US/NATO War on Russia

[Magda Hassan]

Russian Stock Market sees to be doing just fine and is up +9.90% Sberbank +13,62% VTB +8,29% Gazprom +9,79% Lukoil +6,70% Rosneft +9,94% Sistema +15.48% Megafon +11,36%

[Lauren Johnson]

Just when it looks like Russia is on the ropes, then this happens:

Earlier this evening China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange's (SAFE) Wang Yungui noted "the impact of the Russian Ruble depreciation was unclear yet, and, as Bloomberg reported, "SAFE is closely watching Ruble's depreciation and encouraging companies to hedge Ruble risks." His comments also echoed the ongoing FX reform agenda aimed at increasing Yuan flexibility which The South China Morning Post then hinted in a story entitled "Russia may seek China help to deal with crisis," which which noted that Russia could fall back on its 150 billion yuan ($24 billion) currency swap agreement with China if the ruble continues to plunge, that was signed in October. Furthermore, two bankers close to the PBOC reportedly said the swap-line was meant to reduce the role of the US dollar if China and Russia need to help each other overcome a liquidity squeeze.

As Bloomberg reported, earlier in the evening, China's Wang Yungui noted

• *CHINA IS CLOSELY WATCHING RUBLE'S DEPRECIATION: SAFE'S WANG
  
• *CHINA ENCOURAGES COS. TO HEDGE RUBLE RISKS, SAFE'S WANG SAYS
  
• *REAL IMPACT OF RUBLE DEPRECIATION UNCLEAR YET, SAFE'S WANG SAYS
  

Adding that China plans sweeping reforms to promote FX flexibility.
And then The South China Morning Post hints,

Russia could fall back on its 150 billion yuan (HK$189.8 billion) currency swap agreement with China if the rouble continues to plunge.

If the swap deal is activated for this purpose, it would mark the first time China is called upon to use its currency to bail out another currency in crisis. The deal was signed by the two central banks in October, when Premier Li Keqiang visited Russia.

"Russia badly needs liquidity support and the swap line could be an ideal tool," said Bank of Communications chief economist Lian Ping.

The swap allows the central banks to directly buy yuan and rouble in the two currencies, rather than via the US dollar.

Two bankers close to the People's Bank of China said it was meant to reduce the role of the US dollar if China and Russia need to help each other overcome a liquidity squeeze.

China has currency swap deals with more than 20 monetary authorities around the world. Swaps are generally used to settle trade.

"The yuan-rouble swap deal was not just a financial matter," said Wang Feng, chairman of Shanghai-based private equity group Yinshu Capital. "It has political implications as it is a sign of mutual trust."

The rouble has lost more than 50 per cent against the US dollar this year, pushing Russia to the brink of a currency crisis, though measures announced by the central bank helped it recover some ground yesterday.

Li Lifan, a researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said the swap would not be enough for Russia even if it is used in its entirety. "The PBOC might agree to extend something like 15 billion yuan initially as a way of showing China's commitment to Russia."

* * *
As we discussed in October when the swap deal was signed,

...as if to assure all involved parties that there will be enough capital support on both sides, the PBOC released a surprising announcement that the central banks of China and Russia signed a 3-year, 150 billion yuan bilateral local-currency swap deal today, according to a statement posted on PBOC website. Deal can be expanded if both parties agree, statement says. Deal aims to make bilateral trade and direct investment more convenient and promote economic development in 2 nations.

To be sure, some such as Bloomberg, are skeptical that the unprecedented pivot by Russia toward China as it shuns the west, will merely harm the Kremlin. Others, however, wonder: who will be left standing: Europe, with its chronic deficit of energy and reliance on Russia; or Russia, a country overflowing with natural resources, whose economy is currently underoing a dramatic and painful shift, as it scrambles to dissolve all linkages to the Petrodollar and face the Gas-O-Yuan?

[Magda Hassan]

Brilliant! They really are planning on doing with out the US dollar. Russia has been selling dollars too.

[David Guyatt]

It makes perfect sense, I think.

China knows that if Russia is picked off and destroyed economically - which is what this whole new cold war affair is designed to do - then they will be next in the queue. Clearly, Putin saw this coming, as it was US led economic warfare ignited under the Reagan Administration that ultimately brought down the old Soviet Union.

Other BRICS nations should take note - and hopefully have prepared as had China and Russia.

[David Guyatt]

Global Research:

Is US-NATO Preparing to Wage War on Russia?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, December 20, 2014

Theme: US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT

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Is US-NATO Preparing to Wage War on Russia? The Wales NATO Summit in September has set the stage.
Several military initiatives directed against the Russian Federation have been launched in the last few months including the conduct of war games in Eastern Europe, military training and the deployment of special forces in Ukraine.
These military initiatives are led in coordination with media propaganda and a program of "economic terrorism" consisting of disruptive economic sanctions, the freeze of monetary and trade transactions, the fraudulent manipulation of the oil and currency markets, etc. The media campaign consists in presenting war as a humanitarian undertaking.
The endgame is to weaken the Russian Federation, undermine its institutions, impoverish its population.

Meanwhile, the US Congress has passed enabling legislation which provides a de facto green light to president Obama to declare war on Russia.

Reports have also confirmed that Washington is contemplating "regime change" in the Russian Federation with a view to installing a more compliant government in the Kremlin. According to President Vladimir Putin:

"We see the tragic consequences of the so-called color revolutions and ordeals survived by the peoples of the states that faced these irresponsible experiments of covert and sometimes even… overt interference into their lives…
This is a lesson and warning for us and we will do everything possible to prevent this from happening in Russia." (quoted in Sputnik, November 20 2014)

Military threat combined with "economic warfare" are intended to create social and economic instability in the Russian Federation. Cyber warfare is also an instrument of intervention directed against an enemy's communications systems.
The US-NATO military exercises conducted in recent months in Eastern Europe and the Baltic States were explicitly directed against Russia. According to Moscow, they consisted in "increasing operation readiness" as well the transfer of NATO "military infrastructure to the Russian borders".
In mid-December, General James Stavridis, former commander of Nato in Europe called upon the Atlantic Alliance to"send arms and military advisers to Ukraine to help it fight Moscow-backed separatists."

"I think we should provide significant military assistance to the Ukrainian military. I don't think we should limit ourselves to, non-lethal aid. I think we should provide ammunition, fuel, logistics. I think cyber-assistance would be very significant and helpful, as well as advice and potentially advisers.
"I don't think there needs to be huge numbers of Nato troops on the ground. The Ukrainian military can resist what's happening, but they need some assistance in order to do that." (quoted in the Guardian, December 14, 2014)

And on December 18th, President Barack Obama signed the Ukraine Freedom Support Actwhich allocates up to $350 million in military aid to Ukraine in support of its military campaign in Donbass.
In addition to the granting of military aid, the US military is directly involved in the process of military planning in close coordination with Ukraine's Ministry Defense.
Its Called "Defense Cooperation"
While US involvement is officially limited to training, the sending in of special forces and support to Ukraine's National Guard, mercenaries and private security operatives on contract the Pentagon and NATO have also been deployed within the ranks of the Ukraine military and National Guard in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
US Military Advisers at Work
In late November, the US State Department confirmed that it "will continue to send special teams to Ukraine to provide security assistance", namely advising and military training.
As part of this program of security assistance, Brig. Gen. John Hort, chief of operations, U.S. Army Europe was dispatched to Kiev together with "his staff and members of the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation, located at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv", Ukraine,

participated in a Global Security Contingency Fund Ukraine planning requirements meeting with Ukrainian National Guard officials, here, Dec. 8-9, 2014.
The purpose of the requirements meeting was to identify Ukraine's National Guard Unit organization, training readiness and unit end state conditions after training completion. U.S. Army Europe, Ukraine defense officials share lessons learned

Brig. Gen. John Hort (at easel), with his staff and members of the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation, Training Session at US embassy with representatives of the Ukraine Military and National Guard. Source US Army

The Office of Defense Cooperation (ODC): Subsidiary of the Pentagon at the US Embassy in Kiev
The Office of Defense Cooperation which operates out of the US Embassy in Kiev "works with the Ukraine's Ministry of Defense to provide military equipment and training to support the modernization of Ukraine's military." http://ukraine.usembassy.gov/odc.html
US Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, in liaison with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, plays a key role in coordinating the activities of ODC-Ukraine. Defense officials at the US Embassy are in turn in liaison with the Pentagon. The activities of the ODC broadly defined consist in:

1. The deployment of US military personnel inside Ukraine;
   
2. Military training and advisory functions;
   
3. The sale and procurement of US weapons systems;
   
4. Support to Ukraine's National Guard through a protocal agreement with California's National Guard
   

1. The deployment of US military personnel in Ukraine is implemented under the so-called Joint Contact Team Program-Ukraine (JCTP)
The mission of the JCTP is "to deploy US military teams to Ukraine to acquaint the Ukrainian military with various aspects of western militaries."
2. The military training program is implemented under the auspices of the International Military Education and Training (IMET). Under this program, Ukraine military personnel are sent to the US for training.
3. The sale and procurement of weapons is under the auspices of Foreign Military Sales/Foreign Military Financing (FMF)

The FMF program assists the Ukrainian military in conducting defense reform by providing funds for Ukraine to purchase US military equipment and services. (http://ukraine.usembassy.gov/odc.html)

4. Support to Ukraine's National Guard is implemented through the CaliforniaUkraine State Partnership Program (SPP). While the SPP mandate is to "promote democracy, free market economies and military reform, in practice the SPP is used to channel support as well as special forces and military advisers to Ukraine's (neo-Nazi) National Guard battalions in Donbass.

The National Guard Azov Battalion in East Ukraine integrated by neo-Nazi recruits.

Of significance, the SPP Mission is coordinated jointly by the US Ambassador to Ukraine and the Commander of U.S. European Command (EUROCOM) General Philip Breedlove based in Stuttgart, Germany.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS A THREAT TO GLOBAL SECURITY
SAY NO TO THE US LED WAR ON RUSSIA WHICH COULD POTENTIALLY LEAD THE WORLD INTO A WORLD WAR III SCENARIO.

[David Guyatt]

The first open provocation following HR 758?

Ukraine angers Russia with landmark step towards Nato

Russia's foreign minister says vote to drop neutral status is counterproductive and will only boost tensions

• Agencies in Kiev and Moscow
  
• The Guardian, Tuesday 23 December 2014 11.52 GMT
  

Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, who has described Ukraine's renunciation of its neutral status as a counterproductive step. Photograph: Sergei Chirikov/EPA

The Ukrainian parliament has renounced the country's non-aligned status with the aim of eventually joining Nato, to the anger of Moscow, which views the western alliance's eastward expansion as a security threat.
Kiev first announced its intention of seeking the protection of Nato membership in August, following what it deemed the open participation of Russia's military in a separatist war in Ukraine's eastern provinces.
Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, called Ukraine's renunciation of its neutral military and political status a "counterproductive" step that would only boost tensions around the crisis in the east.
"It will only escalate the confrontation and creates the illusion that it is possible to resolve Ukraine's deep internal crisis by passing such laws," Tass news agency quoted him as saying.
Addressing deputies in Kiev before the vote, the Ukrainian foreign minister said the move underscored the country's determination to pivot towards Europe and the west. "This will lead to integration in the European and the Euro-Atlantic space," Pavlo Klimkin said.
The amendment passed easily, receiving 303 votes 77 more than the minimum required to pass into law.
In a Facebook post on Monday, Russia's prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, warned that "in essence, an application for Nato membership will turn Ukraine into a potential military opponent for Russia".
Medvedev said that Ukraine's rejection of neutrality and a new Russian sanctions law that US President Barack Obama signed on Friday "will both have very negative consequences".
"And our country will have to respond to them," he wrote.
Any accession to the western military alliance is likely to take years, but a Nato spokesman in Brussels said: "Our door is open and Ukraine will become a member of Nato if it so requests and fulfils the standards and adheres to the necessary principles."
Relations between Moscow and Kiev are at an all-time low since Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in March and the subsequent outbreak of the pro-Russia rebellion in the east.
Pro-western authorities in Kiev accuse Russia of orchestrating and arming the uprising after the overthrow of a Ukrainian president sympathetic to Moscow. The Kremlin denies it is behind the revolt.
For its part Russia completed the creation of a new economic alliance with four other ex-Soviet nations on Tuesday, intended to bolster their integration.
The Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, comes to existence on 1 January. In addition to free trade, it will coordinate the members' financial systems and regulate their industrial and agricultural policies along with labour markets and transportation networks.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said the new union will have a combined economic output of $4.5tn and bring together 170 million people.
"The Eurasian integration is based on mutual benefit and taking into account mutual interests," he said after the talks.

[Peter Lemkin]

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Obama Upgrades Nuclear Arsenal For "Direct Confrontation With Russia"

By Sherwood Ross [/TD]
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President Obama's "gift" to Americans this holiday season is to renege on his 2009 pledge "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."


He is upgrading the lethality level of an atomic arsenal already so deadly it can destroy all life on Earth. Then he'll send Mr. and Mrs. America the bill, estimated by one Federal study at $1-trillion, to pay for the deadly upgrades he wants, rather than the peaceful improvements Americans need.


"The stated goal of the program is to increase the 'reliability' of US nuclear forces," writes Theodore Postol in the Dec. 29 issue of "The Nation". "But a close analysis reveals a technically sophisticated effort to ready US nuclear forces for a direct confrontation with Russia."


Author Postol, a former adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations, slams this modernization as "a reckless policy that directly undermines our safety and national security."


He writes, "No rational actor would take steps to start a nuclear war. But the modernization effort significantly increases the chances of an accident during an unpredicted, and unpredictable crisis---one that could escalate beyond anyone's capacity to imagine."


Why, Postol wants to know, does the White House aim to overhaul "the entire US nuclear-weapons arsenal, with a particular focus on improving the fusing systems and accuracy of long-range land- and sea-based ballistic-missile warheads and on increasing the killing power of other nuclear warheads."


And, he says, the scale and character of these weapons' effects are so large and so deadly that any notion of using them in a controlled or limited way "is completely disconnected from reality." Postol's article is appropriately titled, "Striving for Armageddon: How the Obama Administration Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."


Today's nuclear bombs are vastly more deadly than those the U.S. used to scourge Japan at the end of World War Two. But Postol writes that improving the reliability of fuses on the ballistic-missile warheads disguises the fact the fuses "have been modified to increase the killing power of the warheads."


What's more, "Painstaking efforts have also gone into improving their delivery accuracy" and when the results of these combined activities are summarized for Russian political leaders, "it is not hard to understand their alarm." Postol asserts that it is the U.S. that has pushed the Russians to a higher state of alert.


He reminds, "There is a long history of accidents during the Cold War that brought the United States treacherously close to disaster." In one major false alert, a training tape loaded into a computer "made it appear to US launch officers that a full-scale Soviet attack was under way."


And he believes the Russians have good reason to be worried. "With a fully modernized arsenal, the formerly 'less capable' nuclear warheads will be able to destroy Russian silo-based ICBMs with confidence. This would free up higher-yield nuclear warheads for other war-fighting tasks, enabling the US military to inflict greater damage on Russian command centers, fixed military facilities and civilian industrial infrastructures."


Despite Mr. Obama's recognition that peace depends on nuclear disarmament, Postol says, "the US is making those nightmare scenarios more likely by rebuilding the stockpile of atomic warheads as if they were just another form of conventional weapon." They aren't.


When Russia was communist and occupying much of Eastern Europe, U.S. leaders claimed they had to be armed to the teeth. Now that the Russians have scrapped the failed Bolshevik system, have become largely capitalist, and have withdrawn from Eastern Europe, President Obama is following the same Cold War policy. Only now the risks are greater than ever.#

[Magda Hassan]

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[TD="width: 84%"]Obama Upgrades Nuclear Arsenal For "Direct Confrontation With Russia"

By Sherwood Ross [/TD]
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President Obama's "gift" to Americans this holiday season is to renege on his 2009 pledge "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons."

I wonder if he will now return his Nobel Peace (sic) Prize? His supposed work in reduction of nuclear weapons is the stated reason he received it and now that he is going back on all that and then some there is no legitimate reason the committee should not take it from him.

[David Guyatt]

I suspect he spent the prize money at Starbucks...

[David Guyatt]

A really very interesting essay from Chussodovsky's Global Research.

The thought of Russian counter moves involving repudiating or delaying payments of foreign bank derivative debt seems to me to be a highly considered counter move.

The author considers the normalising of US relations with Cuba and trade ties with Iran all to be part of the ongoing economic war between NATO countries and the newly emerging Asian giants of the future.

From Energy War to Currency War: America's Attack on the Russian Ruble

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research, December 26, 2014
Strategic Culture Foundation 26 December 2014

Region: Russia and FSU
Theme: Global Economy, US NATO War Agenda
In-depth Report: UKRAINE REPORT

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81 8

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A multi-spectrum war is being waged against Moscow by Washington. If there are any doubts about this, they should be put to rest. Geopolitics, science and technology, speculation, financial markets, information streams, large business conglomerates, intelligentsia, mass communication, social media, the internet, popular culture, news networks, international institutions, sanctions, audiences, public opinion, nationalism, different governmental bodies and agencies, identity politics, proxy wars, diplomacy, countervailing international alliances, major business agreements, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), human rights, prestige, military personnel, capital, and psychological tactics are all involved in this multi-spectrum war. On a daily basis this struggle can be seen playing out on the airwaves, in the war theaters in Ukraine and the Middle East, through the statements and accusations of diplomats, and in the economic sphere.
Additionally, the debates and questions on whether a new cold wara post-Cold War cold warhas emerged or if the Cold War never ended should be put to rest too. The mentality of the Cold War never died in the Washington Beltway. From the perspective of Russian officials, it is clear that the US never put down its war mace and continued the offensive. The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, defeating the Soviets and Eastern Bloc, and seeing the Soviet Union dismantled into fifteen republics was not enough for the Cold War warriors in the US. The newly emergent Russian Federation had to be placated in their views.
Petro-politics have been a major feature of this multi-spectrum war too. [1] Not only have energy prices been a factor in this struggle, but so are financial markets and national currencies. The manipulated decline in the price of energy, which has been driven by the flooding of the global market with oil, is now being augmented by a siege on the value of the Russian ruble. This is part of what appears to be a deliberate two-pronged attack on the Russian Federation that seeks to cut Russia's revenues through market manipulation via economic sanctions and price drops. It is what you would call a «double whammy». While sanctions have been imposed on the Russian economy by the US and its allies, including Australia, Canada, the European Union, and Japan, offensives on Russia's main source of revenue energy and its national currency have taken place.
Currency Warfare and Inflation
The price of the Russian ruble begun to drop in December 2014 as a consequence of the economic siege on the Russian Federation, the drop in global energy prices, and speculation. «Judging by the situation in the country, we are in the midst of a deep currency crisis, one that even Central Bank employees say they could not have foreseen in their worst nightmares», Interfax's Vyacheslav Terekhov commented on the currency crisis while talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Kremlin press conference on December 18, 2014. [2] Putin himself admitted this too at the press conference. While answering Terekhov, Putin explained that «the situation has changed under the influence of certain foreign economic factors, primarily the price of energy resources, of oil and consequently of gas as well». [3]
Some may think that the drop in the Russian ruble's value is a result of the market acting on its own while others who recognize that there is market manipulation involved may turn around and blame it on the Russian government and Vladimir Putin. This process, however, has been guided by US machinations. It is simply not a result of the market acting on its own or the result of Kremlin policies. It is the result of US objectives and policy that deliberately targets Russia for destabilization and devastation. This is why Putin answered Terekhov's question by saying that the drop in the value of the Russian ruble «was obviously provoked primarily by external factors». [4]

Both US Assistant-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland the wife of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) co-founder and neo-conservative advocate for empire Robert Kagan and US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in May 2014 that the objectives of the US economic sanctions strategy against the Russian Federation was not only to damage the trade ties and business between Russia and the EU, but to also bring about economic instability in Russia and to create currency instability and inflation. [5] In other words, the US government was targeting the Russian ruble for devaluation and the Russian economy for inflation since at least May 2014.
It appears that the US is trying to manipulate the Kremlin into spending Russia's resources and fiscal reserves to fight the inflation of the Russian ruble that Washington has engineered. The Kremlin, however, will not take the bait and be goaded into depleting the approximately $419 billion (US) foreign currency reserves and gold holdings of the Russian Federation or any of Russia's approximately 8.4 trillion ruble reserves in an effort to prop the declining value of the Russian ruble. In this regard, while holding a press conference, President Putin stated the following on December 18, 2014: «The Central Bank does not intend to burn' them all senselessly, which is right». [6] Putin emphasized this again when answering Vyacheslav Terekhov's question by saying that the Russian government and Russian Central Bank «should not hand out our gold and foreign currency reserves or burn them on the market, but provide lending resources». [7]
The Kremlin understands what Washington is trying to do. The US is replaying old game plans against Russia. The energy price manipulation, the currency devaluation, and even US attempts to entrap Russia in a conflict with its sister-republic Ukraine are all replays of US tactics that have been used before during the Cold War and after 1991. For example, dragging Russia into Ukraine would be a replay of how the US dragged the Soviet Union into Afghanistan whereas the manipulation of energy prices and currency markets would parallel the US strategy used to weaken and destabilize Baathist Iraq, Iran, and the Soviet Union during the Afghan-Soviet War and Iran-Iran War.
Instead of trying to stop the value of the ruble from dropping, the Kremlin appears to have decided to strategically invest in Russia's human capital. Russia's national reserve funds will be used to diversify the national economy and strengthen the social and public sectors. Despite the economic warfare against Russia, this is exactly why the wages of teachers in schools, professors in post-secondary institutions of learning and training, employees of cultural institutions, doctors in hospitals and clinics, paramedics, and nurses the most important sectors for developing Russia's human capital and capacity have all been raised.
The Russian Bear Courts the Turkish Grey Wolf
The Kremlin, however, has an entire list of options at its disposal for countering the US offensive against Russia. One of them involves the courting of Turkey. The Russian courtship of Turkey has involved the Russian move away from the construction of the South Stream natural gas pipeline from Russia across the Black Sea to Bulgaria.
Putin announced that Russia has cancelled the South Stream project on December 1, 2014. Instead the South Stream pipeline project has been replaced by a natural gas pipeline that goes across the Black Sea to Turkey from the Russian Federation's South Federal District. This alternative pipeline has been popularly billed the «Turk Stream» and partners Russian energy giant Gazprom with Turkey's Botas. Moreover, Gazprom will start giving Turkey discounts in the purchase of Russian natural gas that will increase with the intensification of Russo-Turkish cooperation.
The natural gas deal between Ankara and Moscow creates a win-win situation for both the Turkish and Russian sides. Not only will Ankara get a discount on energy supplies, but Turk Stream gives the Turkish government what it has wanted and desired for years. The Turk Stream pipeline will make Turkey an important energy corridor and transit point, complete with transit revenues. In this case Turkey becomes the corridor between energy supplier Russia and European Union and non-EU energy customers in southeastern Europe. Ankara will gain some leverage over the European Union and have an extra negotiating card with the EU too, because the EU will have to deal with it as an energy broker.
For its part, Russia has reduced the risks that it faced in building the South Stream by cancelling the project. Moscow could have wasted resources and time building the South Stream to see the project sanctioned or obstructed in the Balkans by Washington and Brussels. If the European Union really wants Russian natural gas then the Turk Stream pipeline can be expanded from Turkey to Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, and other European countries that want to be integrated into the energy project.
The cancellation of South Stream also means that there will be one less alternative energy corridor from Russia to the European Union for some time. This has positive implications for a settlement in Ukraine, which is an important transit route for Russian natural gas to the European Union. As a means of securing the flow of natural gas across Ukrainian territory from Russia, the European Union will be more prone to push the authorities in Kiev to end the conflict in East Ukraine.
In more ways than one the Turk Stream pipeline can be viewed as a reconfigured of the failed Nabucco natural gas pipeline. Not only will Turk Stream court Turkey and give Moscow leverage against the European Union, instead of reducing Russian influence as Nabucco was originally intended to do, the new pipeline to Turkey also coaxes Ankara to align its economic and strategic interests with those of Russian interests. This is why, when addressing Nabucco and the rivalries for establishing alternate energy corridors, this author pointed out in 2007 that «the creation of these energy corridors and networks is like a two-edged sword. These geo-strategic fulcrums or energy pivots can also switch their directions of leverage. The integration of infrastructure also leads towards economic integration». [8]
The creation of Turk Stream and the strengthening of Russo-Turkish ties may even help placate the gory conflict in Syria. If Iranian natural gas is integrated into the mainframe of Turk Stream through another energy corridor entering Anatolia from Iranian territory, then Turkish interests would be even more tightly aligned with both Moscow and Tehran. Turkey will save itself from the defeats of its neo-Ottoman policies and be able to withdraw from the Syrian crisis. This will allow Ankara to politically realign itself with two of its most important trading partners, Iran and Russia.
It is because of the importance of Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties that Ankara has had an understanding with both Russia and Iran not to let politics and their differences over the Syrian crisis get in the way of their economic ties and business relationships while Washington has tried to disrupt Irano-Turkish and Russo-Turkish trade and energy ties like it has disrupted trade ties between Russia and the EU. [9] Ankara, however, realizes that if it lets politics disrupt its economic ties with Iran and Russia that Turkey itself will become weakened and lose whatever independence it enjoys
Masterfully announcing the Russian move while in Ankara, Putin also took the opportunity to ensure that there would be heated conversation inside the EU. Some would call this rubbing salt on the wounds. Knowing that profit and opportunity costs would create internal debate within Bulgaria and the EU, Putin rhetorically asked if Bulgaria was going to be economically compensated by the European Commission for the loss.
The Russian Bear and the Chinese Dragon
It is clear that Russian business and trade ties have been redirected to the People's Republic of China and East Asia. On the occasion of the Sino-Russian mega natural gas deal, this author pointed out that this was not as much a Russian countermove to US economic pressure as it was really a long-term Russian strategy that seeks an increase in trade and ties with East Asia. [10] Vladimir Putin himself also corroborated this standpoint during the December 18 press conference mentioned earlier when he dismissed like this author the notion that the so-called «Russian turn to the East» was mainly the result of the crisis in Ukraine.
In President Putin's own words, the process of increasing business ties with the Chinese and East Asia «stems from the global economic processes, because the East that is, the Asia-Pacific Region shows faster growth than the rest of the world». [11] If this is not convincing enough that the turn towards East Asia was already in the works for Russia, then Putin makes it categorically clear as he proceeds talking at the December 18 press conference. In reference to the Sino-Russian gas deal and other Russian projects in East Asia, Putin explained the following: «The projects we are working on were planned long ago, even before the most recent problems occurred in the global or Russian economy. We are simply implementing our long-time plans». [12]
From the perspective of Russian Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, the US is waging its multi-spectrum war against Russia to ultimately challenge Moscow's Chinese partners. In an insightful interview, Glazyev explained the following points to the Ukrainian journalist Alyona Berezovskaya working for a Rossiya Segodnya subsidiary focusing on information involving Ukraine about the basis for US hostility towards Russia: the bankruptcy of the US, its decline in competitiveness on global markets, and Washington's inability to ultimately save its financial system by servicing its foreign debt or getting enough investments to establish some sort of innovative economic breakthrough are the reasons why Washington has been going after the Russian Federation. [13] In Glazyev's own words, the US wants «a new world war». [14] The US needs conflict and confrontation, in other words. This is what the crisis in Ukraine is nurturing in Europe.
Sergey Glazyev reiterates the same points months down the road on September 23, 2014 in an article he authors for the magazine Russia in Global Affairs, which is sponsored by the Russian International Affairs Council a think-tank founded by the Russian Foreign Ministry and Russian Ministry of Education 2010 and the US journal Foreign Affairs which is the magazine published by the Council on Foreign Relation in the US. In his article, Glazyev adds that the war Washington is inciting against Russia in Europe may ultimately benefit the Chinese, because the struggle being waged will weaken the US, Russia, and the European Union to the advantage of China. [15] The point of explaining all this is to explain that Russia wants a balanced strategic partnership with China. Glazyev himself even told Berezovskaya in their interview that Russia wants a mutually beneficial relationship with China that does reduce it to becoming a subordinate to Beijing. [16]
Without question, the US wants to disrupt the strategic partnership between Beijing and Moscow. Moscow's strategic long-term planning and Sino-Russian cooperation has provided the Russia Federation with an important degree of economic and strategic insulation from the economic warfare being waged against the Russian national economy. Washington, however, may also be trying to entice the Chinese to overplay their hand as Russia is economically attacked. In this context, the price drops in the energy market may also be geared at creating friction between Beijing and Moscow. In part, the manipulation of the energy market and the price drops could seek to weaken and erode Sino-Russian relations by coaxing the Chinese into taking steps that would tarnish their excellent ties with their Russian partners. The currency war against the Russian ruble may also be geared towards this too. In other words, Washington may be hoping that China becomes greedy and shortsighted enough to make an attempt to take advantage of the price drop in energy prices in the devaluation of the Russian ruble.
Whatever Washington's intentions are, every step that the US takes to target Russia economically will eventually hurt the US economy too. It is also highly unlikely that the policy mandarins in Beijing are unaware of what the US may try to be doing. The Chinese are aware that ultimately it is China and not Russia that is the target of the United States.

Economic Terrorism: An Argentina versus the Vulture Funds Scenario?
The United States is waging a fully fledged economic war against the Russian Federations and its national economy. Ultimately, all Russians are collectively the target. The economic sanctions are nothing more than economic warfare. If the crisis in Ukraine did not happen, another pretext would have been found for assaulting Russia.
Both US Assistant-Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Assistant-Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser even told the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives in May 2014 that the ultimate objectives of the US economic sanctions against Russia are to make the Russian population so miserable and desperate that they would eventually demand that the Kremlin surrender to the US and bring about «political change». «Political change» can mean many things, but what it most probably implies here is regime change in Moscow. In fact, the aims of the US do not even appear to be geared at coercing the Russian government to change its foreign policy, but to incite regime change in Moscow and to cripple the Russian Federation entirely through the instigation of internal divisions. This is why maps of a divided Russia are being circulated by Radio Free Europe. [17]
According to Presidential Advisor Sergey Glazyev, Washington is «trying to destroy and weaken Russia, causing it to fragment, as they need this territory and want to establish control over this entire space». [18] «We have offered cooperation from Lisbon to Vladivostok, whereas they need control to maintain their geopolitical leadership in a competition with China,» he has explained, pointing out that the US wants lordship and is not interested in cooperation. [19] Alluding to former US top diplomat Madeline Albright's sentiments that Russia was unfairly endowed with vast territory and resources, Putin also spoke along similar lines at his December 18 press conference, explaining how the US wanted to divide Russia and control the abundant natural resources in Russian territory.
It is of little wonder that in 2014 a record number of Russian citizens have negative attitudes about relations between their country and the United States. A survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center has shown that of 39% of Russian respondents viewed relations with the US as «mostly bad» and 27% as «very bad». [20] This means 66% of Russian respondents have negative views about relations with Washington. This is an inference of the entire Russian population's views. Moreover, this is the highest rise in negative perceptions about the US since 2008 when the US supported Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi's war against Russia and the breakaway republic of South Ossetia; 40% viewed them as «mostly bad» and 25% of Russians viewed relations as «very bad» and at the time. [21]
Russia can address the economic warfare being directed against its national economy and society as a form of «economic terrorism». If Russia's banks and financial institutions are weakened with the aim of creating financial collapse in the Russian Federation, Moscow can introduce fiscal measures to help its banks and financial sector that could create economic shockwaves in the European Union and North America. Speaking in hypothetical terms, Russia has lots of options for a financial defensive or counter-offensive that can be compared to its scorched earth policies against Western European invaders during the Napoleonic Wars, the First World War, and the Second World War. If Russian banks and institutions default and do not pay or delay payment of their derivative debts and justify it on the basis of the economic warfare and economic terrorism, there would be a financial shock and tsunami that would vertebrate from the European Union to North America. This scenario has some parallels to the steps that Argentina is taken to sidestep the vulture funds.
The currency war eventually will rebound on Washington and Wall Street. The energy war will also reverse directions. Already, the Kremlin has made it clear that it and a coalition of other countries will de-claw the US in the currency market through a response that will neutralize US financial manipulation and the petro-dollar. In the words of Sergey Glazyev, Moscow is thinking of a «systemic and comprehensive» response «aimed at exposing and ending US political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining US military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency». [22] His solution includes the creation of «a coalition of sound forces advocating stability in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty». [23]
The coming century will not be the «American Century» as the neo-conservatives in Washington think. It will be a «Eurasian Century». Washington has taken on more than it can handle, this may be why the US government has announced an end to its sanctions regime against Cuba and why the US is trying to rekindle trade ties with Iran. Despite this, the architecture of the post-Second World War or post-1945 global order is now in its death bed and finished. This is what the Kremlin and Putin's presidential spokesman and press secretary Dmitry Peskov mean when they impartas Peskov stated to Rossiya-24 in a December 17, 2014 interview that the year 2014 has finally led to «a paradigm shift in the international system».
NOTES
[1] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «Oil Prices and Energy Wars: The Empire of Frack versus Russia,» Strategic Culture Foundation, December 5, 2014.
[2] Official Kremlin version of the transcribed press conference titled «News conference of Vladimir Putin» (December 18, 2014)has been used in quoting Vladimir Putin.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «Psychological War In The Financial Markets And The Sino-Russian Gas Deal,» Mint Press News, May 29, 2014.
[6] Supra. n.2.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «The Great Game' Enters the Mediterranean: Gas, Oil, War, and Geo-Politics,» Global Research, October 14, 2007.
[9] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «Oil Prices and Energy Wars,» op. cit.; Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «Turkey & Iran: More than meets the eye»RT, January 20, 2014.
[10] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «Psychological War In The Financial Markets,» op. cit.
[11] Supra. n.2.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Sergey Glazyev, «Alyona Berezovskaya interviews Sergei Glazyev,» Interview with Alyona Berezovskaya, Ukraine.ru, July 17, 2014: .
[14] Ibid.
[15] Sergey Glazyev, «The Threat of War and the Russian Response,» Russia in Global Affairs, September 24, 2014.
[16] Sergey Glazyev, «Alyona Berezovskaya interviews,» op. cit.
[17] Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, «WWIII aimed to redraw map of Russia?» Strategic Culture Foundation, September 10, 2014.
[18] Sergey Glazyev, «Alyona Berezovskaya interviews,» op. cit.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Всероссийский центр изучения общественного мнения [Russian Public Opinion Research Center], «Россия-США отношенияв точке замерзания» [«Russia-US Relations at Freezing Point»], Press release 2729, December 4, 2014: .
[21] Ibid.
[22] Sergey Glazyev, «The Threat of War,» op. cit.
[23] Ibid.