George Friedman and Stratfor

[David Guyatt]

There is another long Youtube clip of him predicting the future of the European Union (presented in Poland) where he says that Poland and Turkey will become major European powers in the future. Based on his previous presentations where he explained, for example, that the US made Korea an economic power by the transfer of technology and capital, because it suited the US to have a strong Korea in the region, then I take his predictions about Turkey and Poland to imply the same sort of backing.

Except Turkey, like Iceland, has recently withdrawn from wanting to even be in the EU. Now that membership is shown to be a major liability. Wonder when they will leave NATO. Except NATO pays them tons of $ to have their bases there.

Then we have recently seen the British causing apoplexy in Washington by joining the Chinese AIIB, quickly followed by France, Germany and Italy and quite possibly Australia and Switzerland. The US meanwhile had been lobbying hard for Britain and G7 to act in concert over the AIIB - meaning meekly following the US lead on it. The US has also been lobbying hard in Canberra to ensure that Australia stays out of the AIIB, and it will be interesting, indeed, if Oz snubs that pressure and joins too.

This indeed seems to be really panicking the US. They are trying to put the pressure on the everyone to do what the US wants but most are just signing up to the Chinese bank regardless. Australia's national security committee has given it the green light but cabinet has to approve it on Monday. It will be interesting given their traditional US lapdog role but also fetish for obeying national security talking heads. I suspect they will sign up. China is our biggest trading partner. And we don't have the same history with China that Japan does. And indeed have some of the same history with Japan that China has. The weakest party seems the be Japan. And I'm sure the US is turning the screws quite hard on them too.

This all suggests quite strongly to me, that a major shift in power is taking place. There is going to be an entirely different world developing in the 21st century and I doubt the US will be able to maintain its dominance as it has expected and planned to do.

Bring it on! Nothing but death and chaos with US Inc.

What has driven this shift remains unclear - at least to me - but I get the sense that de facto announcement at the NATO summit in 2008 by Dubya, shifting emphasis from old Europe to new Europe spelled the slow end of the NATO alliance. And western Europe is responding accordingly. And the UK is shifting its priorities according to its trading patterns, namely Europe and the far east.

All those blinged up grunts that hitched their wagon to the NATO steamroller are probably having deep regrets now. Like Breedlove. And explains his recent major dummy spit which so upset Merkel. But really it is no surprise since the US has been so odious to deal with that others have created alternatives that leave them out of the picture.

I think NATO's basically is done and dusted, but remains like a cadaver surviving and breathing on a life support machine - waiting for someone to switch it off for good. Breedlove's champing at the bit and having US military formations promenade on the Russian border shows how desperate it is for for the old school sabre rattlers. The world is changing in front of their eyes and they don't know how to respond other than to try to put obstructions in the way.

They will continue to do this, I suppose, but it's all too late. The hard decisions have been made and the world is now moving ahead rapidly and shutting out Washington at the same time. The BRICS decision to develop it's own internet infrastructure is just another nail in the coffin. I love it that Brazil and other nations have also decided to replace Microsoft computer systems as being too unsafe.