once it’s all established, there will be hell to pay.

But that won’t be the end of the story. Countless terror networks are not controlled by Western intel – although they will work with Western intel via middlemen, usually Salafist “preachers” who deal with Saudi/Gulf intel agencies.

The case of the CIA flying “black” helicopters to extract jihadists from Syria and drop them in Afghanistan is more like an exception – in terms of direct contact – than the norm. So the FSB and the Kremlin will be very careful when it comes to directly accusing the CIA and MI6 of managing these networks.

But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons.

Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries.

In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.

Double Crossing of the Red Line

Par : AHH

Moscow’s Terror Explosion – Macron’s NATO Troops to Ukraine

Peter Koenig
23 March 2024

Automatic gun-shooting by 5 men in black took place Friday evening 22 March in the Crocus City Concert Hall, attached to a shopping mall, at the outskirts of Moscow. The terror attack preceded a concert. The hall was therefore crowded with people, panicking for leaving it. The assault was followed by a massive explosion.

The official fatality as of 23 March stands at 133. Dozens of people were injured.

The Islamic State (IS) – a CIA creation – claimed credit for the attack.

However, the political end of this attack is more complex.
On March 7, 2024, the US Embassy in Russia warned Moscow that a terror attack may take place in Moscow within the next few weeks. No further details.

Is it one of the now fashionable “predictive planning” stunts?

On the same day, the same US Embassy in Moscow warned US citizens in Moscow not to visit shopping malls. How much did the US know?

Speculations abound. Was this an empty warning to destabilize Russia and Russian elections? Or was it one more provocation to pull Russia into a larger conflict?

On the day of the attack, John Kirby, spokesman for National Security at the White House said in a Press Conference that there were no indications that Ukraine had anything to do with the attack. In early March Washington just had some indications that a terror assault may hit Moscow.

“Some indications”? – Why then the warning on the same 7 March to US citizens in Moscow not to visit any shopping malls?

It could not be more obvious that a hidden agenda is being played by Washington – and, may be added, by NATO and Europe?

Whether the Islamic State, Al Qaeda or another CIA / MI6 terror creation – or even Kiev directly, was involved in this mass-killing is irrelevant, because whoever acted, did so on behalf of US / NATO and the collective West.

Admiral John Kirby, spokesman for National Security at the White House

It is no coincidence that French President Macron practically simultaneously sends officially 2,000 French NATO troops to Ukraine. “Officially”, because western / NATO military advisers, trainers and coaches for Kiev’s Nazi-military have been in Kiev for quite a while.

Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski has called it an open secret that Western soldiers are in Ukraine. German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz said, “there are already some troops from big countries in Ukraine.” (See this)


This is clearly the crossing of President Putin’s Red Line. Mr. Macron knows it, those who mandate the crossing of the Red Line, like the WEF and those dark Deep State Cult forces behind the WEF, know it – and Moscow knows that they know it.

Is it a provocation to pull Moscow into a hot war?
And the Moscow Concert Hall assault being a doubling-up of the Red-Line crossing?

This happening in the Ides of March, and just after the confirmed landslide re-election of President Putin on 17 March 2024.

Ides of March, is the day in the ancient Roman calendar that falls approximately on Mid-March and is associated with misfortune and doom. The date is also known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Most US wars were initiated in March. Is it a symbolic cult ritual of the west?

It would perfectly fit into the Death Cult of the Great Reset (WEF) and the UN Agenda 2030, which are currently plaguing humanity – worldwide.

There are other non-coincidences. The 24 March 2024 is the 25th anniversary of the 1999 US-NATO assault on Yugoslavia (Ides of March) – currently being commemorated by a three-day Conference 22-24 March 2024, in Belgrade.

The destruction and dismembering of Yugoslavia were also planned by a long hand. After Josip Tito’s death in May 1980 (he served in several leadership positions of Yugoslavia from 1943 – 1980) – there were some lesser communist successors, who were vulnerable to western / NATO “pressures”, and let what was a solid Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) deteriorate, western-style.

In 1990 Slobodan Milošević, President of Serbia became de facto President of the SFR Yugoslavia attempting to hold the federation together – which in the ten years after President Tito’s departure was financially destabilized by the west. In the 1990s the SFR Yugoslavia was one of the first “cases” where the World Bank, IMF Washington Consensus was applied full-scale – indebting to destabilize, create internal unrest – and divide.

Mr. Milošević was captured, detained at the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prison in The Hague. He was poisoned on March 11, 2006 in his prison cell – shortly before his scheduled appearance at the International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Once divided with constant civil unrest, there was “justification” for western rescue, i.e., bombing Yugoslavia literally into bits and pieces – leaving what we have today, numerous so-called independent former Yugoslavian Federal States – being economically and with “sanctions” controlled by the west.

This is the strategy Washington wants to apply to the Russian Federation – destabilizing it, fracturing it, Regime Change, and then taking it over.

Imagine! – The world’s biggest riches in the world’s largest country, absorbed or subdued by the (still) wannabe US Empire – and its European vassals.

It looks like the west wants a hot war with Russia, come hell or high water. Yes, it would be hell for Europe – for the third time in just over 100 years, and three-times for the same purpose – taking control of Russia, WWI, WWII and now WWIII?

A war – possibly nuclear – of which nobody can predict the outcome. As President Putin repeatedly said – there will be no winners, just absolute destruction.

Under no circumstances will Russia allow a take-over by an arrogant, criminal west. With Russian military’s far-superiority over US and NATO forces, this will not happen.

In the current Middle-East scenario, western leaders are supporting and funding the Israeli-Zionists, literally destroying and mass-killing – wiping out – Palestine, depicting an arrogance blinded by the zest for unlimited might, possibly driving humanity into a bottomless abyss.

A cleansing of this genocidal western “superiority” may bring birth of a new civilization – an evolution to a more spiritual and less material humanity.

—-

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

Fallout from Moscow’s Crocus City Hall

Par : AHH

Was the US behind the Moscow terror attack? The US and Ukraine will pay a high price. And that, I have been reliably informed, will extend to our Arab world.

By Abdel Bari Atwan at Rai Al Youm.

The Ukraine war could be poised to take a dramatic new turn

The terrorist operation in Moscow’s Crocus City Hall centre, which killed 143 people and injured hundreds of others, mostly concertgoers, was clearly carried out by a group that had been given serious military training. It could mark a paradigm shift in the Ukraine war presaging a strategic escalation and NATO’s official entry into the war.

Two weeks earlier, the US embassy in Moscow had warned its citizens that extremists were planning imminent attacks on large gatherings, including concerts, in the Russian capital, and warned them to stay away. That foreknowledge of the planning and execution of the operation raised suspicions about a degree of complicity. Washington’s denunciation of the atrocity, and swift disavowal of involvement, cannot be taken at face value.

When the initial warning was made, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova remarked that if the US had information about terrorist actions of such enormity, it should have shared it with Russia. That was the first official hint from Moscow of suspected American complicity.

Two years into the Ukraine war, the US has begun to sense defeat. Russia has made a succession of gains, taking control of the Donbas region and annexing it after holding referendums.

Large-scale US and NATO intervention — on the material, military, and intelligence fronts — failed to achieve any major success. Russia did not collapse under the weight of draconian sanctions. Its economy remains strong. The predicted colour revolution never happened, nor the anticipated military coup to depose Putin.

The opposite occurred, with the Russian president getting re-elected with an 87% majority on a 74% turnout.

The resort to terrorist attacks in Moscow could be a mark of the US’ frustration and a response aimed at expanding the scope of the war. But that would not only be a losing bet. It could bring the prospect of a catastrophic nuclear war closer.

Putin announced on Saturday night that the eleven people involved in the attack, including four direct participants, had been apprehended.
Meanwhile, the editor-in-chief of the Russia Today broadcast network, Margarita Simonyan, published video excerpts of the interrogation of one of the suspects. He identified himself as Feredoun Shamsedin, born in 1988, who arrived in Russia from Turkey on 4 March. He said he had been recruited via Telegram after following an extremist preacher, by someone who offered him 5 million roubles ($5,000) to conduct a mass killing in Moscow. Half of the money was transferred to him in advance.

I met Ms. Simonyan when I visited Moscow recently. She was constantly accompanied by a security detail because she had been subjected to death threats. She said she believed the Crocus atrocity was masterminded by the Ukrainian regime, rather than by ISIS as the US media were claiming. Putin’s subsequent assertion that the perpetrators were arrested while heading towards the Ukrainian border reinforced that accusation.

Russia’s fingers of blame pointed at Ukraine were a portent of fierce retaliation. It seems to have already begun. Former president and current deputy national security chief Dmitri Medvedev warned immediately after the massacre that Russia would hunt down any Ukrainian leaders proven to have been involved.

Reading between the lines, that may imply that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky could be top of the target list.

Two days before the Crocus attack, Putin threatened Ukraine with ”war’—abandoning the term special military operation’ — in response to French President Emanual Macron’s hint that NATO could send 90,000 fully equipped troops to Ukraine. Under Russian military doctrine, a declaration of war authorises the use of all available means, including nuclear weapons.

The US administration, disoriented and defeated in Ukraine and (so far) the Middle East, is fueling this escalation against Russia. It is the primary beneficiary of the Crocus attack. Not just to destabilise Russia by stoking ethnic tensions, but also to divert international attention away from its collusion in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the failure of its cynical attempt at the UN Security Council to sustain it under the guise of favouring (but not actually calling for) a cease-fire.

Putin won’t forgive this assault on his capital while it was celebrating the renewal of his presidential term. He is likely to make the US and Ukraine pay a high price. And that, I have been reliably informed, will extend to our Arab world.

VVP’s Announced Telephone Conversations in Last Two Days

Par : AHH

Per Newton’s third law, Hell cometh to the demented Anglo-Zionist satanists in Greater Syria….


🇷🇺🇧🇾📞 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.

The President of the Republic of Belarus expressed his heartfelt condolences on the monstrous terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, conveyed words of sympathy and support to the victims’ families and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured, emphasising that the people of Belarus stand together with the people of Russia in this time of sorrow.

Alexander Lukashenko offered any assistance that may be needed, and expressed his confidence that the organisers and perpetrators of this heinous crime will face inevitable punishment.

For his part, Vladimir Putin informed his counterpart about the detention of the terrorists directly involved in the attack, as well as about the ongoing investigation.

🤝 Both leaders expressed mutual readiness to continue close cooperation in the fight against terrorism.


🇷🇺🇰🇿📞 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

During his telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev expressed his deep condolences over numerous victims of the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, stressing that he resolutely condemns this barbaric crime, and asked to convey words of sympathy and support to the victims’ families and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.

Both Leaders reaffirmed their intention to step up anti-terror cooperation.


🇷🇺🇺🇿📞 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had a telephone conversation with President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev

Shavkat Mirziyoyev strongly condemned the heinous terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, expressed his sincere condolences in connection with the tragedy, and asked to convey words of support to the victims’ families and wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured.

Both Sides reaffirmed their intention to continue close cooperation to counter terrorism.


🇷🇺🇹🇷📞 On March 23, President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of Türkiye Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a telephone conversation.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered his deep and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of the victims of the heinous terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. He noted that the Republic of Türkiye stands with the people of Russia in this dark hour.

Vladimir Putin emphasised that Russia appreciates the support of the Turkish people and informed his Turkish counterpart on the status of the investigation into the terrorist attack.

During the conversation, the Turkish Leader stressed the urgent need for closer bilateral cooperation in the fight against the terrorist threat.

President Putin expressed gratitude for the condolences and supported the idea of stepping up cooperation in countering terrorism.


🇷🇺🇸🇾📞 On March 23, President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of the Syrian Arab Republic Bashar al-Assad held a telephone conversation.

The President of Syria strongly condemned the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, stressing that Syrian citizens share the pain and grief of the Russian people. He wished fortitude to the victims’ families and friends and a speedy recovery to the injured.

Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad discussed the ongoing crisis in the Middle East and the current situation in Syria, which is directly facing the terrorist threat.

🤝 The Leaders agreed to intensify contacts both in addressing counterterrorism and in all other areas of bilateral cooperation.

ADDENDUM:


🇹🇯 🇷🇺 President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon telephoned Vladimir Putin to express deep condolences and solidarity with the Russian people over the death of innocent civilians in the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. The President of Tajikistan emphasised that there was no nor could not be any justification for that crime.

During the conversation, Vladimir Putin and Emomali Rahmon noted that the security services of Russia and Tajikistan were working closely together to counter terrorism and that they would build up their cooperation.

Tajikistan’s President Rahmon during phone conversation with Russia’s Putin condemns terrorist attack in Russia, says terrorists have neither nationality nor religion

During the conversation, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev strongly condemned the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, which claimed the lives of over 100 innocent civilians, expressed deep condolences to their families and friends, and wished a speedy recovery to the injured.

Ilham Aliyev stressed that the people of Azerbaijan stand together with the Russian people on this day of national mourning and expressed confidence that the severe punishment of the criminals and those who masterminded that crime was unavoidable.

Vladimir Putin thanked the President of Azerbaijan for his words of support and expressed readiness to further strengthen practical interaction in the spirit of strategic partnership and alliance between Russia and Azerbaijan.

The Day the combined West committed Suicide

Par : AHH

Twenty-five years ago, NATO started bombing Yugoslavia

On March 24, 1999, Western countries launched a series of devastating airstrikes on Belgrade, the capital of the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia, which had been already suffering from a political crisis. The US and its allies declared that the Noble Anvil military op was motivated by “humanitarian” reasons and targeted only the military – but in reality, NATO airstrikes killed at least 2,500 people, ruined national infrastructure and sped up the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
@geopolitics_live

Sergey Lavrov at the UNSC

🎙 Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Sergey Lavrov’s address to the President of the Security Council (March 24, 1999)

💬 The Russian Federation is profoundly outraged at the use by the NATO of military force against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

☝ Those who are involved in this unilateral use of force against the sovereign Federal Republic of Yugoslavia — carried out in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and without the authorization of the Security Council — must realize the heavy responsibility they bear for subverting the Charter and other norms of international law and for attempting to establish in the world, de facto, the primacy of force and unilateral diktat.

The members of NATO are not entitled to decide the fate of other sovereign and independent States. They must not forget that they are not only members of their alliance, but also Members of the United Nations.

❌ Attempts to justify the NATO strikes with arguments about preventing a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo are completely untenable.

<…>

Attempts to apply a different standard to international law and to disregard its basic norms and principles create a dangerous precedent that could cause acute destabilization and chaos on the regional and global level.

The fact that NATO has opted to use force in Kosovo raises very serious questions about the sincerity of the repeated assurances that that alliance was not claiming the role of the world’s policeman and was prepared to cooperate in the interests of common European security.

❗ The Russian Federation vehemently demands the immediate cessation of this illegal military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Read in full

Nuremberg and the Crime of Wars of Aggression

“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Primakov’s ‘U-Turn over Atlantic’

How Russian PM Primakov showed Moscow won’t be US satellite

On March 24, 1999, Yevgeny Primakov’s plane was en route to the US where the then-Russian prime minister was due to discuss an IMF loan to the tune of $5 billion for his country. But after then-US Vice President Al Gore told Primakov about NATO starting to bomb Yugoslavia, he decided to turn his plane around and go back to Moscow.

Despite Gore’s desperate attempts to persuade Primakov to backtrack on his decision and come to Washington, the Russian prime minister was undeterred.

“If I had accepted Gore’s terms, I would have been a real traitor,” Primakov later said.

Dr. Samuel Hoff, a professor of history and political science at Delaware State University, points to the significant expansion of NATO after the March 1999 incident.

“It is a fact that in 1999, NATO had 16 countries. And as we sit here in 2024, there are 32 members,” Hoff notes in an interview with Sputnik.

Peter Kuznick, a professor of history at the American University, tells Sputnik that Primakov’s U-turn over the Atlantic added significantly to tarnishing the already “strained” US-Russian relations at the time.

Referring to current “terrible” ties between Moscow and Washington, “the lack of trust” and a bilateral “polarization,” the professor says that one is “beginning to see signs of that certainly with Primakov’s mission in 1999.”

“So it certainly can be seen as an important turning point in terms of the deterioration of potential friendship between the US and Russia and creating a much more positive kind of multipolar world,” he concludes.

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NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia: A ‘culmination of negligence’ that opened Pandora’s box

Twenty-five years ago, NATO kicked off its 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. According to various sources, up to 2,500 people were killed and over 6,000 more injured during the bombing, which was not approved by the UN.

In an interview with Sputnik, Dr. Stevan Gajic, a Balkans expert and research associate at the Belgrade-based Institute of European Studies, says that the beginning of NATO’s “illegal attack” against Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, was “a precedent that opened Pandora’s box.”

“It was a culmination of negligence of the international law that started since the end of the Cold War. Absolutely, [the] 1999 [NATO campaign] was a precedent. We can even say that the international law was in a way abolished at that moment and, of course, after that chaos was introduced into the system of international relations, Gacic points out.

The expert also didn’t rule out launching a “real investigation against NATO crimes” in Yugoslavia, which he says can only happen after the serious geopolitical changes following the collapse of NATO in one way or the other. He was echoed by Dr. Srdjan Sljukic, a professor of sociology at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, who tells Sputnik that “NATO aggression against Yugoslavia” reflected “two sorts of crimes,” such as “breaking the international law” and “bombing civilian objects and killing many civilians.”

Sljukic also warns that “as long as the key Western countries are ruled by the current liberal elites, NATO countries will not be put on fair trial because of their crimes in Yugoslavia and all over the world.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry Statement in connection with the 25th anniversary of NATO aggression against Yugoslavia

History knows many events which, by virtue of their profound impact on the international order, marked a change of eras.

The NATO attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999 is certainly one such event. It went beyond being a tragic milestone in the life of the Serbian people with thousands of ruined lives and desecrated national dignity, and included a devastating blow to international law and European security foundations that had been laid after World War II. The United States and the EU got finally convinced in their own impunity and moral superiority which was bad news for those who prefer to choose their own path rather than become someone’s tool in their efforts to realise their own interests. The strategic balance of power collapsed, and a drawn-out crisis of international relations ensued which continues to worsen.

The US and its allies who assaulted a peaceful European country trampled on the UN Charter and the CSCE/OSCE principles, and desecrated the very notion of sovereignty. They have thus made it clear that they will stoop to anything, including radioactive contamination of vast swathes of land, to achieve global dominance. The widespread use of depleted uranium munitions by NATO has led to a multifold increase in cancer cases in that region, contaminated the environment where millions of people had lived for many years, and went down in history as a separate dark chapter on the list of NATO crimes.

During the 78 days of military aggression 14,000 bombs were dropped on Yugoslavia and over 2,000 missiles were fired, including cluster and demolition shells. Under the mocking front of a “humanitarian intervention,” mostly civilian targets were hit, including residential districts, hospitals, schools, bridges, mass transit vehicles, and refugee convoys. Thousands of civilians were killed, including 89 children, whom the Western coalition cynically referred to as “collateral damage.” No one has ever been held accountable for these atrocities, and international justice turned a deaf ear to the suffering of the Serbs and let NATO atrocities go unnoticed.

Not only the bombed-out buildings of the Yugoslav General Staff and Defence Ministry in central Belgrade which irritate the US officials to this day remind us of those terrible days. Serbia has many other unhealed wounds. A portion of the country’s ancestral territory, Kosovo and Metohija, has been forcibly taken away. The West has taken under its wing terrorists from the Kosovo Liberation Army, gave the province the status of a pseudo-state, and encourages the expulsion of the indigenous Serbian population.

This inevitably begs the question: was the “Kosovo project” worth the sacrifice and destruction that the alliance brought upon Yugoslavia? Has the self-proclaimed “republic” added stability or prosperity to the Balkan region?

There is no doubt that the United States’ concern for the rights of Kosovo Albanians is a fake claim from the get-go. It is nothing but a false pretext for the crackdown on Serbs.

The West’s goal was to turn the provisional self-governing bodies in Pristina into a tool for anti-Serb ethnic cleansing and a festering trouble spot to put pressure on Belgrade. At the end of the day, the Kosovo settlement is in a deadlock, and the situation on the ground threatens to escalate into an armed conflict.

This is what the Western “peacemaking” is all about. Its disastrous ramifications can now be seen in Ukraine, where a neo-Nazi regime has been nurtured on the basis of Washington and its supporters’ rejection of the principles of equality and mutual respect in international affairs, a regime that committed genocide against the Russian population and plunged the country into a military face-off.

We can hear the US and the EU increasingly call on Serbs to “turn the page” and forgive NATO for the invasion that took place 25 years ago. On top of that, they lay the bulk of the blame on the Serbs for the dramatic events during the breakup of Yugoslavia, including the 1999 bombing attacks. I’d be hard pressed to find proper words to describe the extent of Western shamelessness and lack of self-criticism.

The Alliance will never be able to wash off the shame of war crimes. No one believes its demagoguery about defending freedom and democracy anymore. The United States and the rest of NATO have no right whatsoever to talk about implementing an obscure new “rules-based order.” Their every effort to put together some kind of “global security architecture” is by definition malevolent and toxic, and aimed solely at perpetrating the neocolonial hegemony of the West.

Russia and its partners in Belgrade will continue to oppose the attempts to distort the history of the Yugoslav crisis and to shift the emphasis to demonising Serbs and justifying the 1999 aggression. The attempts to insult the memory of the innocent victims of NATO hangmen are unacceptable.

Turkey takes its Seat in Rules-based Terrorism Inc.

Par : AHH

Turkey starts to drift into view, as NATO becomes officially activated in Europe.. Turkish elites, in spite of antipathy of its working peoples for post-modern western values, remain at the heart of NATO.

To woo Washington, Erdogan will sell out Palestine

After Ankara and Washington successfully swapped Sweden’s NATO accession for an F-16 fighter jet deal, Turkiye is focused on accelerating that rapprochement and is willing to sweep divisive issues – like genocide in Gaza – under the rug.

By Mohamad Hasan Sweidan at The Cradle.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan

On 7–8 March, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalin visited Washington. The trip garnered attention as it marked Turkiye’s first official visit to the US following the conclusion of the ‘Sweden for F-16’ deal, whereby Ankara accepted Stockholm’s accession to NATO in exchange for US Congressional approval of the sale of 40 F-16s to Turkiye.

During the visit, the two Turkish officials met with their US counterparts Antony Blinken and William Burns, along with National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and their respective foreign ministers chaired the seventh meeting of the US–Turkiye Strategic Mechanism.

“Naval Battle of Çesme at Night,” July 1770, Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), by Ivan Constantinovich Aivazovsky (1848)

US–Turkish rapprochement

The thaw in US–Turkish relations has been palpable, as noted by Jeff Flake, the US Ambassador to Ankara, during a televised interview: “Especially in recent months, the two countries have developed shared areas. We observe improvements in defense, trade, and interpersonal relations.”

A closer examination of the joint statement released following the meeting illustrates the transition of Turkish–American relations into a more favorable and cooperative phase.

Established in 2021 and inaugurated on 4 April 2021 amidst escalating discord between Turkiye and the US, the strategic mechanism was conceived to address and improve the strained bilateral relations.

The joint statement issued by the Strategic Mechanism this month included several crucial points, each carrying significant implications:

Both parties addressed the ongoing war in Ukraine, condemning Russia’s actions as ‘unacceptable’ while emphasizing the importance of upholding Ukraine’s unity and sovereignty. However, it is worth noting that Ankara’s endorsement of the statement’s rhetoric aligns more closely with Kiev’s perspective, a deviation from Turkiye’s previous neutral stance. This marked shift will undermine President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s aspirations to mediate the conflict impartially.

“Destruction of the Turkish Fleet in the Bay of Chesme,” July 1770, Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), by Jacob Philipp Hackert, commissioned by Catherine II in 1772

Playing to the audience

On Israel’s brutal military assault in Gaza, the statement merely referred to an “ongoing crisis” and “underlined the importance of finding a path towards ending the conflict and addressing the humanitarian crisis immediately.” This is a war that Erdogan has, on the record, framed as a “genocide” and called its aggressors in Tel Aviv “war criminals.”

While both parties expressed support for the “two-state solution” as an end goal to the war, the statement’s release coincided with a fiery speech by Erdogan in Istanbul in which he attacked Israel, calling it “the Nazis of our time.” The contrast between the two statements is a real-time reflection of how Turkiye addresses its different target audiences.

On the issue of combating terrorism, the statement endorses joint US–Turkish efforts against organizations like the PKK, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda across regions spanning from Africa to Central Asia. They also recommitted to counterterrorism consultations and discussions on the Syria file, including the adherence to UN Resolution 2254 and supporting a “Syrian-led, Syrian-owned political process.”

The two parties addressed a multitude of regional issues in West Asia and Africa in alignment with the broader US strategy outlined by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, which focuses on partnership-building, deterrence, diplomacy, regional integration, and “democracy promotion” in these geographies.

This includes cooperation in military industry, energy, and trade development, reflecting the existing $30 billion trade volume between Washington and Ankara.

Significantly, the parties discussed leveraging financing opportunities under the Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership – a western initiative intended to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This partnership includes the controversial India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), aimed at enhancing regional connectivity and economic development very much to the benefit of Israel.

New Turkish military action in Syria and Iraq?

As the municipal elections in Turkiye draw near – with Erdogan seeking to reclaim his Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) control of Istanbul and Ankara after notable previous losses – there’s a tangible resurgence in Turkish rhetoric advocating for military action in northern Syria and Iraq.

According to reports from the Turkish news agency T24, the Turkish armed forces are gearing up for an operation against the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) inside its neighboring states following local elections on 31 March.

After a 4 March cabinet meeting, Erdogan spoke of Turkiye’s readiness for a comprehensive operation against the Kurdish separatist groups and reiterated Ankara’s objective of establishing a security corridor spanning 30 to 40 kilometers along the Turkish–Syrian border.

Although the military rhetoric is undoubtedly influenced by Erdogan’s bid to attract nationalist voters in the upcoming elections, it is also connected to the recent Turkish–Iraqi diplomatic breakthrough following a high-level Turkish delegation’s visit to Baghdad.

The meeting in the Iraqi capital led to a security deal in which both countries committed to take action against the PKK. A joint statement read:

Both sides stressed that the PKK organization represents a security threat to both Turkiye and Iraq, and it is certain that the presence of the organization on Iraqi territory represents a violation of the Iraqi constitution … Turkiye welcomed the decision taken by the Iraqi National Security Council to list the PKK as a banned organization in Iraq. The two sides consulted on the measures that must be taken against the organization and its banned extensions [PKK’s alleged offshoots] that target Turkiye from within Iraq’s territory.

Fidan’s senior adviser, Nuh Yilmaz, praised the move, saying, “Turkiye and Iraq decided for the first time to fight jointly against PKK terrorism.” In a post on platform X, he added: “A decision that will mark a turning point! We will see results gradually!”


Strategic interests come first 

According to a well-informed Turkish source:

Turkey’s main purpose is very clear. The presence of the PKK in Metina and Gara [in northern Iraq] has the potential to seriously threaten the Iraq Development Road Project … We both would like to remove PKK from these two areas as well as secure the area for the construction of the project, reaching both objectives in one step.

Ankara and Baghdad seek to counter any threat to this development road project, a land corridor linking the port of Faw in Basra to the Turkish border and from there to Europe.

In this context, Erdogan is expected to visit Baghdad for the first time since 2012, where, some speculate, he will try to conclude a border control security agreement with the Iraqi government and seek to convince Baghdad to support future Turkish military operations against the PKK.

Despite Turkiye and Erdogan’s vocal criticism of Israeli atrocities in Gaza, recent interactions between Ankara and Washington indicate a pragmatic approach in their dealings, through which Turkiye hopes to be reinstated as an important US strategic partner.

While the Turkish president is stepping up anti-Zionist rhetoric on his domestic front, his administration maintains substantial economic ties with Israel, exporting various vital goods and services to the occupation state.

Although a Washington–Ankara rapprochement is still in its nascent stage, recent developments reveal the old allies are on a positive trajectory to repair bilateral relations after a period of strained diplomatic ties.

Erdogan’s foreign policy approach – as exemplified by his rhetorical Gaza stance and material support for Israel – makes clear Turkiye’s shift toward prioritizing strategic interests over ideological ones.

≈≈≈

“Chesma battle of 1770,” Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774), by Vladimir Kosov (2021)

Nuclear Threat, World War III and Turkey: Balance Policy or a Game?

Is Turkey’s rhetorical stance of “balancing” a genuine attempt at strategic equilibrium, or merely an endeavor to occupy multiple positions simultaneously?

By Erkin Öncan at Strategic Culture Foundation.

Alexander Stubb, the newly elected president of Finland, has made several noteworthy statements regarding the current geopolitical climate. He emphasized the escalating tensions amidst discussions of a World War III. Stubb, representing the center-right National Coalition Party, expressed openness to the possibility of allowing the transportation and storage of U.S. nuclear weapons in Finnish territory, branding them as a “guarantee of peace.” This stance remained consistent throughout his election campaign and was reiterated upon assuming office. Stubb underscored the necessity for Finland to possess a tangible nuclear deterrent force, citing NATO membership as pivotal in providing multiple layers of deterrence, including military, munitions, and nuclear deterrence from the USA. He further asserted that Finland’s alignment with NATO signifies a definitive step towards embracing Western values, a sentiment echoed by the inclusion of Turkey as an enthusiastic participant in the anticipated third major conflict.

However, Finland’s enthusiasm for NATO membership has not gone unnoticed by Russia, which shares a significant border with the country. In response to Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, Russian President Putin announced plans to bolster military presence along the Western borders to counteract perceived threats stemming from NATO’s eastward expansion. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov conveyed Moscow’s acknowledgment of the democratic choice made by the Finnish people but indicated pessimism regarding potential improvements in Russo-Finnish relations.

The most explicit reaction to Stubb’s nuclear policy came from Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariya Zakharova. Addressing the issue during a weekly press conference at the World Youth Festival in Sochi, Zakharova outlined Russia’s stance on the placement of U.S. nuclear weapons in Northern Europe. She asserted that such deployments would be considered a direct threat and would consequently be designated as legitimate targets in the event of a direct military conflict between Russia and NATO. Zakharova underscored Russia’s awareness of the desires of the United States and its allies in this regard.

Izmir, Turkey: permanent headquarters of NATO Land Forces, known as Allied Land Command (LANDCOM).

The primary source of concern regarding nuclear capabilities is now widely recognized to stem from the potential for World War III to be nuclear in nature. When discussing nuclear power, the focus often turns to Russia, acknowledged as the “world’s largest nuclear power”.

Western media consistently highlights the perceived “nuclear threat emanating from the authoritarian Kremlin”. However, to truly address the concept of a “nuclear danger”, it is essential to consider the United States, which has transformed Europe into a depot for nuclear weapons, rather than Russia, which does not maintain nuclear forces beyond its borders, apart from the neighboring Belarus.

The United States and its NATO allies do not disclose precise figures regarding the stockpiles deployed in Europe. Nevertheless, estimates from the U.S.-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in 2021 suggest that around 100 U.S. nuclear weapons are stored across six bases in five NATO member countries.

These weapons are kept in inactive states within underground vaults at national air bases. Notably, the “permissive action link” (PAL) codes required to activate these weapons are under American control. In the event of their use, the weapons would be loaded onto warplanes designated by NATO.

This situation is intricately tied to the “modernization” efforts undertaken by nations operating F-35A, F-18 Super Hornet, or Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft.

U.S. nuclear weapons have been stationed in Europe since the mid-1950s, authorized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for storage at NATO bases on the continent as a deterrent against the Soviet Union.

Stored in warehouses across Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and other countries, these weapons are maintained for potential deployment when required. Additionally, countries such as Czechia, Denmark, Greece, Hungary, Norway, Poland, and Romania participate in SNOWCAT operations, facilitating NATO partner involvement in nuclear missions.

Meanwhile, Finland, under the leadership of Stubb, is positioning itself as a significant player in the ongoing ’nuclear preparedness’ measures originally aimed at countering the USSR and persisting in response to Russia.

This dynamic persists alongside ongoing military actions initiated by NATO against Russia. Notably, the commencement of Steadfast Defender-24, hailed as NATO’s largest military exercise since the Cold War, marks a significant development. This exercise aims to test the transfer of military forces to Eastern Europe and beyond, encompassing regions where Russia’s influence is perceived as encroaching.

This exercise constitutes a series of 15 maneuvers rather than a singular major military operation.

Steadfast Defender encompasses various other exercises conducted at national or regional levels, including Joint Warrior, Solid Approach, Arctic Dolphin, Northern Response, Immediate Response, Brilliant Jump, Movable Defender, Slovak Shield, Saber Strike, Trojan Trail-24, and Spring Storm.

İzmir: rebranded ancient Smyrna from pre-historic through the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Crusader, Ottoman, and Turk Periods.

Turkey actively participates in these exercises, with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) playing a pivotal role in Brilliant Jump, Nordic Response, Saber Strike, and Immediate Response exercises.

Turkey’s involvement extends beyond military participation; it also hosts one of NATO’s most crucial commands. The permanent headquarters of NATO Land Forces, known as Allied Land Command (LANDCOM), is situated in Izmir.

Decisions regarding NATO’s land maneuvers are made at the command post within the General Vecihi Akın Barracks in Buca, Izmir. Given its historical significance, Izmir, where the first shot was fired against invaders a century ago, could potentially be remembered as the site where the decision to initiate the first shot of a world-engulfing war was made if a new global conflict were to erupt on Russia’s borders.

This prompts consideration of Turkey’s rhetorical stance of “balancing”. Is it a genuine attempt at strategic equilibrium, or merely an endeavor to occupy multiple positions simultaneously?

It’s War: The Real Meat Grinder Starts Now

Par : AHH

“Rules-based Terrorism” Returns to Moskau. No more shadow play. It’s now in the open. No holds barred.

By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.


Exhibit 1:
 Friday, March 22, 2024. It’s War. The Kremlin, via Peskov, finally admits it, on the record.

The money quote:

“Russia cannot allow the existence on its borders of a state that has a documented intention to use any methods to take Crimea away from it, not to mention the territory of new regions.”

Translation: the Hegemon-constructed Kiev mongrel is doomed, one way or another. The Kremlin signal: “We haven’t even started” starts now.

Exhibit 2: Friday afternoon, a few hours after Peskov. Confirmed by a serious European – not Russian – source. The first counter-signal.

Regular troops from France, Germany and Poland have arrived, by rail and air, to Cherkassy, south of Kiev. A substantial force. No numbers leaked. They are being housed in schools. For all practical purposes, this is a NATO force.

That signals, “Let the games begin”. From a Russian point of view, Mr. Khinzal’s business cards are set to be in great demand.

Exhibit 3: Friday evening. Terror attack on Crocus City, a music venue northwest of Moscow. A heavily trained commando shoots people on sight, point blank, in cold blood, then sets a concert hall on fire. The definitive counter-signal: with the battlefield collapsing, all that’s left is terrorism in Moscow.

And just as terror was striking Moscow, the US and the UK, in southwest Asia, was bombing Sana’a, the Yemeni capital, with at least five strikes.

Some nifty coordination. Yemen has just clinched a strategic deal in Oman with Russia-China for no-hassle navigation in the Red Sea, and is among the top candidates for BRICS+ expansion at the summit in Kazan next October.

Not only the Houthis are spectacularly defeating thalassocracy, they have the Russia-China strategic partnership on their side. Assuring China and Russia that their ships can sail through the Bab-al-Mandeb, Red Sea and Gulf of Aden with no problems is exchanged with total political support from Beijing and Moscow.


The sponsors remain the same

Deep in the night in Moscow, before dawn on Saturday 23. Virtually no one is sleeping. Rumors dance like dervishes on countless screens. Of course nothing has been confirmed – yet. Only the FSB will have answers. A massive investigation is in progress.

The timing of the Crocus massacre is quite intriguing. On a Friday during Ramadan. Real Muslims would not even think about perpetrating a mass murder of unarmed civilians under such a holy occasion. Compare it with the ISIS card being frantically branded by the usual suspects.

Let’s go pop. To quote Talking Heads: “This ain’t no party/ this ain’t no disco/ this ain’t no fooling around”. Oh no; it’s more like an all-American psy op. ISIS are cartoonish mercenaries/goons. Not real Muslims. And everyone knows who finances and weaponizes them.

That leads to the most possible scenario, before the FSB weighs in: ISIS goons imported from the Syria battleground – as it stands, probably Tajiks – trained by CIA and MI6, working on behalf of the Ukrainian SBU. Several witnesses at Crocus referred to “Wahhabis” – as in the commando killers did not look like Slavs.

It was up to Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to cut to the chase. He directly connected the “warnings” in early March from American and British embassies directed at their citizens not to visit public places in Moscow with CIA/MI6 intel having inside info about possible terrorism, and not disclosing it to Moscow.

The plot thickens when it is established that Crocus is owned by the Agalarovs: an Azeri-Russian billionaire family, very close friends of…

… Donald Trump.

Talk about a Deep State-pinpointed target.

ISIS spin-off or banderistas – the sponsors remain the same. The clownish secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, was dumb enough to virtually, indirectly confirm they did it, saying on Ukrainian TV, “we will give them [Russians] this kind of fun more often.”

But it was up to Sergei Goncharov, a veteran of the elite Russia Alpha anti-terrorism unit, to get closer to unwrapping the enigma: he told Sputnik the most feasible mastermind is Kyrylo Budanov – the chief of the Main Directorate of Intelligence at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

The “spy chief” who happens to be the top CIA asset in Kiev.

Stoking the unholy USUK meatgrinder

It’s got to go till the last Ukrainian

The three exhibits above complement what the head of NATO’s military committee, Rob Bauer, previously told a security forum in Kiev: “You need more than just grenades – you need people to replace the dead and wounded. And this means mobilization.”

Translation: NATO spelling out this is a war until the last Ukrainian.

And the “leadership” in Kiev still does not get it. Former Minister of Infrastructure Omelyan: “If we win, we will pay back with Russian oil, gas, diamonds and fur. If we lose, there will be no talk of money – the West will think about how to survive.”

In parallel, puny “garden-and jungle” Borrell admitted that it would be “difficult” for the EU to find an extra 50 billion euros for Kiev if Washington pulls the plug. The cocaine-fueled sweaty sweatshirt leadership actually believes that Washington is not “helping” in the form of loans, but in the form of free gifts. And the same applies for the EU.

The Theater of the Absurd is unmatchable. The German Liver Sausage Chancellor actually believes that proceeds from stolen Russian assets “do not belong to anyone”, so they can be used to finance extra Kiev weaponizing.

Everyone with a brain knows that using interest from “frozen”, actually stolen Russian assets to weaponize Ukraine is a dead end – unless they steal all of Russia’s assets, roughly $200 billion, mostly parked in Belgium and Switzerland: that would tank the Euro for good, and the whole EU economy for that matter.

Eurocrats better listen to Russian Central Bank major “disrupter” (American terminology) Elvira Nabiullina: The Bank of Russia will take “appropriate measures” if the EU does anything on the “frozen”/stolen Russian assets.

It goes without saying that the three exhibits above completely nullify the “La Cage aux Folles” circus promoted by the puny Petit Roi, now known across his French domains as Macronapoleon.

Virtually the whole planet, including the English-speaking Global North, had already been mocking the “exploits” of his Can Can Moulin Rouge Army.

So French, German and Polish soldiers, as part of NATO, are already in the south of Kiev. The most possible scenario is that they will stay far, far away from the frontlines – although traceable by Mr. Khinzal’s business activities.

Even before this new NATO batch arriving in the south of Kiev, Poland – which happens to serve as prime transit corridor for Kiev’s troops – had confirmed that Western troops are already on the ground.

So this is not about mercenaries anymore. France, by the way, is only 7th in terms of mercenaries on the ground, largely trailing Poland, the US and Georgia, for instance. The Russian Ministry of Defense has all the precise records.

In a nutshell: now war has morphed from Donetsk, Avdeyevka and Belgorod to Moscow. Further on down the road, it may not just stop in Kiev. It may only stop in Lviv. Mr. 87%, enjoying massive national near-unanimity,  now has the mandate to go all the way. Especially after Crocus.

There’s every possibility the terror tactics by Kiev goons will finally drive Russia to return Ukraine to its original 17th century landlocked borders: Black Sea-deprived, and with Poland, Romania, and Hungary reclaiming their former territories.

Remaining Ukrainians will start to ask serious questions about what led them to fight – literally to their death – on behalf of the US Deep State, the military complex and BlackRock.

As it stands, the Highway to Hell meat grinder is bound to reach maximum velocity.

La guerre en Ukraine ou la douloureuse naissance d’un monde nouveau

Par : STRATPOL

Deux ans après le début de la guerre en Ukraine, la réalité contredit les prévisions hasardeuses du camp occidental qui

L’article La guerre en Ukraine ou la douloureuse naissance d’un monde nouveau est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

How could Russia respond to NATO invasion?

Par : AHH

Will France/NATO invade Ukraine? How will Russia respond?

🇫🇷🚨 Will France invade Ukraine? How will Russia respond?

☢ Scott Ritter goes nuclear on French President Emmanuel Macron, Poland, and the Baltic States (“over-fed chihuahuas”). Don’t watch this episode if you’re a NATO fanboy! #NewRulesPodcast pic.twitter.com/Zb3s90VxES

— NewRulesGeopolitics (@NewRulesGeo) March 21, 2024

In this week’s episode of the New Rules podcast, we’re discussing the potential of a French/NATO military intervention in Ukraine. Longtime friend of the program, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter goes NUCLEAR on French President Emmanuel Macron, Poland, and the Baltic States.

“France is the equivalent of an overfed Chihuahua, and you don’t want to get in the ring with the really beefed up Rottweilers, especially when they’ve been trained to eat overfed Chihuahuas their entire life,” he told the New Rules podcast.

 

Emmanuel Macron apprend à jouer du clairon

Après les rodomontades, nous sommes passés à la pantalonnade. Notre kéké national a donc déclaré tout seul la guerre à la Russie. La diversion de politique intérieure était évidente au départ, mais il s’est pris au jeu, et toujours abîmé… Lire la suite

Why the West cannot stomach Russians

Par : AHH

In the west, they don’t like those who defend themselves, who fight against them, and especially those who win.

By Andre Vltchek via The Greanville Post.

When it comes to Russia or the Soviet Union, reports and historical accounts do get blurry; in the West they do, and consequently in all of its ‘client states’. Fairytales get intermingled with reality, while fabrications are masterfully injected into the sub consciousness of billions of people worldwide. Russia is an enormous country, in fact the largest country on Earth in terms of territory. It is scarcely inhabited. It is deep, and as a classic writer once wrote: “It is impossible to understand Russia with one’s brain. One could only believe in it.”

The Western mind generally doesn’t like things unknown, spiritual and complex. Since the ‘old days’, especially since the crusades and monstrous colonialist expeditions to all corners of the world, the Westerners were told fables about their own “noble deeds” performed in the plundered lands. Everything had to be clear and simple: “Virtuous Europeans were civilizing savages and spreading Christianity, therefore, in fact, saving those dark poor primitive souls.”

Of course, tens of millions were dying in the process, while further tens of millions were shackled and brought to the “New Worlds” as slaves. Gold, silver, and other loot, as well as slave labor had been (and still are) paying for all those European palaces, railroads, universities and theatres, but that did not matter, as the bloodshed was most of the time something abstract and far away from those over-sensitive eyes of the Western public.

Westerners like simplicity, particularly when it comes to moral definitions of “good and evil”. It matters nothing if the truth gets systematically ‘massaged’, or even if the reality is fully fabricated. What matters is that there is no deep guilt and no soul-searching. Western rulers and their opinion makers know their people – their ‘subjects’ – perfectly well, and most of the time, they give them what they are asking for. The rulers and the reigned are generally living in symbiosis. They keep bitching about each other, but mostly they have similar goals: to live well, to live extremely well, as long as the others are forced to pay for it; with their riches, with their labor and often with their blood.

Culturally, most of the citizens of Europe and North America hate to pay the bill for their high life; they even detest to admit that their life is extremely ‘high’. They like to feel like victims. They like to feel that they are ‘used’. They like to imagine that they are sacrificing themselves for the rest of the world.

And above all, they hate real victims: those they have been murdering, raping, plundering and insulting, for decades and centuries.

Recent ‘refugee crises’ showed the spite Europeans feel for their prey. People who made them rich and who lost everything in the process are humiliated, despised and insulted. Be they Afghans or Africans, the Middle Easterners or South Asians. Or Russians, although Russians fall into their own, unique category.

Prince Alexander Nevsky’s legendary defeat of the Teutonic Knights on a frozen lake in the 13th century has always captivated and inspired the Russian people in their struggles against foreign invaders, especially from the West.

Many Russians look white. Most of them eat with knife and fork, they drink alcohol, excel at Western classical music, poetry, literature, science and philosophy.

To Western eyes they look ‘normal’, but actually, they are not.

Russians always want ‘something else’; they refuse to play by Western rules.

They are stubbornly demanding to remain different, and to be left alone.

When confronted, when attacked, they fight.

They rarely strike first, almost never invade.

But when threatened, when assaulted, they fight with tremendous determination and force, and they never lose. Villages and cities get converted into invader’s graves. Millions die while defending their Motherland, but the country survives. And it happens again and again and again, as the Western hordes have been, for centuries, assaulting and burning Russian lands, never learning the lesson and never giving up on their sinister dream of conquering and controlling that proud and determined colossus.

In the West, they don’t like those who defend themselves, who fight against them, and especially those who win.

Russo-Korean symphony

It gets much worse than that.
Russia has this terrible habit… not only it defends itself and its people, but it also fights for others, protecting colonized and pillaged nations, as well as those that are unjustly assaulted.

It saved the world from Nazism. It did it at a horrific price of 27 million men, women and children, but it did it; courageously, proudly and altruistically. The West never forgave the Soviet Union for this epic victory either, because all that is unselfish and self-sacrificing, is always in direct conflict with its own principles, and therefore ‘extremely dangerous’.

The Russian people had risen; had fought and won in the 1917 Revolution; an event which terrified the West more than anything else in history, as it had attempted to create a fully egalitarian, classless and racially color-blind society. It also gave birth to Internationalism, an occurrence that I recently described in my book The Great October Socialist Revolution: Impact on the World and the Birth of Internationalism.

Soviet Internationalism, right after the victory in WWII, helped greatly, directly and indirectly, dozens of countries on all continents, to stand up and to confront the European colonialism and the North American imperialism. The West and especially Europe never forgave the Soviet people in general and Russians in particular, for helping to liberate its slaves.

That is when the greatest wave of propaganda in human history really began to roll. From London to New York, from Paris to Toronto, an elaborate web of anti-Soviet and covertly anti-Russian hysteria was unleashed with monstrously destructive force. Tens of thousands of ‘journalists’, intelligence officers, psychologists, historians, as well as academics, were employed. Nothing Soviet, nothing Russian (except those glorified and often ‘manufactured’ Russian dissidents) was spared.

The excesses or contextual errors of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the pre-WWII era were systematically fabricated, exaggerated, and then engraved into the Western history textbooks and mass media narrative. In those tales, there was nothing about the vicious invasions and attacks coming from the West, aimed at destroying the young Bolshevik state. Naturally, there was no space for mentioning the British, French, U.S., Czech, Polish, Japanese, German and other’s monstrous cruelties.

Soviet and Russian views were hardly ever allowed to penetrate the monolithic and one-sided Western propaganda narrative.

Like obedient sheep, the Western public accepted the disinformation it was fed. Eventually, many people living in the Western colonies and ‘client states’, did the same. A great number of colonized people were taught how to blame themselves for their misery.

The most absurd but somehow logical occurrence then took place: many men, women and even children living in the USSR, succumbed to Western propaganda. Instead of trying to reform their imperfect but still greatly progressive country, they gave up, became cynical, aggressively ‘disillusioned’, corrupt and naively but staunchly pro-Western.

Gorbachev: supremely, unaccountably, criminally foolish when dealing with the most ruthless mafia the world has ever seen.

It was the first and most likely the last time in the history, Russia got defeated by the West. It happened through deceit, through shameless lies, through Western propaganda.

What followed could be easily described as genocide.

The Soviet Union was first lulled into Afghanistan, then it was mortally injured by the war there, by an arms race with the United States, and by the final stage of propaganda that was literally flowing like lava from various hostile Western state-sponsored radio stations. Of course, local ‘dissidents’ also played an important role.

Under Gorbachev, a ‘useful idiot’ of the West, things got extremely bizarre. I don’t believe that he was paid to ruin his own country, but he did almost everything to run it into the ground; precisely what Washington wanted him to do. Then, in front of the entire world, a mighty and proud Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics suddenly shook in agony, then uttered a loud cry, and collapsed; died painfully but swiftly.

A new turbo-capitalist, bandit, pro-oligarch and confusedly pro-Western Russia was born. Russia which was governed by an alcoholic Boris Yeltsin; a man loved and supported by Washington, London and other Western centers of power.

It was a totally unnatural, sick Russia – cynical and compassionless, built with someone else’s ideas – Russia of Radio Liberty and Voice of America, of the BBC, of black marketers, of oligarchs and multi-national corporations.

Is the West now daring to say that Russians are ‘interfering’ in something in Washington? Are they out of their minds?

Washington and other Western capitals did not only ‘interfere’, they openly broke the Soviet Union into pieces and then they began kicking Russia which was at that point half-alive. Is it all forgotten, or is Western public again fully ‘unaware’ of what took place during those dark days?

The West kept spitting at the impoverished and injured country, refused to honor international agreements and treaties. It offered no help. Multi-nationals were unleashed, and began ‘privatizing’ Russian state companies, basically stealing what was built by the sweat and blood of Soviet workers, during long decades.

Interference? Let me repeat: it was direct intervention, invasion, a grab of resources, shameless theft! I want to read and write about it, but we don’t hear much about it, anymore, do we?

Now we are told that Russia is paranoid, that its President is paranoid! With straight face, the West is lying; pretending that it has not been trying to murder Russia.

Those years… Those pro-Western years when Russia became a semi-client state of the West, or call it a semi-colony! There was no mercy, no compassion coming from abroad. Many of those idiots – kitchen intellectuals from Moscow and provinces – suddenly woke up but it was too late. Many of them had suddenly nothing to eat. They got what they were told to ask for: their Western ‘freedom and democracy’, and Western-style capitalism or in summary: total collapse.

I remember well how it was ‘then’. I began returning to Russia, horrified, working in Moscow, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Leningrad. Academics from Akadem Gorodok outside Novosibirsk were selling their libraries in the bitter cold, in dark metro underpasses of Novosibirsk… Runs on the banks… Old retired people dying from hunger and cold behind massive doors of concrete blocks… unpaid salaries and starving miners, teachers…

Russia under the deadly embrace of the West, for the first and hopefully last time! Russia whose life expectancy suddenly dropped to African Sub-Saharan levels. Russia humiliated, wild, in terrible pain.

Patriarch Kirill consecrates Alexander Nevsky monument dedicated to 800th anniversary of Alexander Nevsky — village of Samolva, Gdovsky district, Pskov, 11.09.2021

But that nightmare did not last long.

And what happened – those short but horrible years under both Gorbachev and Yeltsin, but above all under the Western diktat – will never be forgotten, not forgiven.

Russians know perfectly well what they do not want, anymore!

Russia stood up again. Huge, indignant and determined to live its own life, its own way. From an impoverished, humiliated and robbed nation, subservient to the West, the country evolved and within a few years, the free and independent Russia once again joined the ranks of the most developed and powerful countries on Earth.

And as before Gorbachev, Russia is once again able to help those nations which are under unjust and vicious attacks by the Western empire.

A man who is leading this renaissance, President Vladimir Putin, is tough, but Russia is under great threat and so is the world – this is no time for weaklings.

President Putin is not perfect (who is, really?), but he is a true patriot, and I dare say, an internationalist.

Now the West, once again, hates both Russia and its leader. No wonder; undefeated, strong and free Russia is the worst imaginable foe of Washington and its lieutenants.

That’s how the West feels, not Russia. Despite all that was done to it, despite tens of millions of lost and ruined lives, Russia has always been ready to compromise, even to forgive, if not forget.

Russia stood up again.

There is something deeply pathological in the psyche of the west. It cannot accept anything less than full and unconditional submission. It has to control, to be in charge, and on top of everything; it has to feel exceptional. Even when it murders and ruins the entire Planet, it insists on feeling superior to the rest of the world.

This faith in exceptionalism is the true Western religion, much more than even Christianity, which for decades has not really played any important role there. Exceptionalism is fanatical, it is fundamentalist and unquestionable.

It also insists that its narrative is the only one available anywhere in the World. That the West is seen as a moral leader, as a beacon of progress, as the only competent judge and guru.

Lies are piling on top of lies. As in all religions, the more absurd the pseudo-reality is, the more brutal and extreme are the methods used to uphold it. The more laughable the fabrications are, the more powerful the techniques used to suppress the truth are.

Today, hundreds of thousands of ‘academics’, teachers, journalists, artists, psychologists and other highly paid professionals, in all parts of the world, are employed by the Empire, for two goals only – to glorify the Western narrative and to discredit all that is standing in its way; daring to challenge it.

Russia is the most hated adversary of the West, with China, Russia’s close ally being near second.

The propaganda war unleashed by the West is so insane, so intense, that even some of the European and North American citizens are beginning to question tales coming from Washington, London and elsewhere.

Wherever one turns, there is a tremendous medley of lies, of semi-lies, half-truths; a complex and unnavigable swamp of conspiracy theories. Russia is being attacked for interfering in U.S. domestic affairs, for defending Syria, for standing by defenseless and intimidated nations, for having its own powerful media, for doping its athletes, for still being Communist, for not being socialist anymore; in brief: for everything imaginable and unimaginable.

Criticism of the country is so thorough and ludicrous, that one begins to ask very legitimate questions: “what about the past? What about the Western narrative regarding the Soviet past, particularly the post-Revolutionary period, and the period between two world wars?”

The more I analyze this present-day Western anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda, the more determined I am to study and write about the Western narrative regarding Soviet history. I’m definitely planning to investigate these matters in the future, together with my friends – Russian and Ukrainian historians.

… when only Victory could save the world, Russian fists are hard, and the same is true about Russian armor.

In the eyes of the West, Russians are ‘traitors’.

Instead of joining the looters, they have been standing by the ‘wretched of the world’, in the past, as well as now. They refused to sell their Motherland, and to enslave their own people. Their government is doing all it can to make Russia self-sufficient, fully independent, prosperous, proud and free.

Remember that ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and many other terms, mean totally different things in distinctive parts of the world. What is happening in the West could never be described as ‘freedom’ in Russia or in China, and vice versa.

Frustrated, collapsing, atomized and egotistic societies of Europe and North America do not inspire even their own people, anymore. They are escaping by millions annually, to Asia, Latin America, and even to Africa. Escaping from emptiness, meaninglessness and emotional cold. But it is not Russia’s or China’s business to tell them how to live or not to live!

In the meantime, great cultures like Russia and China do not need, and do not want to be told by the Westerners, what freedom is, and what democracy is.

They do not attack the West, and expect the same in return.

It is truly embarrassing that the countries responsible for hundreds of genocides, for hundreds of millions of murdered people on all continents, still dare to lecture others.

Many victims are too scared to speak.

Russia is not.

It is composed, gracious, but fully determined to defend itself if necessary; itself as well as many other human beings living on this beautiful but deeply scarred Planet.

Russian culture is enormous: from poetry and literature, to music, ballet, philosophy… Russian hearts are soft, they easily melt when approached with love and kindness. But when millions of lives of innocent people are threatened, both the hearts and muscles of Russians quickly turn to stone and steel. During such moments, when only victory could save the world, Russian fists are hard, and the same is true about Russian armor.

There is no match to Russian courage in the sadistic but cowardly West.

Irreversibly, both hope and future are moving towards the east.

And that is why Russia is desperately hated by the West.

A Travelogue of Electoral Donbass

Par : AHH

Donetsk, Avdeyevka, Mariupol – on the Road in Electoral Donbass

By Pepe Escobar at Sputnik.

They have waited 10 long, suffering years to vote in this election. And vote they did, in massive numbers, certifying a landslide reelection for the political leader who brought them back to Mother Russia. VVP may now be widely referred to as Mr. 87%. In Donetsk, turnout was even higher: 88,17%. And no less than 95% voted for him.

To follow the Russian electoral process at work in Donbass was a humbling – and illuminating – experience. Graphically, in front of us, the full weight of the collective West’s relentless denigration campaign was instantly gobbled up by the rich black soil of Novorossiya. The impeccable organization, the full transparency of the voting, the enthusiasm by polling station workers and voters alike punctuated the historical gravity of the political moment: at the same time everything was enveloped in an impalpable feeling of silent jubilation.

This was of course a referendum. Donbass represents a microcosm of the solid internal cohesion of Russian citizens around the policies of Team Putin – while at the same time sharing a feeling experienced by the overwhelming majority of the Global South. VVP’s victory was a victory of the Global Majority.

And that’s what’s making the puny Global Minority even more apoplectic. With their highest turnout since 1991, Russian voters inflicted a massive strategic defeat to the intellectual pigmies who pass for Western “leadership” – arguably the most mediocre political class of the past 100 years. They voted for a fairer, stable system of international relations; for multipolarity; and for true leadership by civilization-states such as Russia.

VVP’s 87% score was followed, by a long shot, by the Communists, with 3.9%. That is quite significant, because these 91% represent a total rejection of the globalist Davos/Great Reset plutocratic “future” envisioned by the 0.001%.

Avdeevka. Ukrainian Nazi vehicle – literally.

Avdeyevka: Voting Under Total Devastation

On Election Day Two, at section 198 in downtown Donetsk, not far from Government House, it was possible to fully measure the fluidity and transparency of the system – even as Donetsk was not spared from shelling, in the late afternoon and early evening in the final day of voting.

Afterwards, a strategic pit stop in a neighborhood mini-market. Yuri, an activist, was buying a full load of fresh eggs to be transported to the nearly starving civilians who still remain in Avdeyevka. Ten eggs cost the equivalent of a dollar and forty cents.

Side by side with Pushkin: The extraordinary Ludmilla Leonova in Yasinovata, the main polling station in town.

At Yasinovata, very close to Avdeyevka, we visit the MBOU, or school number 7, impeccably rebuilt after non-stop shelling. The director, Ludmilla Leonova, an extraordinary strong woman, takes me on a guide tour of the school and its brand new classrooms for chemistry and biology, a quaint Soviet alphabet decorating the classroom for Russian language. Classes, hopefully, will resume in the Fall.

Close to the school a refugee center for those who have been brought from Avdeyevka has been set up. Everything is spotlessly clean. People are processed, entered into the system, then wait for proper papers. Everyone wants to obtain a Russian passport as soon as possible.

For the moment, they stay in dormitories, around 10 people in each room. Some came from Avdeyevka, miraculously, in their own cars: there are a few Ukrainian license plates around. Invariably, the overall expectation is to return to Avdeyevka, when reconstruction starts, to rebuild their lives in their own town.

Then, it’s on the road to Avdeyevka. Nothing, absolutely nothing prepares us to confront total devastation. In my nearly 40 years as a foreign correspondent, I’ve never seen anything like it – even Iraq. At the unofficial entry to Avdeyevka, beside the skeleton of a bombed building and the remains of a tank turret, the flags of all military batallions which took part in the liberation flutter in the wind.

Avdeevka.

Each building in every street is at least partially destroyed. A few remaining residents congregate in a flat to organize the distribution of essential supplies. I find a miraculously preserved icon behind the window of a bombed-out ground floor apartment.

Avdeevka. The icon by the window that survived everything.

AVDEEVKA. A local resident who refuses to leave.

FPVs loiter overheard – detected by a handheld device, and our military escort is on full alert. We find out that as we enter a ground floor apartment which is being kept as a sort of mini food depot – housing donations from Yasinovata or from the military – that very same room, in the morning, had been converted into a polling station. That’s where the very few remaining Avdeyevka residents actually voted.

A nearly blind man with his dog explains why he can’t leave: he lives in the same street, and his apartment is still functional – even though he has no water or electricity. He explains how the Ukrainians were occupying each apartment block – with residents turned into refugees or hostages in the basements – and then, pressed by the Russians, relocated to nearby schools and hospitals until finally fleeing.

Avdeevka. He will NOT leave.

The basements are a nightmare. Virtually no light. The temperature is at least 10 degrees Celsius lower than at street level. It’s impossible to imagine how they survived. Another resident nonchalantly strolls by in his bicycle, surrounded by derelict concrete skeletons. The loud booms – mostly outgoing – are incessant.

Avdeevka. The miraculously preserved church of Mary Magdalen.

The miraculously preserved church of Mary Magdalen.

The miraculously preserved church of Mary Magdalen.

Then, standing amidst total devastation, a vision: the elegant silhouette of the Church of Mary Magdalen, immaculately preserved. Dmitry, the caretaker, takes me around; it’s a beautiful church, the paintings on the roof still gleaming under the pale sunlight, a gorgeous chandelier and the inner chamber virtually intact.

View of Mariupol from within the Pakrovska Church — with Azovstal and the Russian Sea of Azov in the background

The Mariupol Renaissance

The final election day is spent in Mariupol – which is being rebuilt at nearly breakneck speed: the new railway station has just been finished. Voting is seamless at school number 53, housing district 711. A beautiful mural behind the ballot box depicts the sister cities St. Petersburg and Mariupol, with the legendary Scarlet Sails from the Alexander Green story right in the middle.

Mariupol. School 53. Complete with gentleman on the voting booth, ballot box and a lovely painting featuring a ship with red sails…

I revisit the port: international cargo is still not moving, only ships coming from the Russian mainland. But the first deal has been reached with Cameroon – fruits in exchange with metals and manufactured products. Several other deals with African nations are on the horizon.

The Pakrovska church, a Mariupol landmark, is being carefully restored. We are welcomed by Father Viktor, who hosts lunch for a group of people from the parish, and a fine conversation ensues ranging from Christian Orthodoxy to the Decline of the West and the LGBT agenda.

We go to the roof and walk around a balustrade offering a spectacular 360-degree view of Mariupol, with the port, the destroyed Azovstal iron works and the Russian Sea of Azov in the deep background. The massive church bells ring – as in a metaphor for the resurrection of a beautiful city which has the potential to become a sort of Nice in the Sea of Azov.

Mariupol. Azovstal with the restored monument to the Great Patriotic War – restored by Wagner – in the foreground.

Back in Donetsk, going to a “secret” school/museum only 2 km away from the line of fire – which I first visited last month – has to be canceled: Donetsk continues to be shelled.

With Avdeyevka in mind, as well as the shelling that refuses to go away, a few questions on numbers pop up on the long 20-hour drive back to Moscow.

In Chechnya, led by uber-patriot Kadyrov, turnout was 97%. And no less than 99% voted for VVP. So, unlike in the past, forget about any ulterior attempt at a color revolution in Chechnya.

Same pattern in the Caucasus, in the region of Kabardino: turnout was 96%. No less than 94% voted for VVP.

Between Kazakhstan and Mongolia, in Tuva, turnout was 96%. And 95% voted for VVP. In the autonomous Yamal-Nenets, turnout was 94%. But VVP got “only” 79% of the votes. In lake Baikal, Buryatia had 74% turnout and 88% of votes for VVP.

The key, once again, remains Moscow. Turnout, compared to other regions, was relatively low: 67%. Well, Moscow is still largely Westernized and in several aspects ideologically globalist – thus more critical than other parts of Russia when it comes to the patriotic emphasis.

Avdeevka. Nella zona pericolosa. Gli FPV indugiano nel cielo. Foto del giovane fotoreporter Denis Grigory.

And that brings us to the clincher. Even with the resounding success of Mr. 87%, they will never give up. If there ever is a minor chance of a successful Hybrid War strategy provoking a color revolution, the stage will be Moscow. Quite pathetic, actually, when compared to the images of Mr. 87% saluted by a packed Red Square on Sunday like the ultimate rock star.

The Kremlin is taking no chances. Putin addressed the FSB and went straight to the point: attempts to sow interethnic trouble – as a prelude to color revolutions – must be strictly suppressed. The FSB will go for the next level: traitors will be identified by name and targeted without a statute of limitations.

After the electoral euphoria, no one really knows what happens next. It has to be something hugely significant, honoring the historical VVP electoral landslide. He has carte blanche now to do anything. Priority number one: to finish once and for all with the Hegemon-built terror mongrel that has been attacking Novorossiya for 10 long years.

Back in the EU, site of the 21st century’s biggest political disaster

Par : AHH

Why is the biggest political story of our era so underreported?

with thanks to Ramin Mazaheri via Ramin’s Substack.

I have returned to Paris and can report that things are as politically bleak as ever, continuing a trend which began with the rubber bullet-smashing of the Yellow Vest movement in 2019. The European Union has become truly American (which was often alleged to be the ultimate goal): it’s politically apathetic.

There are no domestic political movements to report on – the French MSM just reports on Ukraine, Israel and (as usual) ecology.

This is not as it used to be.

Prior to the six months of bloody Saturdays over 2018-19 France had seen a full decade of incredible political activism. Leftist planning agendas were full of protests, gatherings and strikes concerning: Sarkozy’s bailouts in late 2008, Hollande’s hopeful Socialist Party election, his subsequent U-turn on austerity, the forceful imposition of austerity by Brussels, the fabrication of Macron, his immediate detestation, the spectacularly unprecedented support for – and then the spectacularly unprecedented repression of – les gilets jaunes – this was a 10-year period of intense, intense activism.

Were it not for Israel’s latest and most brutal invasion of Gaza, and combined with Macron’s incredible 7-years-running refusal to interact with the press (the exact opposite of Sarkozy), I’m not sure I’d have much work to do here?

There is a story to cover, and it’s the most important one, but it’s almost impossible to cover via PressTV news reports: the obvious failure of the pan-European project.

This is the biggest political story of the 21st century, and yet it’s going undiscussed year after year. Brexit put it on the front pages, and then so did the Yellow Vests, but Euroscepticism has been suppressed for four years now.

But what’s a bigger story in the 21st century than the economic, political and confidence collapse of the biggest economic bloc in the world?

The war on the Muslim world since 9/11? That’s something, indeed, but this is the re-sundering of a region which was already suppressed by two centuries of colonialism and then neo-colonialism.

The rise of China? That was something inevitable and unstoppable, due to the superior planning and cohesion of socialist-inspired governments. Of course, China’s sudden rise was aided by the Great Financial Crisis which devastated the West, who then exacerbated it with their predictably awful, inequality-generating policies of bailouts, austerity, QE and ZIRP.

Fifteen years ago who did not expect that a united Europe, and one working in what is now clearly lockstep with the United States, would become an unstoppable project?

That’s the big story: that Europe has not just stopped in its tracks but stagnated, regressed, devolved, disappointed, etc. and etc.

It’s truly historical. What the demise of the pan-European project means is the end of the “social democratic” model: if any region had implemented a “third way” between liberalism and socialism it was Europe. The alleged solution of “social democracy” goes way back to the 1890s – what we have witnessed hasn’t been the “death of communism” but the “death of social democracy” instead.

What a story, no? It was as the proponents of socialist democracy always predicted: social democracy inevitably reverts back to mere liberal democracy. It’s truly historical.

Back in the US someone recently asked me why I kept referring to the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, saying it was old history, and it made me pause. They never talk about it in the US anymore, that’s true. However, as soon as I returned to France I was confronted with multiple references to it in journalism and art. But they only get the dates right – roughly.

Yes, Europe took a more far-right economic approach (austerity) than the US (Europe had more social democracy to roll back, of course), but the problem is not the 2007-8 Great Financial Crisis nor austerity – the problem is the pan-European project itself, and this is precisely what is suppressed.

It is easy to suppress, or just be confused, because the timelines are so similar: the pan-European project didn’t truly begin until the undemocratic passage of the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, which was forced through thanks to the chaos surrounding the Great Financial Crisis and subsequent European Debt Crisis (starting 2009).

Why has nobody kept referring to the Lisbon Treaty of 2009? I am definitely one of the very few journalists who do. Now that the UK is out the Anglophone world doesn’t care, I suppose.

The 15-year summation of the pan-European can only be judged to be atrocious, but who is talking about these things: the decrease in economic power; the sustained collapse in the euro’s value; the constant, continent-wide protests against the decisions of Brussels; the decrease in democratic credibility; the increase in militaristic domestic repression; the decrease in social economic protections for the average person; the rise of neo-fascist parties – what on earth does this reporter who has covered the EU since birth have to do get some real talk about United Europe anymore?

The Fall of Phaeton, 1605, Peter Paul Rubens

Ukraine will make or break the pan-European project

The European Union succeeds at nothing and nor do they stand for anything, so they’re desperate for any rallying cry for “Europe!”, and they’ve found one in Ukraine.

Of course, Europe has already failed Ukraine: their weaponry is being defeated, their production capabilities aren’t up to the job, everybody knows they’re just setting Ukraine up for the same debt traps they laid for country like Greece, and they have failed (purposely) to find a diplomatic solution. Their only success is in their spectacularly prejudiced prioritising of Ukrainian refugees: this was, of course, to keep flooding the labor market with desperate, low-wage accepting workers amid record-high inflation – anything to keep wage demands down.

The reality is that Ukraine is going to either be the EU’s final undoing, or it will somehow lead to the “more Europe” that is the only way this misguided economic-but-not-political federalist project could ever possibly succeed.

Europe’s leaders know Ukraine is their best – given the far-right victories looming in European Parliament elections this spring – chances, which are diminishing, to rally Europe behind the pan-European project and away from Euroscepticism.

Remember that in two years Macron has gone from “we must not embarrass Russia” to calling other European countries “cowardly” for not buying Ukraine even more weapons, and even threatening to land NATO troops. Why the huge shift?

Of course war is good for business – France has soared to become the #2 arms merchant in the world. But in a bloc which has a pre-Covid history which no one in the 1% wants anyone to remember, it’s only via war with Russia that European public opinion could possibly be united in favor of “Europe!”.

European imperialists have run out of racism and now can only rely on nationalist prejudice – this is what the EU has revealed itself to be. Furthermore, during the 2010s we were constantly told in France that the pan-European project was the only reason war didn’t break out in Europe – recall how the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012, amid mass anti-austerity repression? This is justification is now out the window.

No peace, no public opinion in public policy, no prosperity – no success for the EU, and when will success ever arrive?

Now isn’t the time, Europeans are being told, to argue about the lack of results in the pan-European project – Putin is at the doorstep. Marine Le Pen fairly accused Macron of creating a situation – surrounding this week’s French Parliamentary approval of a 10-year military pact with Ukraine – where, “You’re either with Macron or you’re with Putin”. That’s not just Russophobia or scapegoating – that is the summation of Macron’s whole political policy now.

Nobody – no popular democratic majority – has ever been or will ever be with Macron, but the fabrication of false unity is what Ukraine is being manipulated for here in Europe.

But it’s going to be even bigger than that in the coming months and maybe even years, namely: “Either you’re with the pan-European project or you’re with Putin”.

After all, how else can support for the pan-European project possibly be created in 2024? They cannot stand on their results, and they cannot stand on hopes that the project will suddenly become workable, profitable, democratic, morally responsible, inspire confidence, etc.

The failure of Europe – that’s the biggest story of the 21st century.

<—>

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His latest book is France’s Yellow Vests: Western Repression of the West’s Best Values. He is also the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese. Any reposting or republication of any of these articles is approved and appreciated. He tweets at @RaminMazaheri2 and writes at substack.com/@raminmazaheri

Poutine remporte la présidentielle avec plus de 87% des voix

poutine gagne

poutine gagneVladimir Poutine a obtenu 87,29 % des voix aux élections présidentielles russes, selon les données de la Commission électorale centrale

L’article Poutine remporte la présidentielle avec plus de 87% des voix est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

Poutine présente les défis de son nouveau mandat présidentiel

poutine defis

poutine defis“Tout d’abord, nous devons résoudre les problèmes dans le cadre de l’opération militaire spéciale, renforcer les capacités de défense, renforcer

L’article Poutine présente les défis de son nouveau mandat présidentiel est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

What is China’s Economic Future?

Par : AHH

Political economists Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson are joined by Beijing-based scholar Mick Dunford to discuss what is actually happening in China’s economy, explaining its technological development and transition toward a new industrial revolution.

Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson at The Geopolitical Economy Hour.

Video:

Podcast:

Transcript:

RADHIKA DESAI: Hello and welcome to the 24th Geopolitical Economy Hour, the show that examines the fast-changing political and geopolitical economy of our time. I’m Radhika Desai.

MICHAEL HUDSON: I’m Michael Hudson.

RADHIKA DESAI: And working behind the scenes to bring you our show every fortnight are our host, Ben Norton; our videographer, Paul Graham; and our transcriber, Zach Weiser.

And with us today we have, once again, Professor Mick Dunford, professor emeritus of geography at Sussex University and now working at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, keeping a close watch, among other things, on China’s economy. So welcome, Mick.

MICK DUNFORD:  Thank you very much.

RADHIKA DESAI: So, China’s economy is what we’re going to talk about today. Where is it at after decades of breakneck growth, after executing the greatest industrial revolution ever? Where is it headed?

Trying to understand this is not easy. The disinformation that is fake news and even what I often call fake scholarship that distorts the view that any honest person may be trying to take on China’s economy is simply overwhelming. It’s absolutely wall-to-wall propaganda, no matter which Western publication or website you open.

If we are to believe the Western press and the leading scholarly lights of the West, who are the major generators of the Western discourse on China, we are at peak China. That is to say, they claim that China has reached a point, reached the highest point, that is, that it ever can. And from here on, it’s only going to be downhill, more or less rapidly.

They say that China has, in recent years, inflated a huge property bubble to compensate for the West’s inability to keep up imports. And this bubble is about to burst. And when it does, it will subject China to a 1980s and 1990s Japan-style long-term deflation or secular stagnation. They have even invented a word to talk about this: “Japanification”. We are told that the Japanification of China’s economy is impending.

They say that the U.S.’s trade and technology wars are hitting China where it hurts the most, at its export and its reliance on inward foreign investment. They are saying that China has grown only by stealing technology. And now that the U.S. is making it harder for it to do so, its technological development can only stall. They are saying that China followed disastrous COVID-19 policies, leading to mass death, draconian lockdowns, and economic disaster.

They are saying that China over-invests, and its growth will not pick up unless China now permits higher consumption levels. They are saying that China has a serious unemployment crisis, that the CPC, the Communist Party of China, is losing legitimacy, because it is failing to deliver ever-higher living standards. And they are saying that Xi Jinping’s authoritarian leadership is ensuring that the private sector will stall, and with it, so will China’s growth.

All this, they say, before even beginning to talk about China’s foreign policy. And there, of course, lie another long litany of alleged disasters and misdemeanors that China is responsible for, beginning with debt-trap diplomacy and China’s allegedly voracious appetite for the world’s resources.

The only reason why Western experts ever stress the strength of China’s economy is when they want to argue that the West must redouble its efforts to contain China and to stall its rise.

So today, we’re going to take a closer look at China’s economy, and in doing so, we’re going to bust a lot of these myths. We’re going to show you that, sadly, for the purveyors of the fake news and fake scholarship about China, no amount of their huffing and puffing has been able to blow down China’s house, because, like the good, the smart little pig, China is actually building its house with bricks.

So, we have a number of topics to discuss in this show. Here they are:

1.    Characterising China’s Economy: Capitalist? Socialist?

2.    Growth Story

3.    Covid Response

4.    The Alleged Debt and Property Bubble? And Japanification?

5.    Restricted Consumption? Stagnant living standards?

6.    Exports in the China Story

7.    China’s new growth strategy

8.    China’s foreign policy

So, these are the topics that we hope to discuss. We want to begin by talking about how to characterize China’s economy. Is it capitalist? Is it socialist? Then we will do the most important and primary basic thing, we will look at the growth story with some statistics. We will then look at China’s Covid response. We will look at the alleged debt and property bubble and whether China is being Japanified.

Then we will look at the issue of whether China is overinvesting and neglecting consumption and living standards, etc. How reliant is China on exports? What is China’s growth strategy? And what is China’s foreign policy? And are those myths about it true? So, this is what we hope to discuss.

So, Mick, why don’t you start us off with your thoughts on exactly how to characterize China’s economy?

MICK DUNFORD: Ok, the way I would characterize China is as a planned rational state. I mean, right the way through, it has maintained a system of national five-year planning, and it also produces longer-term plans. But it’s a planned rational state that uses market instruments.

China has a very large state sector. And of course, some people have claimed that this state sector is, in a sense, an impediment to growth. And we’ve seen a resurrection of this idea, guo jin min tui (国进民退), which is used to refer to the idea that the state sector is advancing and the private sector is retreating.

It’s a very, very strange concept, in fact, because the third word is min (民), and min refers to people. So, what they are actually, in a sense, saying – these ideas were invented by neoliberal economists in 2002 – the private sector is equated with the people, which I find absolutely astonishing. But, I mean, the country does have a very significant public sector.

What I find striking is that one can actually turn it around and say, what is it that these Western economists seem to think China should do? And they seem to think that China should privatize all assets into the hands of domestic and foreign capitalists. It should remove capital controls. It should open the door to foreign finance capital. It should transfer governance to liberal capitalist political parties that are actually controlled by capital.

I think one of the most fundamental features of the China system is actually that it’s the state that controls capital, rather than capital that controls the state. And it’s, in fact, this aspect of the Chinese model, and in particular, the rule of the Communist Party of China that has basically transformed China from what was, effectively one of the poorest countries in the world into one of its largest industrial powers.

So, in a way, it’s a planned rational state in which the CPC has played an absolutely fundamental role. And without it, I mean, China would never have established the national sovereignty that permitted it to choose a path that suited its conditions and to radically transform the lives and livelihoods of its people.

RADHIKA DESAI: Michael, do you want to [speak]?

MICHAEL HUDSON: The question is, what is the state? There are two aspects of the state with China. One is public infrastructure. And the purpose of China’s public infrastructure is to lower the cost of doing business because infrastructure is a monopoly.

That’s what really upsets the American investors. They wanted to buy the phone system, the transportation system, so that they could benefit from charging monopoly rents, just like under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.

The most important sector that China’s treated in the public is money creation and banks. Americans hope that American banks would come over and they would be making all the loans in China and benefiting from China’s growth and turning it into interest. And instead, the government’s doing that. And the government is deciding what to lend to.

And there’s a third aspect of what people think of when they say state. That’s a centralized economy, centralized planning, Soviet style.

China is one of the least centralized economies in the world because the central government has left the localities to go their own way. That’s part of the Hundred Flowers Bloom. Let’s see how each locality is going to maneuver on a pragmatic, ad hoc basis.

Well, the pragmatic ad hoc basis meant how are localities, villages, and small towns going to finance their budgets? Well, they financed it by real estate sales, and that’s going to be what we’re discussing later.

But once you realize that the state sector is so different from what a state sector is in America, centralized planning and the control of Wall Street for financial purposes, finance capitalism, hyper-centralized planning, you realize that China is the antithesis of what the usual view is.

RADHIKA DESAI: Absolutely. And I’d just like to add a few points, which dovetail very nicely with what both of you have said.

The fact of the matter is that this was also true of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries when they were still ruled by communist parties. We generally refer to them as socialist or communist, but in reality, they themselves never claimed to be socialist or communist. They only said they were building socialism, especially in a country that was as poor as China was in 1949.

The leadership of the Communist Party of China has always understood that there has to be a long period of transition in which there will be a complex set of compromises that will have to be made in order to steer the economy in the direction of socialism, in order to build socialism.

So, from its beginnings, the revolutionary state in China was a multi-class state and a multi-party state. People don’t realize very often that while the Communist Party of China is the overwhelmingly most powerful party in China, there are other parties that exist as well, which reflect the originally multi-class character of China.

Now, it’s true that since 1978, the government has loosened much of its control over the economy. But the important thing here is that the Communist Party retains control of the Chinese state.

The way I like to put it is, yes, there are lots of capitalists in China. Yes, those capitalists are very powerful. They are at the head of some of the biggest corporations in the world, and they are quite influential within the Communist Party. But what makes China meaningfully socialist or meaningfully treading the path to socialism, let’s put it that way, is the fact that ultimately the reins of power are held in the hands of the Communist Party of China leadership, which owes its legitimacy to the people of China.

So, the reigns of power, the reigns of state power are not held by the capitalists; they are held by the Communist Party leadership.

So, in that sense, I would say that China is meaningfully socialist. Although, as Mick pointed out, there is a fairly large private sector in China, but so too is the state sector very large. And the extent of state ownership means that even though the private sector is very large, the state retains control over the overall pace and pattern of growth and development in the country.

And I just add one final thing here, which is going to become quite important as we discuss the various other points, and that is that the financial sector in China remains very heavily controlled by the state.

China has capital controls, China practices a fair degree of financial repression, and China’s financial system is geared to providing money for long-term investments that improve the productive capacities of the economy and the material welfare of the people. And this is completely different from the kind of financial sector we have today.

So, Mick or Michael, did you want to add anything?

MICK DUNFORD: Just to reiterate, I mean, the point is, the government sets strategic targets that relate to raising the quality of the life of all the Chinese people. And it has strategic autonomy, which gives China the opportunity or the possibility of actually choosing its own development path.

And I think that’s something that very strikingly marks China out from other parts of the Global South that have had much greater difficulty, in a sense, in accelerating their growth, partly because of debt and their subordination to the Washington financial institutions.

So I think that is critically important, the role of sovereignty and autonomy in enabling China to make choices that suited its conditions, and at the same time making choices that are driven by a long-term strategic goal to transform the quality of the lives of all Chinese people.

MICHAEL HUDSON: I want to put in one word about sovereignty. You put your finger on it. That’s really what makes it different.

What makes other countries lose their sovereignty is when they let go, how are they going to finance their investment? If they let foreign banks come in to finance their investment, if they let American and European banks come in, what do they do? They fund a real estate bubble, a different kind of a real estate bubble. They fund takeover loans. They fund privatization.

Banks don’t make loans for new investment. China makes great money to finance new tangible investment. Banks make money so you can buy a public utility or a railroad and then just load it down with debt, and you can borrow and borrow and use the money that you borrow to pay a special dividend if you’re a private capital company. Pretty soon, the country that follows this dependency on foreign credit ends up losing its sovereignty.

The way in which China has protected its sovereignty is to keep money in the public domain and to create money for actual tangible capital investment, not to take your property into a property-owning rentier class, largely foreign-owned.

RADHIKA DESAI: Thank you. Those are very important points. Thank you.

I’d just like to add one final point on the matter of how to characterize the Chinese economy and the Chinese state. At the end of the day, it’s not just important to say that the state controls the economy, but whose state is it?

The way to look at it as well is that in the United States, essentially we have a state that is controlled by the big corporations, which in our time have become exceedingly financialized corporations, so that they are directing the United States economy essentially towards ever more debt and ever less production, whereas that is not the case in China.

And the question of whose state it is makes use of the word autonomy. The autonomy refers to the fact that it is not subservient to any one section of society, but seeks to achieve the welfare of society as a whole and increase its productive capacity.

MICK DUNFORD: If I may just add, I think also it’s important that you pay attention to the policy-making process in China. It’s an example of what one might call substantive democracy. It delivers substantive results for the whole of the Chinese population.

In that sense, it delivers improvements in the quality of the lives of all the people, and therefore, in a sense, it’s a democratic system. But it’s also a country that actually has procedures of policy-making, experimentation, design, and choice and so on that are extremely important and that have fundamental aspects of democracy about them.

When Western countries characterize China as authoritarian, they’re actually fundamentally misrepresenting the character of the Chinese system and the way in which it works, because they, in a sense, merely equate democracy with a system, whereas China, of course, does have multiple political parties, but a system with competitive elections between different political parties. There are other models of democracy, and China is another model of democracy.

RADHIKA DESAI: Mick, you’re absolutely right to talk about the substantive democracy. Indeed, in China, they have recently developed a new term for it. They call it a “whole process democracy”, and it really involves multiple levels of consultation with the people, going down to the most basic village and township levels, and then all the way up the chain.

And I think this process does work, because the other remarkable thing about the CPC leadership is its ability to change direction pragmatically. If something does not work, then it assesses what it has attempted, why it has failed, and then it revises course. So, I think we will see several instances of this as we talk as well.

Michael, you want to add something?

MICHAEL HUDSON: One thing about democracy. The definition of a democracy traditionally is to prevent an oligarchy from developing. There’s only one way to prevent an oligarchy from developing as people get richer and richer, and that’s to have a strong state.

The role of a strong state is to prevent an oligarchy from developing. That’s why the oligarchy in America and Europe are libertarian, meaning get rid of government, because a government is strong enough to prevent us from gouging the economy, to prevent us from taking it over.

So, you need a strong central state in order to have a democracy. Americans call that socialism, and they say that’s the antithesis of democracy, which means a state that is loyal to the United States and follows U.S. policy and lets the U.S. banks financialize the economy. So, just to clarify the definitions here.

RADHIKA DESAI: Very, very true, Michael. But let’s not go, I mean, maybe we should do a separate show on political theory of the state, because that’s equally important.

But for now, let’s look at our next topic. We hope, of course, that everybody understands how we characterize China’s state. But now, let’s look at China’s GDP growth.

So, here you have a chart, and we have several charts on this matter, but we’ll take them one by one and comment on them:

gdp growth china west 1980 2028

So, here we have a chart showing the annual rate of GDP growth from 1980 to 2028. Of course, post-2023 are their projections, which are shown by the dotted lines. And I’ve only taken a few selected countries from the Our World in Data website, and anybody can go there and look at this data, by the way.

So, you can see China and then a handful of the most important Western countries. And you can see that going back to 1980, essentially China’s growth rate, which is here, the top red line here, has absolutely been massively higher on practically any year than the other countries.

In fact, you see I left Russia in here. I should probably have taken it out. It’s a bit of a distraction, because here you see Russia’s growth rate massively bouncing up from the late 90s financial crisis. But let’s leave that aside.

All the other major countries, which you see here, they are all showing considerably lower growth. So, the United States here is this orangish line. And essentially, they’re all showing much lower growth.

And more recently as well, this is the Covid-19 pandemic. And you can see that China, again, like all the other countries, it experienced a fairly sharp decline in the growth rate, but it still remained positive, unlike all the other countries.

And it remains substantially above that of the rest of the economies that constantly are telling China how to improve its economic policy. So, that’s what I want to say about this chart.

But Mick, go ahead.

MICK DUNFORD: Can you show that table that I sent?

RADHIKA DESAI: Yeah, sure. Yes, here we go:

gdp growth china west table

MICK DUNFORD: These are more recent growth rates for China, for the world, and for the G7. And I mean, first of all, they show absolutely clearly that China’s growth rate is still a long way in excess of the average growth rates of all G7 countries, many of which have actually performed abysmally. I mean, Germany is now in recession, it declined 0.3% per year this year. I mean, Italy has had extremely low rates of growth, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, all had extremely low rates of growth.

China last year achieved a growth rate of 5.2%. It itself expects to grow at 5% next year. The IMF forecast 4.6%. Even that 4.6% target is quite close to the average growth rate that China needs to achieve to meet its 2035 target. It has a 2035 target of doubling its GDP, its 2020 GDP by 2035. I think that that goal is perfectly realizable. And in that sense, I strongly disagree with people who argue that China has in a sense peaked.

But I do find it, really quite astonishing, that Western countries, whose economies have performed extremely poorly, feel in a position to lecture China about how it should address what is said to be an unsatisfactory rate of growth. That’s the first point I want to make.

I just want to say something else, if I may. When we talk about, I mean, China’s growth has slowed. And, there’s no doubt that in terms of people’s everyday lives, there are many difficulties. And I just want to quote something.

At New Year, Xi Jinping gave a speech. I wanted to cite his actual words. He recognised that in these years, China faces what he called the tests of the winds and rains. And then he said, when I see people rising to the occasion, reaching out to each other in adversity, meeting challenges head on and overcoming difficulties, I am deeply moved.

So, the leadership and all Chinese people are well aware that there are many, many difficulties and challenges confronted, because China is actually undergoing a major structural transformation about which we shall speak later. But China is also in the short term undertaking a lot of important actions that are actually designed to cope with some of the real difficulties that people confront.

So, if you listen to Li Qiang’s government work report, he addressed the problem of short-term employment generation. And there are proposals for 12 million new urban jobs to increase employment, especially for college graduates and other young people, because for young people, the unemployment rate, including college students, is in the region of 21 percent. Urban unemployment is 5 percent. So, there are issues to do with the generation of employment.

Government expenditure this year will target a whole series of strategic issues, but also livelihoods. So, affordable housing, youth unemployment, job security, insurance, pensions, preschool education, the living conditions in older communities. So, I’m just saying that, in the current context, difficult economic situation and a particularly turbulent global situation. I mean, China, as every other country in the world, faces challenges, and it is in many ways directly addressing them in very important ways.

RADHIKA DESAI: Great. Thanks, Mick. Michael, do you want to add anything?

MICHAEL HUDSON: No, I think that’s it. The question is, what is the GDP that is growing? There are a number of ways of looking at GDP. And when I went to school 60 years ago, economists usually thought of GDP as something industrial. They’d look at energy production. They’d look at railway cargo transportation.

If you look at the industrial component of what most economists used to look at, electricity is the power for industry, electricity is productivity growth for labor. If you look at these, what is the component of GDP, you realize that these differences in Mick’s charts are even wider than what he showed, because the American GDP, very largely interest, overdraft fees of credit card companies, as we’ve said, is providing a financial service. 7% of American GDP is the increase in homeowners’ view of what their rental value of their property is. That’s 7%.

Now, I doubt that China includes a measure like this in its GDP. But if it did, with all of its rise in real estate prices, its GDP would be even higher in a reality-based basis.

So real GDP, as we think of it, and the public thinks of it, is something useful and productive. Actually, China’s doing a much more efficient job in minimizing the kind of financial and rentier overhead that you have in the United States.

RADHIKA DESAI: Exactly, Michael. What I was going to point out as well is that these figures of U.S. GDP growth and the absolute level of U.S. GDP are heavily financialized.

The financial sector, which actually is not a force for good in general in the U.S. economy, it is out of which the indebtedness comes, out of which the productive weakening comes. The growth of the financial sector is counted as GDP in the United States and massively inflates U.S. GDP, which would not be as high as this.

And this is particularly important given that President Biden, for example, is congratulating himself now for having the strongest economy in the world or the Western world or whatever it is. Well, that’s what the U.S.’s boast is based on.

And China does not do that, nor does it have the kind of financial sector which creates, which destroys the productive economy. Rather, as we were saying, it has the kind of financial sector that supports it.

So, just another general point I want to make. We were talking about this chart:

gdp growth china west table

This shows from 1980 to 2028, and the projections remain, by the way, even from conservative sources, that China’s growth is going to remain higher than the rest of the world, particularly the Western countries, for a long time to come.

And I also decided to show you this chart:

gdp growth china west 2008 2028

This is the chart of growth, which is just a more focused version of the previous one, which shows growth rates from 2008 to 2028.

So 2008 is when we had what Michael and I call the North Atlantic Financial Crisis. And since then, what we’ve seen is, yes, of course, all countries have seen a sort of a reduction in their growth rate, and certainly China has. But even since then, you can see that China’s growth remains high and stable. So, that’s another thing that we wanted to show.

And this is a chart showing the rise of per capita GDP:

gdp per capita growth china west 1970 2021

That is to say, you can have a higher GDP, but if your population is expanding, then to what extent is per capita GDP rising? So, you can see here that, again, even in terms of per capita GDP, and this only again goes to 2021, but in terms of per capita GDP, China has remained head and shoulders above all the major Western countries.

And this bounce here that you see in the case of the US and the UK here, it is only a dead cat bounce from the absolute depths to which their economies had sunk during Covid, and so they came to some sort of normalcy.

Mick, you may want to say something about this chart, because you sent it to me. So, please go ahead:

gdp per capita ppp 2021 china west

MICK DUNFORD: It’s correct, of course, that China’s growth slowed. Now, in 2013, China entered what is called the New Era. At that time, China decided that its growth rate should slow. It chose slower growth. It spoke of 6 or 7 percent per year, and it more or less achieved that, until the Covid pandemic. So, China chose slower growth for very particular reasons, and I think in this discussion, we shall come to some of these reasons later on.

But in a sense, what they want is what they call high-quality growth. And what China is seeking to do is undertake a profound structural transformation of its economy, establishing new growth drivers by directing finance towards high-productivity sectors and directing finance towards the use of digital and green technologies in order to transform its traditional industries. So, in a sense, it’s undergoing a profound process of structural transformation.

And I mean, if you, for example, look at Li Qiang’s speech, the major tasks include invigorating China through science and education, so to strengthen the education, science and technology system, to improve the capabilities of the workforce, or promote innovation, industrial investment and skills, and another, striving to modernize the industrial system and accelerate the development of new productive forces, bearing in mind that we’re on the verge of a new industrial revolution. But these are very important issues, fundamentally important issues.

RADHIKA DESAI: And I would say just, and I know we’ll talk about it at greater length later on, but it is really important to bear in mind that really, when the world stands at the cusp of being able to exploit new technologies like quantum computing or nanotechnology or artificial intelligence or what have you, a relatively centralized decision-making process about how to allocate resources, for what purposes, for what social benefits, etc., is likely to prove far superior, that is to say, China’s method is likely to prove far superior than the Western tactic of leaving private corporate capital in charge of the process.

And just to give you a couple of instances of this, the fact that private corporate capital is in charge of the development of digital technologies is already creating all sorts of social harms in our Western societies, whether it is harms to children’s mental health or even adults’ mental health, to political division that the algorithms sow and so on.

And also, it is leading to a situation where even these mega-corporations, these giant corporations, actually do not have the resources to invest, the scale of resources that will be needed to invest. So, for example, you hear in the Financial Times that Sam Altman is looking for people to invest in his artificial intelligence ventures, which will require trillions of dollars, and he cannot find private investors for it. So, this is really quite interesting.

Okay, so if we’re done with the growth rate story, oh, and I just want to say one other thing about this, which is, this is a GDP per capita in purchasing power parity, and China, in the space of a few decades, essentially, has experienced the biggest spurt in per capita well-being, etc., which includes important achievements like eliminating extreme poverty.

The Communist Party has brought China to essentially per capita GDP in purchasing power terms of next to nothing in 1980 to about $20,000 per annum in 2020. This is really quite an important achievement. And to do this for a country of 5 to 10 million people would be laudable, but to do this for a country of 1.3 billion people is a massive, historic achievement, and I think that’s something to remember.

MICK DUNFORD: I just, if you just go back for one minute, I mean, I absolutely agree with what you’ve just said, Radhika.

I’ll just make a comment about this chart. It’s because we were probably going to speak about Japanification:

gdp per capita ppp 2021 china west

It basically shows that the GDP per capita of Japan, and indeed of Germany, closed in on the United States, and actually Germany overtook it in the 1980s. But after that point in time, I mean, after the revaluation of their two respective currencies, and after the, the bubble, the stock market and property market bubble in Japan, you saw stagnation set in. And there’s a question as to whether that will happen with China.

But I mean, I think that one thing that’s striking in this diagram is that China is still at a much lower level of GDP per capita than Japan, or indeed Germany was at that time. And those economies, because, they were at the technological frontier to some extent, had to innovate, move into new technologies.

China, because there is still a technological gap, has enormous opportunities to accelerate its growth in a way in which, well, Japan failed because it chose not to take up opportunities, and it gave up semiconductors manufacture. But China has enormous opportunities, and that’s one reason why we must anticipate China’s growth as continuing.

RADHIKA DESAI: Absolutely. Thank you, Mick. Okay, so if we’re done with the growth story, let’s go to our next topic, which is what happened in China under Covid-19. Now, of course, there is just so much dispute about and controversy around Covid and Covid strategies, etc. So we don’t want to get into all of them, but I just want to emphasize two things.

We’ve already looked at the growth figures, we looked at the growth figures around Covid:

gdp growth china west 2008 2028

So you can see here that in 2020, all economies had a big dip thanks to Covid in their economies, but China is alone among the major economies to have remained in positive growth territory, and to have, of course, remained much higher than the rest of the other major world economies. So essentially, China, whatever China did, it did not sacrifice growth.

Now, this is very ironical, because in the Western countries, we were told that we need to, in order to continue growing, we need to, so in order to preserve livelihoods, which was the euphemism for preserving the profits of big corporations, in order to preserve livelihoods, we may have to sacrifice some lives. And the Western economies went through an absolutely excruciating process of lockdown here, and opening there, and lockdown again, and opening again, and so on.

But all of this had devastating impacts on Western economies, whereas China prioritized the preservation of life above all. And it imposed a lockdown knowing that, okay, even if we are going to develop vaccines, and remember, China developed its own vaccines, and effectively inoculated over 70 percent of the population by the time they began reopening.

China prioritized the saving of lives, and it was accused of essentially creating world shortages by shutting down its economy, etc. But in reality, China’s strategy, which focused before the availability of vaccines, on essentially physical distancing, isolation, etc., as was necessary, but China managed to do it in a way as to keep up a relatively robust growth rate, and very importantly, lose very few lives.

This is a chart, again from Our World In Data, of cumulative Covid-19 deaths per million of population:

covid 19 deaths per million china us

So here we have all these countries, the United States and United Kingdom are these top two lines, Germany, Canada, Japan, even though we are told that East Asian economies did well because they had experience with SARS, etc., even then, compared to China, which is down here with a cumulative Covid death rate per million of about 149 or something people dying per million, and these numbers are over 3,000, almost 4,000 per million at this point in the United States and the UK, and then you have these other economies.

So China actually managed to avoid the worst of Covid, both in terms of lives and in terms of livelihood, and it did so because it did not compromise the saving of lives.

Does anyone else want to add anything? Mick? You were there.

MICK DUNFORD: Well, I mean, obviously, there were difficulties for some people in some places at some times. I was here right through it. All I can say is the impact personally on me was extremely limited.

It was a very effective system for protecting life. And if you lived in some places, then in fact the impact on your life, apart from having frequent nucleic acid tests and so on and ensuring that your health code was up to date, the impact on one’s life was relatively limited.

But in some places, obviously, in Wuhan at the outset, in Shanghai later on, the impact was very considerable.

But I think it’s an indication of the importance of a kind of collectivism, and the priority given to the protection of human life. And as you said, it is quite striking that actually through it, China’s economy actually kept ticking over.

And of course, China produces so many important intermediate goods that obviously it was also very important in providing things that were needed in many, many other parts of the world.

It also shared its drugs, its vaccines, which is really quite different, in a sense, from the conduct of the United States. And to some extent, the Western pharmaceutical companies.

RADHIKA DESAI: Absolutely. Michael, go ahead.

MICHAEL HUDSON: In the United States, that would be considered a failure of policy. The United States used Covid as an opportunity to kill.

For instance, the governor of New York, Cuomo, took the Covid patients and he moved them into all of the assisted living and old people’s homes. And that had a great increase in productivity. It resulted in enormous death rates for the elderly.

That helped save New York’s pension plan system. It helped save other pension plans. It helped save Social Security because the dead people were no longer what America called “the dead weight”.

The American policy was to indeed infect as many people over the age of 65 as you could. And that helped balance state, local budgets, pension plan budgets.

The increase in the death rate is now the official policy of the Center for Disease Control in the United States. They say do not wear masks. They’ve blocked any kind of mask wearing. They’ve done everything they could to prevent the use of HIPAA filters or airborne disease. The Disease Control Center says that Covid is not an airborne disease. Therefore, do not protect yourself.

Well, the result is many children have been getting Covid and that weakens their resistance system. And they’re getting measles and all sorts of other things. And all of that is greatly increasing GDP in America. The health care costs of America’s destructive policy.

I think Marx made a joke about this in Capital. He said when more people get sick, the doctors and the economic output goes up. Are you really going to consider sickness and destruction and fires rebuilding and cleanup costs? Are you going to count all of this there?

RADHIKA DESAI: But the irony is Michael, even with all of that, America’s GDP plunged so deeply down.

Well, I think we should move on to the next topic, but I will just say one thing. It is generally said that China is in a panic, the Chinese government reversed its draconian Covid policies because there were popular protests, and blah blah and so on. I would not agree with that.

Certainly, there were some popular protests. It also seems as though at least some of them were being pushed by the National Endowment for Democracy with the typical color revolution style. They have one symbol that symbolizes it. So, they decided to put up blank pieces of paper, etc. So, there’s no doubt that there was some of this going on. And as Mick said, undoubtedly, there were local difficulties in many places.

But what becomes very clear is that China decided to lift Covid restrictions towards the end of 2022 only after it has satisfied itself that the risk. And I should also add one thing. It was under pressure to lift these restrictions a great deal because the fact was that the rest of the world was not following China’s footsteps apart from a handful of other countries. And they were socialist countries. They were not following China’s footsteps.

So, it’s very hard to be the only country that’s doing it. But nevertheless, despite all those pressures, China had a very deliberate policy. It lifted Covid restrictions after assuring itself that enough of the population had been vaccinated, as to achieve something close to herd immunity.

And these figures of deaths per million demonstrate that China’s bet proved right, and China continues to monitor the situation. Covid hasn’t gone away.

And so, in all of these ways, I think that it’s important for us to understand that China’s policy has actually been above all about protecting people’s lives.

MICK DUNFORD: Just from my recollection, the demonstrations of which you spoke, where the slogans were written in English, I wonder who they were talking to, were on the 1st of December. China had, on the 11th of November, already announced the steps of, in a sense, removing restrictions. And then they were finalized in early December. So, the change was already underway.

RADHIKA DESAI: Exactly. Great. So, I think we are at almost, I think, 50 minutes or so. So, let’s do the next topic, which is the property bubble. And then we will stop this episode and we will do a part two of this episode, and do the other four topics that remain in part two.

So, Mick, do you want to start us off about the property bubble and the alleged Japanification, impending Japanification of China’s economy?

MICK DUNFORD: Okay. Well, if you want, you can just show the chart:

house property prices china us

Basically, you can see that throughout this period, Chinese house prices have risen quite substantially. You know, in a sense, the story started, with housing reform, after 1988, when China moved from a welfare to a commodity system. And then, in 1998, it actually privatized Danwei housing, and it adopted the view that housing should be provided, as a commodity by developers.

And in 2003, that course of action was confirmed. And from that point in time, one saw very, very substantial growth in the number of developers, many of which, the overwhelming majority of which were private developers. So, in a sense, they moved towards a fundamentally market system.

And they very quickly had to make certain adjustments because they found that while the quality of housing and the amount of housing space per person was going up, these developers were orienting their houses towards more affluent groups. So, there was an under-provision of housing for middle-income groups and for low-income groups.

And so, there were progressively, you saw over the years, increasing attention paid to the provision of low-cost housing and of low-cost rented housing. And in fact, in the current five-year plan, 25% of all housing is meant to be basically low-cost housing.

So, the important point is that this problem emerged in a system that was liberalized, actually, I mean, in line with recommendations that were made in 1993 by the World Bank.

So, in other words, it’s an example of a liberalized, predominantly market-led, private-led system, in which these difficulties and these problems have emerged.

So, that’s the first thing I want to say. And I mean, obviously, to address housing needs, China has had, over the course of time, to considerably move back in the direction of providing low-cost housing in order to meet the housing needs of the Chinese people.

But basically, in August 2020, the government got very, very deeply concerned about, on the one hand, increasing house prices and, on the other hand, the explosion of borrowing and the fact that the liabilities of many of these developers substantially exceeded their assets.

And of course, the other line on that chart is a line indicating house prices in the United States. And of course, it was the crash of prices in the subprime market that, in a sense, precipitated the financial crisis. So, China, in the first place, is absolutely determined that it should not confront that kind of problem that was generated by the liberalized housing system in the United States.

So, I mean, that’s the first thing I basically want to say.

If you want, I can say something about the case of Evergrande. But basically, what China did in 2020 was it introduced what it called Three Red Lines, which were basically designed to reduce financial risks.

But it had a number of consequences because it, to some extent, deflated the housing market. Housing prices started to fall. Some of these developers found themselves in a situation where their liabilities substantially exceeded their assets. There was a decline in housing investment.

But to some extent, I think this is a part of a deliberate goal of basically diverting capital towards, as I said earlier, high productivity activities and away from activities, especially the speculative side of the housing market. So, I’ll just say that for the moment, but I can come back and say something about Evergrande, if you wish, in a few minutes.

RADHIKA DESAI: Okay, great. Michael, do you want to add anything?

MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, what I’d like to know as the background for this is what is the, how much of this housing is owner-occupied and how much is rental housing? That’s one question. The other question is how much is the ratio of housing costs to personal income? In America, it’s over 40% of personal income for housing. What’s the ratio in China?

I’d want to know the debt-equity ratio. How much debt, on the average, for different income groups? Debt relative to the value of housing. In America, for the real estate sector as a whole, debt is, the banker owns more of the house than the nominal house owner, whose equity ratio for the whole economy is under 50%.

These are the depth dimensions that I’d want to ask for these charts, if you know anything about them.

RADHIKA DESAI: Okay, thanks for that. And so, I just want to add one thing, which is that, this graph actually really says it all, and in some ways implicitly answers Michael’s questions:

house property prices china us

Because the blue line, which shows the United States property prices, you can see that they reached a certain peak at 150% of the value of its 2010 values in 2008. Then it went down to below the level of 2010.

But U.S. monetary policy, Federal Reserve policy, its continuing deregulated financial sector, the easy money policy that was applied in a big way with zero interest rate policies, with quantitative easing, etc., etc., has simply led to a new property boom, where the prices of property prices have reached a peak, which is even higher than that of 2007-8, which was such a disaster. And this was all made possible precisely by the, by increasing housing debt, etc.

Whereas in China, a big driver of the housing boom has actually been that people are investing their savings in it. So, by logically, it means that the extent of a debt in the housing market will be comparatively lower. The entities that are indebted are actually the developers.

And that’s a very different kind of problem than, than the, than the owners being indebted. So that’s the main thing I want to say.

And Mick, you wanted to come back about, about Evergrande, so please do. And then remember also that we want to talk about this chart in particular, and deal with the question of Japanification:

china loans real estate industry

So, please go ahead, Mick. Let’s talk about that.

MICK DUNFORD: Okay, well, I mean, as Radhika just said, the problem is, the indebtedness of developers, and the existence of debts that considerably exceed the value of their assets.

And the way in which this situation has come about, and I mean, as I said, the Chinese government, in a sense, wants to address the financial risks associated with that situation, and did so by introducing these so-called Three Red Lines.

It also is interested in reducing house prices, and it’s also interested in redirecting finance towards productivity-increasing activities.

So, Evergrande is an enormous real estate giant. It has debt of 300 billion dollars. It has 20 billion of overseas debt, and its assets, according to its accounts at the end of the last quarter of last year, are 242 billion. And 90 percent of those assets are in mainland China. So, its liability asset ratio was 84.7 percent, and the Three Red Lines set a limit of 70, 70 percent. So, it’s substantially in excess of the red line.

In 2021, it defaulted. And then, in January this year, it was told to liquidate after international creditors and the company failed to agree on a restructuring plan. In September, by the way, last year, its chair, Su Jiayin, was placed under mandatory measures, on suspicion of unspecified crimes. Basically, it was a Hong Kong court that called in the liquidators.

And the reason was that, in a way, outside China, Evergrande looked as a massively profitable distressed debt trade opportunity. There were 19 billion in defaulted offshore bonds with very substantial assets and, initially, a view that the Chinese government might prop up the property market.

So, large numbers of U.S. and European hedge funds basically piled into the debt, and they expected quite large payouts. But it seems as if this negotiation was, to some extent, controlled by a Guangdong risk management committee. And the authorities, basically, were very, very reluctant to allow offshore claimants to secure onshore revenues and onshore assets.

And, in fact, to stop the misuse of funds, I think about 10 Chinese local provinces actually took control of pre-sales revenues. They put it into custodial accounts, and the idea was that this money should basically—the priority is to ensure that the houses of people who’ve paid deposits on houses are actually built, and people who’ve undertaken work in building houses, are basically paid. So, that, then saw the value of these offshore bonds collapse very rapidly, indeed.

And I think that, to some extent, explains the concerns of the international financial market about the difficulties of this particular case. But I think, it’s clear that China intends, basically, to deflate this sector and to put an end to this speculative housing market as much as it possibly can, and to direct capital, towards productivity increasing, essentially, the industrial sector. And we shall talk about this direction of finance later on.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Evergrande debt, and other real estate debt, is to domestic Chinese banks and lenders. Certainly, many Chinese home buyers did not borrow internationally.

So, I want to find out how much the domestic Chinese banking system, or near banking system — not the Bank of China itself, but the near banks intermediaries who lent — to what extent have the banks given guarantees for the loans for Evergrande and others?

I understand that there are some guarantees domestically, and if the banks have to pay them, the banks will go under, just as occurring here in New York City. Do you have any information on that?

MICK DUNFORD: No, I don’t really have any information, except, I mean, some of the literature that I’ve read suggests that these creditors, bondholders and also other creditors, basically shareholders, are going to take a very, very major haircut.

RADHIKA DESAI: Exactly. I think that this is the key, that there will be an imposition of haircuts on the rich and the powerful, not just subjecting ordinary people to repossession of their homes, which they should have access to.

So, as Mick has already said, the Chinese government is doing everything possible to make sure that the ordinary buyers who have bought these houses do not lose out, which is the opposite of what was done in trying to resolve the housing and credit bubble in the United States.

So, I just want to say a couple of things. I mean, the Chinese government is quite aware, as Mick pointed out, the whole thing has begun by, this whole property bubble is in good part a product of the fact that when relations between China and the West were much better, China accepted some World Bank advice, and this is partly a result of that and the kind of deregulation that the World Bank had suggested.

But very clearly, now relations between China and the West are not good. In fact, they’re anything but good. China is unlikely, once bitten, twice shy, to accept such bad advice again, even if they were good. And now that they’re not good, there will be, and China is clearly looking at distinctively pragmatic, socialistic ways out.

And you see in the new address to the NPC by the Premier [Li Qiang], that social housing has become a major priority, not building houses for private ownership, but rather building houses which will be kept in the public sector and rented out at affordable rates. And I think this is really an important thing, really the way to go.

And finally, I would say that, the property bubble in Japan and the property bubble in the United States were bound to have very different consequences, partly because, well, for two reasons, mainly. Number one, the nature of their financial systems were very different.

In the case of Japan, the financial system was being transformed from one that resembles China’s financial system to something that resembles much more the US financial system. And Japan has continued this transformation and has suffered as a result. I would say in short, really, Japan has paid the price of keeping its economy capitalist. So in many ways is the United States.

And the second reason, of course, is that, funnily enough, one of the effects of the Plaza Accord was that, by the time the Plaza Accord came around, Japan was no longer interested in buying US treasuries. And as a result, the United States essentially restricted its access to US markets in a much bigger way. And so, essentially, Japan lost those export markets.

And it did not do what China is able to do. It perhaps could not do what China is able to do, being a capitalist country, which is massively reorient the stimulus for production away from exports and towards the domestic market, including the market for investment.

So I think that we are, maybe this is the cue at which we can talk about Japanification. So maybe you can start us off by commenting on this chart, and then Michael and I can jump in as well:

china loans real estate industry

MICK DUNFORD: Ok, the blue line, of course, is the flow of loans to different sectors. So the blue line is the flow of loans to the real estate sector.

MICHAEL HUDSON: Only the Bank of China or by?

MICK DUNFORD:  All the banks. You can see from 2016, the share going to real estate has diminished very significantly, whereas, where it says industrial MLT, that’s medium and long term loans for industrial investment, you can see a very, very strong, steady increase in the share of loans going to industrial investment. In agriculture, it declines. And then also, that has actually increased since 2016. So this is a directing of investment towards manufacturing and towards the industrial sector of the economy.

So why is that? Well, I think the first thing one can say is that, in the past, basically, the growth drivers of the Chinese economy were, to some extent, export manufactures. But China was predominantly involved in processing activities, employing very unskilled labor and associated with very low levels of labor productivity.

So one of China’s goals is to significantly, basically, strengthen, upgrade the quality of these traditional industries, to make them digital, to make them green, and to radically increase productivity through a large-scale investment wave.

And then, secondly, we’re on the verge of a new industrial revolution, which Radhika has spoken about. So the aim in this case is, basically, to divert investment towards the industries that are associated with the next industrial revolution.

The other main growth drivers in the past, alongside this export sector, were obviously real estate, which, I mean, if you look at GDP by expenditure, was accounting probably with household appliances and furniture and household goods and so on, about 26, 27 percent of the economy.

But it’s a sector that’s associated with relatively low productivity, and of course, it was associated with very substantial speculation and generated very considerable financial instability.

So, as Radhika said, there will be, in dealing with this financial crisis, basically an underwriting of existing, of obligations to existing home buyers, and in the future, an attempt to establish a more sustainable housing market.

The other area of the economy was basically this sort of platform economy. But this platform economy was associated with very, very strong tendencies towards monopoly, and in the, about four or five years ago, a series of measures were adopted, basically, to restrict, some aspects of this platform economy, and other areas, like private tutoring, which was generating large disparities in the educational system, and is associated with the fact, that the cost of raising children in China is extremely high. I mean, it’s the second highest in the world after South Korea, actually.

So, these growth drivers, these old growth drivers, are basically seen as not offering potential to sustain the growth of the Chinese economy into the years ahead, and so there’s this attempt to look for new growth drivers. And basically, for that reason, you’ve seen this redirection of investment.

And I think one can distinguish that, from what happened to Japan, because basically, in Japan, industrial investment did not increase, largely, I think, because the profitability of investment was not sufficiently high. And also Japan, in a sense, adopted a neoliberal program. It didn’t implement industrial policies.

Whereas China is seeking to undertake this transformation, basically, through, it’s a kind of supply-side restructuring, driven by industrial policy, and driven by financial policies, providing strategic funding for industrial transformation.

Then linking that also to the transformation of education, to try to ensure that the output of the education system, in terms of skill profiles, and so on, corresponds much, much more closely with the profile of work and employment, with much more emphasis upon STEM, in the context of this new industrial revolution, radically raising productivity, and by radically raising productivity, you increase income, and ultimately, you’ll increase consumption, and so on.

So I think that the Japanification course is not one that China will follow, that China will actually address this need to innovate and transform its industrial system, in order to, in a sense, address the problems that are associated with the earlier drivers of Chinese development.

MICHAEL HUDSON: We probably need a whole other program to talk about the difference in structure. Real estate is the largest sector of every economy, and China is so different from Japan.

The Ginza district in Japan, right around the palace, that small district, was larger than all of the real estate value in California. So, we’re dealing with a huge debt finance explosion there, and then you have the largest collapse of property prices in Japan, everywhere, anywhere in the world.

In a way, what you’ve described brings us back to what we were talking about at the beginning of the show, about China’s structure. The effect of the real estate slowdown and falling in prices has a disastrous effect on localities, small villages and towns in China, who are dependent on real estate sales as funding their budget.

So, the real estate crash in China, if we’re talking about what policy is China going to take, how is it going to solve the problem of local budgets without solving it by creating a booming real estate market for towns to sell off their property to developers, and developers to make a profit selling off a property to private buyers, mainly.

I assume they’re not just selling it to the government to make a profit. I think there’s a lot of structure that I’d like to know. I don’t know what it is now, but it’s so different from what you have everywhere else.

I think that really is what I hope will be the focus of our show, the geopolitics of different real estate structures and the real estate tax that goes with it.

RADHIKA DESAI: That’s a really interesting question, and much of that we will be discussing in the second part of this show, which we’ll be recording in a week or so, I think.

But let me maybe then just bring this to a conclusion by simply agreeing with what both of you have said, which is that China has a very good chance, in fact, very likely, China is not going to follow the Japanification model because, as Michael is emphasizing, the structure of China’s economy and the imperatives generated by that structure are very different.

To name just one, if something is not profitable in a capitalist economy, it will not get done. Whereas in the case of the Chinese economy, the Chinese government can always say, well, if it’s necessary, we’ll do it even if it isn’t profitable, because it is necessary for the welfare of the people or the productive capacity of the economy, etc. So, profitability just does not play the role of a brake in the same way as it does in capitalist societies.

Secondly, the role of the state, both in terms of initiating new projects and taking responsibility for new projects, and we can already see in the current NPC and the discussions there that the role of the state is already once again expanding again in China, and it can continue to do so. And I think that’s a very good thing.

And remember also that, Mick, you emphasized in the case of when you were discussing one of the graphs, that the per capita GDP of China today is considerably lower than what it was in Japan, even in the late 80s and early 90s.

And that means that, number one, domestic consumption can be a big stimulus for further economic expansion. And secondly, of course, the industrial opportunities, the opportunities for a new industrial revolution are many, and China in particular, because of the important state role in the Chinese economy, the centrality of the state role in the Chinese economy, and the aim of the Chinese economy and the Chinese economy’s managers to develop China’s productive capacity in whatever way that works, not necessarily through private ownership.

These elements are actually going to ensure that China will exploit the opportunities of the new technologies much more effectively and execute a transition to the next industrial revolution much more successfully, and that will be an important road to avoiding what’s called Japanification.

MICK DUNFORD: You know, I think the difference is that Japan, I thought, in the 1980s was at the technological frontier, and China is not. But just, what Michael was referring to is the fact that in China, local government revenue came to depend to a very considerable extent on what is called land revenue.

You know, basically all land is state-owned, is either state-owned or owned by the rural collectives. But what happened was that if land was converted for use for urbanization, was converted for use for urbanization, for housing, then basically the local government could in effect sell leases, 90-year leases, or depending on the activity, different lengths of lease. They could sell these leases to developers. And then that revenue was used by local government to fund infrastructure.

To some extent that model has come up against limits. And I think, the issue Michael raised really concerns how in future will local government be funded, and will there be a reform in the system of taxation?

Will a property tax be introduced in order to generate government revenue rather than relying upon this land tax? Because of course that did encourage local government to allocate that land to people who are going to build housing for upper-income groups, because the implications for land value were under that situation, they would actually be higher rather than providing that land to construct housing for low income groups.

So, this issue of land revenue is one that has to be addressed basically by someone who’s an expert in public finance.

MICHAEL HUDSON: That should be what we talk about in the next show, I think.

RADHIKA DESAI: Great. So I think that we should bring this part of the show, the first part of this show to an end. And let me just do that by going back to our list of topics.

So just to conclude, we managed to cover the first four, although the question of Japanification and the alleged property bubble will resonate into all the rest of the topics, certainly the question of consumption, exports and China’s new growth strategy. So we will return to it.

But in the next [Geopolitical Economy] Hour, we will be talking about these topics, restricted consumption, exports, new growth strategy, and of course, China’s foreign economic policy.

So thanks very much both. Thanks to all the listeners. And we look forward to seeing you in another week or two. Thank you and goodbye.

The Terms of Surrender

Par : AHH

Putin presented the West with a bill of exchange that it is not able to repay

By Irina Alksnis, RIA Novosti columnist.

“In an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, Vladimir Putin stressed that the West will not just have to offer Russia guarantees of compliance with the agreements, but these guarantees: a) must be spelled out; b) suit Moscow; and c) the Russian leadership must actually believe in them.”

In an interview with Dmitry Kiselyov, Vladimir Putin paid great attention to the issue of potential negotiations with the West over Ukraine. At first glance, this might even seem somewhat unexpected, but the topic is really becoming more and more relevant and is increasingly heard in the public field, which means that it is time to clarify Russia’s position as clearly as possible. Which the president did.

The reality of the situation on the Ukrainian front, which is unpleasant for the West, is reaching more and more people on the other side. This entails quite natural consequences: the voices demanding to negotiate with Moscow are getting louder and louder. And if initially they were mostly marginal figures, on whom it was very convenient to hang the label “Russian agent” or “useful idiot of the Kremlin”, now the most mainstream and very influential forces – the media, think tanks, politicians and statesmen – up to the Pope are saying the same thing.

This point of view has not yet become dominant there and still meets impressive resistance, but it can no longer be called marginal. And judging by the way events are developing in Ukraine, the moment when it will become dominant on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean is not very long away.

However, these changes worry the politically active patriotic part of Russian society. The reason is obvious: people fear that in the course of negotiations, Russia will lose the achievements for which our soldiers pay with their blood and lives. Either the West will simply deceive us, as it has done so many times in the past, or a part of the Russian elite that remains pro-Western will be inclined to make concessions, surrendering our military victory. But no one is immune from mistakes and failures in the negotiation process – even the most ardent patriot of his country.

This is probably why the president gave a detailed and detailed commentary on this issue, touching on very different aspects that affect Russia’s position. And this is the answer primarily for us-the citizens of the country. But it can also be very useful for the West, if there are still smart enough and qualified people there who are able to hear and understand what is said, and not invent their own version of Putin’s answer in accordance with the agenda and personal beliefs (and with this there are more and more problems lately). Well, for the insufficiently nationalized representatives of the domestic establishment, who are hoping to turn the stuffing back, the president’s answer is also very useful – and makes them understand that you should not dream of the impossible.

The West, in the form of Ukraine as anti-Russia, prepared a very powerful weapon against our country, but when it did not work as expected, it had to openly enter the war itself – and this became its huge, downright fatal mistake, because it turned on the patriotic war regime in our people. Putin said that “deep Russian society”, ordinary citizens, had long been waiting for their demand for the country and the state, and the war of the West against us was exactly the situation that turned on the mechanism of national consolidation.

This means that the state has a free hand in relying on powerful and active (literally combative) popular support. He is not under pressure from public opinion, which insists on ending the fighting at any cost and as soon as possible – on the contrary, citizens consider it right to solve the issue radically, eliminating the threat to Russia in the south-western direction once and for all. This means that the SVO can continue for as long as it takes, until the West is not just ripe for negotiations (this will happen soon), but reaches the point where it hears Moscow’s position and accepts its conditions (but this may take much longer).

By the way, the president’s words made it clear why Russian officials are so actively pedaling the topic of deception on the part of the West, which Moscow has encountered many times in recent decades. You can often hear criticism of this position – saying that it exposes Russia as weak and stupid. However, it has now provided the state with an extremely comfortable and strong negotiating position: what are your guarantees, gentlemen? Because the old and, alas, unkind principle of “gentlemen take their word for it” has finally broken down.

Putin stressed that the West should not just offer Russia guarantees of compliance with the agreements, but these guarantees should: a) be spelled out; b) suit Moscow; and c) the Russian leadership should actually believe in them.

In fact, in the sphere of reputation and moral authority, the West finds itself in exactly the same situation as with the American debt, which is storming to astronomical heights and whose mere maintenance is increasingly shaking the financial system. Everyone has already realized that this is just a pyramid scheme, but it still holds, and the world is watching with curiosity (although not without concern about the consequences) what will become the “pebble” that will start the crash.

Well, by demanding guarantees at the talks, Putin swung the “pebble” of another tower – the tower of Babel of Western hypocrisy and lies.

Perhaps this is understood by American and European hawks, who are now actively rocking the topic of the need to introduce a Western contingent to Ukraine. Realizing that Moscow will not be able to push through or deceive in negotiations, they see direct participation in the conflict as the only remaining option to try to reduce the conflict to a more or less acceptable outcome for NATO countries.

However, Putin also had words for these hotheads – in particular, the word “interventionists”. Moreover, the president explicitly stated that it is precisely as an intervention on the territory of Russia that we will regard the entry of Western troops into Ukraine. And he reminded that our country has a rich experience of successfully solving this problem, which everyone in the West should remember.

In essence, Ukraine has become a conflict in which the bankruptcy of Europe and the United States – military, moral, economic – threatens to turn from expected to actual. And in his interview, Putin presented the West with a bill of exchange, which in principle it is not able to repay.

African Observers of Russian Presidential Elections

Par : AHH

Those who travel to Russia and see the reality for themselves, from any part of the world, are consistently astounded and pleased with what they see. This consistent discrepancy between reality and media-driven myth underlines the potency of the mindwashing western Big Lie Media, which most of humanity continues to foolishly imbibe.




Visiting Russia is a key antidote, until the Global South / Global Majority drops safeguards against western media, referred to as “informational hygiene” by Russians. Otherwise Forever Wars are permanently baked in as this Big Lie Media forever sews discord, false impressions between natural allies, and works to divide humanity along false lines.

An interesting pattern developed during yesterday’s first of three main voting days. Let the following 11 African election observers from 10 different African countries tell you in their own words. The selections are from the Sputnik Africa Telegram channel.

International observers for the Russian presidential elections plan to visit at least 52-53 regions, they will be provided with all the necessary assistance, said the head of the Central Election Commission, Ella Pamfilova. Currently 333,600 people are monitoring the Russian presidential election, including over 700 from 106countries,” Pamfilova noted.
The process of voting is “proceeding normally,” she added.”

💠Everything you need to know about Russia’s 2024 presidential elections

Russian citizens will head to the polls on March 15-17 to vote in 2024 presidential election. There are 112.3 million eligible voters inside Russia, and around 1.9 million eligible voters reside abroad. Voter turnout is expected at 71%, as per the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM).

What’s new about 2024 elections?
E-voting, a remote electronic voting system, is being used for the first time to elect a Russian president. Voters in 29 Russian regions will be able to cast their ballots remotely.
🔹Electronic ballot processing system uses a special scanner to read and process marked paper ballots and tally the results.
🔹Mobile Voter mechanism provides online voting.
🔹Elections state automated system is information software that ensures that ballots are counted in an accurate and rapid manner.

There are four candidates vying for the top office:
🔸Self-nominated candidate and incumbent President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin;
🔸Communist Party nominee Nikolay Kharitonov;
🔸Liberal Democratic Party nominee Leonid Slutsky;
🔸New People party nominee Vladislav Davankov.

Who will observe the voting process?
🔸Election observers are Russian citizens who monitor compliance of election procedure with the law, supervise the process and record possible violations.
🔸200 parliamentary international observers have been accredited to monitor the elections in Russia, delegations from 36 countries are already arriving.

👉 Follow this link to learn more

≈≈≈≈≈≈

💠A Kenyan observer for the Russian presidential elections, who’s watching the voting process in Russia’s city of Perm told Sputnik that “the election process has started well” and “the election officials are well set”

“It’s very cold, [but] I am very happy to be here,” he added.

💠Fast and secure procedure: a Burundian observer appreciates the advantages of voting electronically in the Russian presidential election

“When I was told what happens electronically, I congratulated you, I saw that you had succeeded,” President of the National Assembly of Burundi, Honorable Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe, told Sputnik Africa.

Ndabirabe noted that once a person is identified in the system, the voting process takes “very little time,” adding that such an option saves “a lot of time and energy” for people.

Lastly, the observer praised the excellent security of the electronic voting.

“I was told that to date there have been no complaints about the security of the electronic trial. Which is another great success, because that’s what’s so frightening. I say: “congratulations”. Because there can’t be any hacking. That’s a very good thing,” Ndabirabe concluded.


💠Cameroonian observer speaks about Russian presidential election. African observers who are inspecting polling stations across Russia will return home genuinely satisfied with what they have seen, Serge Espoir Matomba, the first secretary of the Cameroonian United People for Social Renovation, told Sputnik Africa.

According to him, at a time when “the world wants to be multipolar, we have an obligation to know what’s going on without waiting to be told what’s going on. There is this growing misinformation that is being used today as a lever for manipulation.”

“That is why I am in Moscow today, to see with my own eyes how the elections are going, how the buzz around the elections is going, how the process itself is being set in motion,” Matomba said.

“The image that Africa has often had of Russia in the past is changing exponentially,” the politician concluded. “Africans are now realizing that Russia is not the country they were presented with. And that’s a good thing.”

💠 An observer from Kenya in the Kherson region praised the Russian electronic voting system

“In Russia you can vote from home. In other countries, especially in African countries, with electronic voting you have to go to the polling station to register,” said Ezekiel Kanagi Mutes.


💠 “Absolutely fair”: Ethiopian observer impressed by Russian presidential elections

“Really, it is well planned, well organized. I have seen the voters, how they are electing. As to my observation up to now, it is absolutely fair. I appreciate it,” Dr. Petros Woldegiorgis, an observer from Ethiopia and President of Bonga University, told Sputnik Africa.

He particularly noted the accessibility measures in place, including the option for citizens in distant locations to vote via telephone—a novel experience for him.

“The general feeling I have is wonderful,” the observer remarked. “From Alpha to Omega, what I have seen now, honestly speaking, I’m very much excited.”

💠 🇷🇺🗳🇹🇿 “Very open and freely”: Tanzanian observer from the ruling party on the Russian presidential election

“The voting process here is very interesting. […] It takes very small time, just 3 to 5 minutes you are done, is very open and freely,” Joseph Mgaya told Sputnik Africa.

Furthermore, the observer pointed out that Russian citizens are voting “freely” and they can do it in every corner of the country – you just need to have an ID with you.

Mgaya also praised the “high-end” online voting technology that simplifies the whole election process.

“I’m very interested in it because it’s high-end [and] […] it’s very open,” he added.


💠 “The process is more than transparent”: Comorian observer on presidential elections in Russia

The Russian presidential election has a number of advantages, including security cameras to ensure transparency, candidate representatives at each polling station, “a more efficient electronic system combined with a reliable manual system,” Ahmed Said Mdahoma, head of the Independent National Electoral Commission of the Comoros, told Sputnik Africa.

He also noted “maximum” security to ensure the calm of the electoral process and “constant communication at the level of the Central Electoral Commission to inform citizens, observers and actors about the electoral process.”

In addition, Mdahoma emphasized a 3-day voting period that would allow “everyone who wants to exercise their right to vote to find the right time” to do so.


💠 Chairman of CAR National Electoral Commission praises organization of Russian presidential elections

Mathias Moruba visited three polling stations in Russia and noted their compliance with international electoral standards, the Russian Embassy in the Central African Republic (CAR) said.

According to the embassy, the delegation from the Central African Republic arrived in Russia to observe the presidential election at the invitation of the Russian Central Election Commission.


💠 “Russia is already ahead,” says Madagascan observer on electronic voting in Russia

Russia’s presidential election is taking place “calmly and also within the norm,” which has highlighted some advances, such as automated voting, which saves voters’ time, Ralaisoavamanjaka Andriamarotafikatohanambahoaka, the first general rapporteur of Madagascar’s Independent National Electoral Commission, told Sputnik Africa.

“The computerized system is a novelty. The whole world will choose this system. The choice of the virtual system, which the majority of people will make, is mainly to save time for them,” the observer explained.

He added that “it’s obvious that we’ve respected the principle of electoral sovereignty and the electoral norm in Moscow and Russia in general.”
[His name is not a typo!! Another example here.]


💠🇷🇺🗳🇦🇴 “No violations”: an observer from Angola about the Russian presidential elections

“We didn’t find any problems, no violations. [Everything went] very well, without problems. And everything was peaceful,” said Manuel Camati, member of the National Electoral Commission of Angola.

He also noted that elections are part of the sovereignty of each state, and therefore it was important for him to be personally present in this process.

Speaking about the technological innovations of the Russian elections, Camati said that they help to quickly resolve any issues, and the electronic voting option allows “to minimize the number of errors and speed up electoral processes.”


💠🇷🇺🇲🇱 Voting in Russia “proceeding normally, as in other countries,” says Malian observer

The ability to vote electronically is important for people who cannot travel, such as the disabled and the elderly, Nana Aïcha Cissé, the first vice-president of Mali’s Network of Women Parliamentarians, told Sputnik Africa.

She came to observe the elections in Russia for the first time and said she was impressed by the organization.

The observer also called Mali “a friend of Russia,” noting that “people know Russia, they know the ties that exist between Mali and Russia, and that’s very important.”

Will BRICS launch a new world in 2024?

Par : AHH

Ryabkov, Ushakov and Glazyev foresee a quickening of the Russian river after Putin’s spring reelection: the BRICS will create payment and settlement systems that do not depend upon the shifty “rules-based international order.”

By Pepe Escobar at The Cradle.

“BRICS doubled its membership at the start of 2024, and faces huge tasks ahead: integrating its newest members, developing future admission criteria, deepening the institution’s groundings, and most importantly, launching the mechanisms for bypassing the US dollar in international finance.”

BRICS Ambassadors attend “Maslenitsa: Dialogue of Civilizations,” Moscow, 12 March 2024.

MOSCOW – Across the Global South, countries are lining up to join the multipolar BRICS and the Hegemon-free future it promises. The onslaught of interest has become an unavoidable theme of discussion during this crucial year of the Russian presidency of what, for the moment, is BRICS-10.

Indonesia and Nigeria are among the top tiers of candidates likely to join. The same applies to Pakistan and Vietnam. Mexico is in a very complex bind: how to join without summoning the ire of the Hegemon.

And then there’s the new candidacy on a roll: Yemen, which enjoys plenty of support from Russia, China, and Iran.

It’s been up to Russia’s top BRICS sherpa, the immensely capable Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, to clarify what’s ahead. He tells TASS:

We must provide a platform for the countries interested in rapprochement with the BRICS, where they will be able to work practically without feeling left behind and joining this cooperation rhythm. And as to how the further expansion will be decided upon – this should be postponed at least until the leaders convene in Kazan to decide.

The key decision on BRICS+ expansion will only come out of the Kazan summit next October. Ryabkov stresses that the order of the day is first “to integrate those who have just joined.” This means that “as a ‘ten,’ we work at least as efficiently, or, rather, more efficiently than we did within the initial ‘five.'”

Only then will the BRICS-10 “develop the category of partner states,” which, in fact, means creating a consensus-based list out of the dozens of nations that are literally itching to join the club.

Ryabkov always makes a point to note, in public and in private, that the twofold increase of BRICS members starting on 1 January 2024 is “an unprecedented event for any international structure.”

It isn’t an easy task, Ryabkov says:

Last year, it took an entire year to develop the admission, expansion criteria at the level of top officials. Many reasonable things were developed. And many of the things that were formulated back then got reflected in the list of countries that joined. But it would probably be improper to formalize the requirements. At the end of the day, an admission to the association is a subject of political decision.


What happens after Russia’s presidential elections

In a private meeting with a few select individuals on the sidelines of the recent multipolar conference in Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke effusively of BRICS, with particular emphasis on his counterparts Wang Yi of China and S. Jaishankar of India.

Lavrov holds great expectations for BRICS-10 this year – at the same time, reminding everyone that this is still a club; it must eventually go deeper in institutional terms, for instance, by appointing a secretariat-general, just like its cousin-style organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

The Russian presidency will have its hands full for the next few months, not only navigating the geopolitical spectrum of current crises but, most of all, geoeconomics. A crucial ministerial meeting in June – only three months away – will have to define a detailed road map all the way to the Kazan summit four months later.

What happens after this week’s Russian presidential elections will also condition BRICS policy. A new Russian government will be sworn in only by early May. It is widely expected that there will be no substantial changes within the Russian Finance Ministry, Central Bank, Foreign Ministry, and among top Kremlin advisers.

Continuity will be the norm.

And that brings us to the key geoeconomics dossier: the BRICS at the forefront of bypassing the US dollar in international finance.

Last week, top Kremlin adviser Yury Ushakov announced that BRICS will work towards setting up an independent payment system based on digital currencies and blockchain.

Ushakov specifically emphasized “state-of-the-art tools such as digital technologies and blockchain. The main thing is to make sure it is convenient for governments, common people, and businesses, as well as cost-effective and free of politics.”

Ushakov did not mention it explicitly, but a new alternative system already exists. For the moment, it is a closely, carefully guarded project in the form of a detailed white paper that has already been validated academically and also incorporates answers to possible frequently asked questions.

The Cradle was briefed on the system via several meetings since last year with a small group of world-class fintech experts. The system has already been presented to Ushakov himself. As it stands, it is on the verge of receiving a final green light from the Russian government. After clearing a series of tests, the system in thesis would be ready to be presented to all BRICS-10 members before the Kazan summit.

This all ties in with Ushakov publicly declaring that a specific task for 2024 is to increase the role of BRICS in the international monetary/ financial system.

Ushakov recalls how, in the 2023 Johannesburg Declaration, the BRICS heads of state focused on increasing settlements in national currencies and strengthening correspondent banking networks. The target was to “continue to develop the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, primarily regarding the use of currencies different from the US dollar.”


No single currency for the foreseeable future

All of the above frames the absolute key issue being currently discussed in Moscow, within the Russia–China partnership, and soon, deeper among the BRICS-10: alternative settlement payments to the US dollar, increased trade among “friendly nations,” and controls on capital flight.

Ryabkov added more crucial elements to the debate, saying this week that the BRICS are not debating the implementation of a single currency:

As for a single currency, similar to what was created by the European Union, this is hardly possible in the foreseeable future. If we are talking about clearing forms of mutual settlements such as the ECU [European Currency Unit] at an early stage of development of the European Union, in the absence of a real means of payment, but the opportunity to more effectively use the available resources of the countries in mutual settlements to avoid losses due to differences in exchange rates, and so on, then this is precisely the path along which, in my opinion, BRICS should move. This is under consideration.

The key takeaway, per Ryabkov, is that the BRICS should not create a financial and monetary alliance; they should create payment and settlement systems that do not depend upon the shifty “rules-based international order.”

That’s exactly the emphasis of the ideas and experiments already developed by Minister of Integration and Macroeconomy at the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) Sergei Glazyev, as he explained in an exclusive interview, as well as the new groundbreaking project on the verge of being greenlighted by the Russian government.

Ryabkov confirmed that “a group of experts, led by the Ministries of Finance and representatives of the Central Banks of the respective [BRICS] countries,” is working nonstop on the dossier. Moreover, there are “consultations in other formats, including with the participation of representatives of the ‘historical west.'”

Ryabkov’s own takeaway mirrors what the BRICS as a whole are aiming at:

Collectively, we must come up with a product that would be, on the one hand, quite ambitious (because it is impossible to continue to tolerate the dictates of the west in this area), but at the same time realistic, not out of touch with the ground. That is, a product that would be efficient. And all this should be presented in Kazan for consideration by the leaders.

In a nutshell: the big breakthrough may be literally knocking at the BRICS door. It just depends on a simple green light by the Russian government.

Now compare the BRICS devising the contours of a new geoeconomics paradigm with the collective west mulling the actual theft of Russia’s seized assets to the benefit of the black hole that is Ukraine.

Apart from being a de facto declaration by the US and EU against Russia, this is something that carries the potential, in itself, of totally smashing the current global financial system.

A theft of Russian assets, would it ever happen, will render livid, to put it mildly, at least two key BRICS members, China and Saudi Arabia, who bring to the table considerable economic heft. Such a move by the west would completely destroy the concept of the rule of law, which theoretically underpins the global financial system.

The Russian response will be fierce. The Russian Central Bank could, in a flash, sue and confiscate the assets of Belgian Euroclear, one of the world’s largest settlement and clearing systems, on whose accounts Russian reserves were frozen.

And that on top of seizing Euroclear’s assets in Russia – which amount to roughly 33 billion euros. With Euroclear running out of capital, the Belgian Central Bank will have to revoke its license, causing a massive financial crisis.

Talk about a clash of paradigms: western robbery versus a Global South-based equitable trade and finance settlement system.

The German-American Strategic Stooges Clown Show

Par : AHH

The saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.

By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture.

The Four Stooges saga of Bundeswehr officers plotting to blow up the Kerch bridge in Crimea with Taurus missiles and getting away with it is a gift that keeps on giving.

President Putin, in his comprehensive interview to Dmitry Kiselev for Russia 1/RIA Novosti, did not fail to address it:

“They are fantasizing, encouraging themselves, first of all. Secondly, they are trying to intimidate us. As for the Federal Republic of Germany, there are constitutional problems there. They correctly say: if these Taurus hit that part of the Crimean Bridge, which, of course, even according to their concepts, is Russian territory, this is a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

Yet it gets curioser and curioser.

When the transcript of the Taurus leak  was published by RT, everyone was able to hear Brigadier General Frank Gräfe – head of operations of the German Air Force – speaking with Lieutenant Colonel Fenske from the German Space Command Air Operations on the plan to deploy Taurus systems in Ukraine.

A key point is that during the plotting, these two mention that plans were already discussed “four months ago” with “Schneider”, the successor of “Wilsbach”.

Well, these are German names, of course. Thus it did not dawn on anyone that (Kevin) Schneider and (Kenneth) Wilsbach could instead be… Americans.

Yet that did raise the eyebrows of German investigative journalist Dirk Pohlmann – who I had the pleasure to meet in Berlin years ago – and his fellow researcher Tobias Augenbraun.

They found out that the German-sounding names did identify Americans. Not only that: none less than the former and the current Commanders of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces.

The Four (actually Six) Stooges element gets an extra boost when it is established that Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz and his Totalenkrieg Minister Pistorius learned about the Taurus plan no less than four months later.

So here apparently we have a clear cut case of top German military officers taking direct orders regarding an attack on Crimea – part of the Russian Federation – directly from American officers in the Pacific Air Forces.

That in itself opens the dossier to a large spectrum ranging from national treason (against Germany) to casus belli (from the point of view of Russia).

Of course none of that is being discussed on German mainstream media.

After all, the only thing that seems to disturb Brigadier General Gräfe is that German media may start seriously prying on the Bundeswehr’s Multiple Stooges methods.

The only ones who actually did proper investigation were Pohlmann and Augenbaun.

It would be too much to expect from German media of the “Bild” type to analyze what would be the Russian response to the Multiple Stooge shenanigans against Crimea: a devastating retaliation against Berlin assets.


It’s so cold in Alaska

During the jolly Bundeswehr conversation yet another “plan” is mentioned:

“Nee, nee. Ich mein wegen der anderen Sache.” (“No, no. I mean the other matter.”) Then: “Ähm … meinst du Alaska jetzt?” (“Ahm, you mean Alaska now?”)

It all gets juicier when it is known that German Space Command Air Operations Centre officer Florstedt will meet none other than Schneider next Tuesday, March 19, in Alaska.

And Gräfe will also “have to go back to Alaska” to explain everything all over again to Schneider as he is “new” in the post.

So the question is: Why Alaska?

Enter American shadowplay on a lot of “activities” in Alaska – which happen to concern none other than China.

And there’s more: during the conversation still another “plan” (“Auftrag”, meaning “mission”) also surfaces, bearing a not clearly understandable code name sounding like “Kumalatra”.

What all of that tells us is that the Crash Test Dummy administration in the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon seem to betting, in desperation, on Total War in the black soil of Novorossiya.

And now they are sayin’ it out loud, with no shadow play, and coming directly from the head of the CIA, William Burns, who obviously sucks at secrecy.

This is what Burns told the members of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this week:

“I think without supplemental assistance in 2024, you’re going to see more Avdeevkas, and that – it seems to me – would be a massive and historic mistake for the United States.”

That spells out how much the Avdeevka trauma is impressed on the psyche of the U.S. intel apparatus.

Yet there’s more: “With supplemental assistance, Ukraine can hold its own on the front lines through 2024 and into early 2025. Ukraine can continue to exact costs against Russia, not only with deep penetration strikes in Crimea, but also against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.”

Here we go: Crimea all over again.

Burns actually believes that the humongous $60 billion new “aid” package which must be approved by the U.S. Congress will enable Kiev to launch an “offensive” by the end of 2024.

The only thing he gets right is that if there’s no new package, there will be “significant territorial losses for Ukraine this year.”

Burns may not be the brightest bulb in the – intel – room. A long time ago he was a diplomat/CIA asset in Moscow, and seems to have learned nothing.

Apart from letting cats and kitties galore out of the bag. It’s not only about attacking Crimea. This one is being read with surpreme delight in Beijing:

“The U.S. is providing assistance to Ukraine in part because such activities help curb China.”

Burns nailed his Cat Out of the Bag Oscar win when he said “if we’re seen to be walking away from support for Ukraine, not only is that going to feed doubts amongst our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific; it’s going to stoke the ambitions of the Chinese leadership in contingencies ranging from Taiwan to the South China Sea”.

The inestimable Andrei Martyanov perfectly summed up the astonishing incompetence, peppered with tawdry exceptionalism, that permeates this performance by Burns.

There are things “they cannot grasp due to low level of education and culture. This is a new paradigm for them – all of them are ‘graduates’ of the school of ‘beating the crap from defenseless nations’ strategic ‘studies’, and with the level of economic ‘science’ in the West they cannot grasp how this all unfolds.”

So what is left is panic, as expressed by Burns in the Senate, mixed with the impotence in understanding a “different warrior culture” such as Russia’s: “They simply have no reference points.”

And still they choose war, as masterfully analyzed by Rostislav Ishchenko.

Even as the acronym fest of the CIA and 17 other U.S. intel agencies have concluded, in a report shown to Congress earlier this week, that Russia is “almost certainly” seeking to avoid a direct military conflict with NATO and will calibrate its policies to steer clear of a global war.

After all the Empire of Chaos is all about Forever Wars. And we are all in the middle of a do or die affair. The Empire simply cannot afford the cosmic humiliation of NATO in Novorossiya.

Still every “plan” – Taurus on Crimea-style – is a bluff. Russia is aware of bluff after bluff. The Western cards are now all on the table. The only question is when, and how fast will Russia call the bluff.

The Angst in the French Mind

Par : AHH

The endless ennui and envy of those incapable of abandoning phantom pains. Most useful putty in the hands of Empire

By Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar at the Indian Punchline.

Ever since its ignominious defeat in the Napoleonic wars, France is entrapped in the predicament of countries that get sandwiched between great powers. Following World War II, France addressed this predicament by forging an axis with Germany in Europe.

Caught up in a similar predicament, Britain adapted itself to a subaltern role tapping into the American power globally but France never gave up its quest to regain glory as a global power. And it continues to be a work in progress.

The angst in the French mind is understandable as the five centuries of western dominance of the world order is drawing to a close. This predicament condemns France to a diplomacy that is constantly in a state of suspended animation interspersed with sudden bouts of activism.

But, for activism to be result-oriented, there are prerequisites needed such as the profiling of like-minded activist groups, leadership and associates and supporters and sympathisers — and, most important, sustainment and logistics. Or else, activism comes to resemble epileptic fits, an incurable affliction of the nervous system.

The French President Emmanuel Macron’s halcyon days in international diplomacy ended with the recent  dissolution of the Franco-German axis in Europe, which dated back to the Treaties of Rome in 1957. As Berlin sharply swerved to trans-atlanticism as its foreign-policy dogma, France’s clout diminished in European affairs. 

The stakes are high in the reconciliation meeting on Friday as Macron travels to Berlin to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who not only snubbed him by ruling out the use of ground troops from European countries in the Ukraine war, but also digging in on Taurus missile issue arguing that it would entail assigning German staff in support to Ukraine, which, he announced on Wednesday in the Bundestag, is simply “out of the question” while he remained the chancellor. 

Of course, this is not to decry Macron’s formidable intellect — such as when he declared in a blunt interview in late 2019 with the Economist magazine that Europe stood on “the edge of a precipice” and needed to start thinking of itself strategically as a geopolitical power lest it will “no longer be in control of our destiny.” Macron’s prescient remark preceded the war in Ukraine by 3 years.

According to the newspaper Marianne, which interviewed several French soldiers, the military reportedly estimates that the Ukraine war is irretrievably lost already. Marianne quoted a senior French officer saying derisively, “We must make no mistake facing the Russians; we are an army of cheerleaders” and sending French troops to the Ukrainian front would simply be “not reasonable” . At the Élysée, an unnamed advisor argued that Macron “wanted to send a strong signal… (in) milli-metered and calibrated words”.

Marianne’s editor Natacha Polony wrote: “It is no longer about Emmanuel Macron or his postures as a virile little leader. It is no longer even about France or its weakening by blind and irresponsible elites. It is a question of whether we will collectively agree to sleepwalk into war. A war that no one can claim will be controlled or contained. It’s a question of whether we agree to send our children to die because the United States insisted on setting up bases on Russia’s borders.”

The big question is why Macron is doing this nonetheless — going to the extent of cobbling together a ‘coalition of the willing’ in Europe. A range of explanations is possible starting with Macron posturing and trying to earn political points at minimal cost, motivated by personal ambitions and intra-European friction with Berlin.

But then, until fairly recently, Macron was a supporter of dialogue with Moscow. The perception in most European capitals, including Moscow, is that Macron is making an attempt to bring the Ukrainian crisis to a new level by announcing western combat deployment against Russia  publicly as an obvious political manipulation.

The geopolitical salience is that Macron who once not too long ago called for dialogue with Moscow and offered his mediation in it, who made the famous declaration of a “Greater Europe” in 2019 and maintained contacts with Russian President Vladimir Putin thereof; who as of February last year, while speaking about Russia’s “certain defeat” in Ukraine, called for avoiding Moscow’s “humiliation”; who repeatedly underscored his commitment to the matrix of diplomacy attributed to Charles de Gaulle, which assigned France the role of a “bridge between East and West” — has now swung to the other extreme of harsh Euro-Atlantic rhetoric.

This appalling inconsistency can only be seen as stemming out of the unfavourable development of events in the scenario of the Ukrainian crisis with the prospect of a Russian defeat in the war no longer in the cards even remotely and replaced by the growing possibility that peace will ultimately be attainable only on Russia’s terms. Put differently, the power dynamic in Europe is shifting dramatically, which, of course, impacts Macron’s own ambitions to “lead Europe.”

Meanwhile, Russian-French relations have also been undergoing a stage of fierce competition and rivalry — even confrontation — in a number of areas. For a start,  French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejournet said in an interview with Le Parisien in January that Russia’s victory in Ukraine would lead to 30% of world wheat exports being controlled by Moscow. For Paris, this is a question of the sustainability of one of the key sectors of French national economy.

French agriculture is marked by its history that had its beginning with the Gaulois in 2000 BC. It needs to be understood that In modern history, French Revolution of 1789, which altered every part of the French social order and led to the abolition of privileges for upper classes, was also an Agricultural Revolution, which allowed a broad land redistribution. Suffice to say, the bond of French people to their agriculture is very strong.

As it is, African states are changing the structure of grain imports due to the technical regulations introduced by the European Union as part of its green agenda and French farmers consequently face rising costs, and over and above that, there is now also the looming loss of regional market share to Russia.

This is on top of the inroads Russia is making in arms exports to the African continent lately. In politico-military terms too, France has lost ground to Russia in the resource-rich Sahel region, its ex-colonies and playpen traditionally. The fact of the matter is that the birds are coming to roost over France’s neo-colonial strategies in Africa, but Paris prefers to put the blame on Russia’s Wagner group which has moved in to fill the security vacuum in Sahel region, as anti-French forces have come to power in several countries at once — Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, CAR.

In the best traditions of geopolitics, France has begun retaliating in regions sensitive to Russian interests — Armenia, Moldova and Ukraine where Russian military presence is in French crosshairs. Unsurprisingly, Ukraine is the most strategic turf where Macron hopes to achieve a bigger French presence.

Through that, Macron hopes to advance his leadership ambitions in Europe as the navigator of the EU’s foreign policy strategy in a wide arc from the African continent across the Mediterranean to Transcaucasia — and potentially all the way to Afghanistan.

All this is unfolding against the historic backdrop of an inevitable US retrenchment in Europe as Indo-Pacific hots up and the simmering rivalry with China becomes an all-consuming passion for Washington. Indeed, alongside, the towering presence of Russia across Europe is beginning to be felt intensely as it surges as the number one military and economic power in the strategic space between Vancouver and Vladivostok.

Today, the paradox is, then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev had proposed way back in 2008 a legally binding pan-European security treaty, which would develop a new security architecture in Europe, involving the reshaping of existing, and creating new institutions and norms regulating security relations in Europe in a wider geopolitical space stretching east “from Vancouver to Vladivostok.” But, alas, the US encouraged the Europeans to see the so-called ‘Medvedev Initiative’ as a trap to enfeeble NATO, the OSCE, the EU and other European bodies,  and reject that wonderful idea which would have anchored the post-cold war era firmly on a binding security architecture.

Macron s’en va en guerre…  (suite)

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L’article Macron s’en va en guerre…  (suite) est apparu en premier sur STRATPOL.

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