US/NATO War on Russia

[Lauren Johnson]

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.

This could trigger another debt crisis like the 2008 debacle or worse -- maybe much worse. Considering the so-called "bail-in" provisions now in place, one should consider a very dark part of this war on Russia.

This is a kind of thought experiment. I have to presume there has been a lot of careful war gaming going on carried out by teams of experts that look at every angle of the attack. Suppose that a primary goal is to create a new narrative of crisis along the lines of the strategy of tension. The key is to force Russia to overtly intervene in Ukraine, which seems quite possible if the Ukrainians begin to surround Lugansk, Gorlovka, and Donetsk. Everything is in place for this to happen, while Russia is doing what it can to arrange a permanent truce leading to the disarmament of the Donbass militias.

If Russia intervenes overtly, then we have a whole new story line: The Russian Bear is once again heading West. We must gird our loins for war. Russia may indeed respond by playing some very strong economic cards.

In short, I am suggesting that a new economic crisis will be welcomed as a pretext to further impoverish the Europeans and Americans by engaging in the bail-in provisions because we are "all in this together." The banking system, the life blood of capitalism, must be saved. Of course, civil liberties will be further eroded. I would imagine the Republicans would assume the White House. And the goal imposing neo-feudalism on a global scale would make large strides forward.

Can you say New World Order?

[Paul Rigby]

[video=youtube_share;Un5rsKFo7Xo]http://youtu.be/Un5rsKFo7Xo[/video]

[David Guyatt]

I like the Russian Duma spoof declaration at the end of the essay by Engdahl. It really does sum up the ridiculousness of US foreign policy. However, ridiculous or not, the US is deadly serious about its war intentions.

28.12.2014 Author: William Engdahl

Soros as Kiev's Central Banker and Ridiculous US Laws

Column: Economics
Region: Ukraine in the world



If it comes to pass, and it cannot unfortunately be ruled out, recent media rumors say that naturalized US billionaire hedge fund speculator and philosopher, George Soros, a very weary-looking 84-year-old who continues to try to weaken the Russian economy as he did back in 1998, might become the head of the Ukrainian National Bank in Kiev. Soros as head of any central bank in my view is putting the old fox to guard the hen-house. That would complete a quartet of foreign technocrats that clearly would do no good to the shattered real economy of Ukraine nor to peace in the world.So far it is a report carried only by APA, the Azeri press agency in Baku. They cite a report carried Ukraine's Channel 112. That report cited sources in the Ukraine parliament, the Verkhovna Rada and people around Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko.Billionaire speculator Soros is no stranger to Ukraine. In a personal interview with US TV propaganda channel CNN. Soros declared, "I set up a foundation in Ukraine before Ukraine became independent of Russia. And the foundation has been functioning ever since and played an important part in events now." That interview was made after the US State Department February 21, 2014 coup d'Etat.Soros, via his network of "tax free charitable" foundations has worked with US Government-funded NGOs such as USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (now doing work formerly assigned to the CIA), the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, the Freedom House, and the Albert Einstein Institute for training in "nonviolence as a weapon of warfare."Whether the good Mr. Soros will bring his financial alchemy to Kiev and try to earn the new Finance Minister billions of euros for their strained budget is not at all clear. There is reportedly a list of five candidates including Soros. It reportedly includes former IMF head Dominique Straus-Kahn and at least one person from the US Federal Reserve.

Ukraine: Washington's New Colony

The naming of Soros or another foreign banker to head the central bank of Ukraine at this point would fit nicely into what emerges as Washington's strategy to simply run the countryinto the ground at thatby proxies. Earlier this month, US State Department favorite Ukraine President Petr Poroschenko engaged in constitutionally dubious manipulations, holding a secret ceremony hours before a Ukraine Parliament vote, to make three now Kiev government ministers from foreign countries into Ukrainian citizens.The three were Finance Minister Natalia A. Jaresko, a then-US citizen who worked for the US State Department in Ukraine and recently as investment banker for funds of USAID. As Economics Minister sits a Lithuanian investment banker who managed a Swedish investment fund for Ukraine, Aivras Abromavicius. And the new Health Minister is US-tied national of neighboring Georgia, Alexander Kvitashvili whose wife reportedly worked with the CIA.

And New US Sanctions…

The US President Obama just signed into law a new round of economic sanctions against Russia. The US President on December 18 signed into law HR 5859, euphemistically titled, Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014 113th Congress. A more honest title would be, An Act of 2014 to Provoke War with Russia.The new law calls for "economic sanctions, diplomacy, assistance for the people of Ukraine, and the provision of military capabilities to the Government of Ukraine that will enhance the ability of that Government to defend itself and to restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of unlawful actions by the Government of the Russian Federation."The new US law gives the US President a dangerous new weapon. If he deems Gazprom, the Russian state gas giant that supplies much of the EU as well as Ukraine, is "withholding" significant natural gas from NATO countries, or from Ukraine, Georgia, or Moldova, he can order draconian new sanctions on Gazprom, something carefully avoided by Washington until now. That means all the CIA or neo-cons running US State Department Ukraine policy need do is convince Kiev to claim Russia is withholding gas or refuse to pay Gazprom, a sword of Damocles over the Russian gas supplier.Then the new US law, HR 5859, SEC. 9. SUPPORT FOR RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS, specifies that the Secretary of State shall, "directly or through non-governmental or international organizations, such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the National Endowment for Democracy, and related organizations(1) improve democratic governance, transparency, accountability, rule of law, and anti-corruption efforts in the Russian Federation; strengthen democratic institutions and political and civil society organizations in the Russian Federation; (3) expand uncensored Internet access in the Russian Federation…"This remarkable part of the new law gives open support to a new attempt at a CIA-State Department Color Revolution to topple Putin, using the US Congress and Soros Foundation-financed National Endowment for Democracy, the same cast of suspects who ran the Euro-Maidan Color Revolution a year ago in Kiev. If it reads like a brazen attempt to trample Russian sovereignty and impose a Washington version of "democracy" in another country, one might ask, what bloody right do Washington Congressmen and Presidents have to impose anything on anyone, let alone its own citizens?To underscore the absurdity of Washington neo-cons and their moral arrogance in deciding where and how they can impose "democracy," some in the Russian Duma, with characteristic Russian droll humor, apparently made a tit-for-tat mirror image of HR5859. Imagine, as a normal American citizen, how you would feel if the following were to become operational:United States of America Freedom Support Act of 2014
Sixth Duma of the Russian Federation
AT THE TWENTY-FIRST SESSION
An Act:To provide assistance for the democratic development of the United States of America and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Representatives of the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Russian Federation assembled in the Federation Assembly…Sec. 9. SUPPORT FOR AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS.(a) In General.The Minister of Foreign Affairs, directly or through nongovernmental or international organizations, such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the EURASIA HERITAGE FOUNDATION, and related organizations(1) improve democratic governance, transparency, accountability, rule of law, and anti-corruption efforts in the United States;(2) strengthen democratic institutions and political and civil society organizations in the United States;(3) expand free and unmonitored Internet access in the United States; and(4) expand free and unfettered access to independent media of all kinds in the United States, including through increasing Russian Government-supported broadcasting activities.The Russian spoof merely underscores how ridiculous US foreign policy has become. Little wonder that the USA today enjoys so little respect around the world. Its elected politicians are simply ridiculous.F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook


First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2014/12/28/soros-...s-us-laws/

[Lauren Johnson]

The Saker has written a very long end of the year analysis that is a must read. This is his tentative prediction for next year:

2014 has been a historic year and so will be 2015, if only because 2014 set a great deal of things in motion, but resolved none of them. I have come to the conclusion that there is a 80% chance of a massive Ukrainian attack on Novorussia next year, probably in the first part of the year. My best guesstimate is that Novorussia will probably be able to beat back this attack, albeit with great effort and big losses. The Russian economy will continue to suffer and appear to be sinking for the next six months or so at which point it will gradually start reversing that trend. The EU economy will enter into full and deep recession resulting in widespread social unrest. As for the USA, they probably will be able to pretend like nothing big, not big disaster, is happening, if only thanks to the money printing machine and the best propaganda machine in history. What the US will be unable to do is to prevent the gradual but inexorable de-dollarization of more and more of the world economy, lead by China and Russia. The true and final collapse of the AngloZionist Empire is inevitable, but not for the next couple of years.

Now is an article that is another must read by Nikolai Starikov.

How long the West is willing to pay for the crumbling economy of Ukraine without guarantees of the beginning of its war with Russia? The Western strategy rule says: lost control over the territory - create the Antithesis.

It is possible to understand what is happening in Ukraine, it is much more difficult to evaluate and forecast the development of events. Whatever the case, it is necessary to consistently follow one rule: set emotions aside. Blood, death and destruction are the most serious emotional blows, but if you follow your emotions, neither proper assessment nor correct forecast will result.

Therefore, as hard it can be, set emotions aside. To assess the geopolitical game (and this is what we are looking at) we need only the head. Only conscious manipulators want you to think with your heart (and vote with your heart - as for Yeltsin in 1996).

The United States and the West are facing of the strongest crises in its history. The strength and depth of the problem are compounded by the fact that ... the West has won. It incorporated practically all of Europe, crushed, to varying degrees, the whole world with a few exceptions.

Therein lies the problem all its life the West lived by robbery. Now those who can be robbed are fewer and fewer, and those with whom it is necessary to share the "stolen goods", that is the standard of living that rests on unrestricted dollar emissions, are more and more. Hence the huge national debt. In the United States it is 18 trillion dollars, but such debts, and even worse ratios of the national debt to GDP, exist in all so-called developed countries.

What solution the US and its closest allies are looking for in this situation? It is now evident to everyone. The solution is war. Chaos. But this chaos and this war must lead to a "controlled collapse".

As a result the US must eliminate two threats to its power - China and Russia. Ideally, make them clash with each other. To do this the US need to change regime in one of these countries. Obviously, the Americans think that the regime change in Russia is an easier task.

The question is how to achieve this? Orange technologies did not work in 2011, Putin became president again.

What the West does when it loses in any territory is most important for understanding the events in Ukraine.

When we talk about a Western loss we mean the failure of its plans and loss of control over a certain area, full or partial.

What do the Western strategists do in such a situation?

1949. Britain is "kicked out" of India. Before leaving the British set up the Anti-India - a new state of Pakistan. Tensions, military conflicts between the new states ensue. In short, many opportunities for the Anglo-Saxons.

Again in 1949. As a result of the civil war in China, pro-Soviet Mao Zedong wins. The US lose control over China. What do they do? Create the Anti-China -Taiwan. Evacuate there the army of Chiang Kai-shek under the protection of the US Navy. Tensions, the permanent possibility of war between China and the Anti-China ensue. Tiananmen Square, 1989, Beijing - who can tell the "desperate" mainland Chinese from the agents of the Taiwanese special services?

Attention please. In the geopolitical game to grant a diplomatic recognition is to follow the current 'national' interests, and nothing more. First, the United States recognizes Taiwan as China. For those who do not know: until 1973 the representative of Taiwan at the United Nations was seated as the representative of China. But later Washington changes its position, recognizes Beijing and ceases to recognize Taipei. At the same time it strongly supports Taiwan and prevents the reunification of the two "Chinas"

Let's not stray far into history. The rule of the permanent Anglo-Saxon Western strategy states: lost control over the territory - create Antithesis.

In 2011 the West loses control of Russia - not completely yet, but its plans to deny Putin another presidential term fail. The dismantling of the fifth column begins, Russia strongly defends its interests in the world.

What is the West to do? Create Antithesis. That is the Anti-Russia.

And the Anglo-Saxons start creating it, the soil is prepared in Ukraine. Propaganda starts in 1991 and even earlier, militants are trained, money is allocated, the elite is bought and well fed.

According to the US plans, Yanukovych should be removed during the elections in 2015. Remove him in such a way as to launch anti-Russian hysteria and begin to create the Anti-Russia from Ukraine. Circumstances force an earlier start, but according to the main rule: not the peaceful departure of Yanukovych is required, but a bloody overthrow in order to blame Russia.

What is happening today in Ukraine is nothing more than the creation of the Anti-Russia. Propaganda, hate, readiness to destroy and kill on the part of the nationalists and some deceived common citizens.

Where do the US go with that? To war between Ukraine and Russia. On the "initiative" of Ukraine. When? When they pump up the Ukrainian army, equip it, create it, and prepare it. It will take about five years. After that the US will try to pit the two parts of the same nation against each other, set Ukraine against Russia. Occasion - Crimea.

Were the Crimea not reunited with Russia, it would still remain an excuse. Basing the Russian army in Crimea, pro-Russian population living there would give a lot of opportunities for the organization of conflicts and provocations. Therefore, regardless of the actions of Putin and the people of Crimea the Western plan would remain the same.

What can stop the development of this terrible scenario of sliding into a major war between brothers?

Support of those in Ukraine itself who do not agree with this turn of events.

The West creates the Anti-Russia, Russia must help and support the Anti-anti-Russia.

When in the Southeast of Ukraine the people who do not agree with the Kiev's coup rose up, few had a clear idea that they were "blocking the road" of such a terrible scenario. The presence of the Anti-anti-Russia as a part of a federalized Ukraine, refusing either to arm for the West, nor to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for it, blocked the Western plans to unleash the Ukrainian-Russian war. Remember the end of the spring of 2014?

Moscow's insistent calls for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, for federalization, for negotiations. Moscow needs a unified Ukraine, where the pro-Russian part of the society will "tie" the hands of the militants and bought politicians, and will not allow to draw the whole Ukrainian people into the war.

The West needs not the peace, not the prosperity of Ukraine. It needs a militarized state with an aggressive ideology in the form of hatred directed against Russia.

Kiev begins aggressive actions against Donbass. Immediately the propaganda about the "terrorists" and the Russian military starts. Military actions, conducted with cruelty to civilians, give the West two possibilities:

- To win by military means and then start the planned collapse of the economy of Ukraine as the beginning of its preparation for war with Russia. The well fed do not want to fight. The West can blame Russia for the difficulties and hardships, whereas the military service provides an income, albeit a tiny one;

- To draw Russia into war, forcing her to send troops into Ukraine. The defeat of the Ukrainian armed forces does not matter for the West. It wants not the victory but the war itself.

And the more Ukrainian citizens will die in the fratricidal war, the better for the West the rebellious Slavic nation eliminates itself. As a result of the war in Ukraine the West will try to repeat 1917 and "overthrow the bloody Kremlin regime." All of it in order to take the course toward preparation of the war between Russia and China.

And then a problem happened. Neither military success nor the military invasion by Russia and its participation in the civil conflict was achieved.

And then what? That's what.


The existence of the DNR and LNR as Anti-anti-Russia is the key to inability of the West to start a war between Ukraine and Russia.

The cannonball on its leg does not let the United States to push Kiev toward this Great War with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of victims.

That is why Moscow is helping Donbass in every way possible that is why Sergei Lavrov says that we are for the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

That is why Russia does not recognize the DNR and LNR as independent states. To recognize them, to let them secede means to launch countdown for war with Ukraine. In this scenario the Western plan kicks in: there is Russia, there is Anti-Russia, and there is Novorossia. Anti-anti-Russia is no more. In case of incorporation of Donbass into Russia, those in Washington will stand up and give a standing ovation. This is it: the war becomes practically inevitable. The image of Russia as the enemy is created by Russia itself.

In today's situation the Russian tactics in Ukraine are the only correct ones. US must pay to support 40 million people, Russia must help 3 million people in the Donbass and 1.5 million refugees. Moscow constantly insists on negotiations, not allowing the aggressor being shaped by the west to "remove the weight" from its leg, not allowing DNR and LNR to be defeated militarily.

How long will the West be willing to pay for the crumbling economy of Ukraine without guarantees to begin its war with Russia? These guys do nothing without a reason, they do not throw money away. Even to the militants in Chechnya in the 90's they gave no dollars, instead they gave them clichés for printing fake dollars.

Self-financing - is the principle of the Anglo-Saxon politics, in extreme cases a refund within a short period of time. A striking example: the Bolsheviks paying with Russia's gold through Swedish banks and the subsequent concessions, today's Libyan "freedom fighters" with the oil dollars leaving Libya for unknown destinations.

Time is of great importance today. The bet of the West to organize a new Maidan in Russia, now that the path to war in Ukraine was blocked by the courage and determination of the DNR and LNR militia fighters. The bet of Russia wait till the West loses its interest in Ukraine because of high costs without any tangible benefits.

Washington's desire to get "at least something" leads to the pressure on Europe and the paradoxical desire of the Europeans not to allow the construction of the "South Stream".

Paradox? No paradox. Washington wants to use the instability of Ukraine at least for a possibility of gas blackmail of Moscow. And Europe.

That is the essence of current and past events in Ukraine.

And the last thing I want to say in this regard.

Few in today's Ukraine understand what a tremendous role the courage of the Donbass residents plays in today's world politics. They are rescuing the entire Russian world today. And the paradox, they save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens.

The same children that today are "jumping" in Ukrainian schools, whose parents collect money for ATO, support the Kiev authorities, in case of defeat Donbass, in a very short period of time they will become gun fodder, according to the US plan.

That's what all of us need to remember, regardless of our current citizenship.

[David Guyatt]

Double standards on display again.

Any excuse is now used to ratchet up the war rhetoric by the US; it has become a joke, albeit a potentially deadly one.

There is also that unpleasant smell of pulling Europe further into the quagmire by forcing it to accept US re-deployment of nuclear armed cruise missiles in Europe again. It's all very unpleasant.

US and Russia in danger of returning to era of nuclear rivalry

American threats to retaliate for Russian development of new cruise missile take tensions to new level

• 
  
• • Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
    
  • The Guardian, Sunday 4 January 2015 18.00 GMT
    

A Russian nuclear-powered submarine at the Murmansk naval base. Photograph: Fedoseyev Lev/Itar-Tass Photo/Corbis

A widening rift between Moscow and Washington over cruise missiles and increasingly daring patrols by nuclear-capable Russian submarines threatens to end an era of arms control and bring back a dangerous rivalry between the world's two dominant nuclear arsenals.
Tensions have been taken to a new level by US threats of retaliatory action for Russian development of a new cruise missile. Washington alleges it violates one of the key arms control treaties of the cold war, and has raised the prospect of redeploying its own cruise missiles in Europe after a 23-year absence.
On Boxing Day, in one of the more visible signs of the unease, the US military launched the first of two experimental "blimps" over Washington. The system, known as JLENS, is designed to detect incoming cruise missiles. The North American Aerospace Command (Norad) did not specify the nature of the threat, but the deployment comes nine months after the Norad commander, General Charles Jacoby, admitted the Pentagon faced "some significant challenges" in countering cruise missiles, referring in particular to the threat of Russian attack submarines.
Those submarines, which have been making forays across the Atlantic, routinely carry nuclear-capable cruise missiles. In the light of aggressive rhetoric from Moscow and the expiry of treaty-based restrictions, there is uncertainty over whether those missiles are now carrying nuclear warheads.
The rise in tension comes at a time when the arms control efforts of the post-cold-war era are losing momentum. The number of strategic nuclear warheads deployed by the US and Russia actually increased last year, and both countries are spending many billions of dollars a year modernising their arsenals. Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and a failing economy, Vladimir Putin is putting increasing emphasis on nuclear weapons as guarantors and symbols of Russian influence. In a speech primarily about the Ukrainian conflict last summer, Putin pointedly referred to his country's nuclear arsenal and declared other countries "should understand it's best not to mess with us".
The Russian press has taken up the gung-ho tone. Pravda, the former mouthpiece of the Soviet regime, published an article in November titled "Russian prepares a nuclear surprise for Nato", which boasted of Russian superiority over the west, particularly in tactical nuclear weapons.
"The Americans are well aware of this," the commentary said. "They were convinced before that Russia would never rise again. Now it's too late."
Some of the heightened rhetoric appears to be bluster. The new version of the Russian military doctrine, published on 25 December, left its policy on nuclear weapons unchanged from four years earlier. They are to be used only in the event of an attack using weapons of mass destruction or a conventional weapon onslaught which "would put in danger the very existence of the state". It did not envisage a pre-emptive strike, as some in the military had proposed.
However, the new aggressive tone coincides with an extensive upgrading of Russia's nuclear weapons, reflecting Moscow's renewed determination to keep pace with the US arsenal. It will involve a substantial increase in the number of warheads loaded on submarines, as a result of the development of the multi-warhead Bulava sea-launched ballistic missile.
The modernisation also involves new or revived delivery systems. Last month Russia announced it would re-introduce nuclear missile trains, allowing intercontinental ballistic missiles to be moved about the country by rail so they would be harder to target.
There is also mounting western anxiety over Russian marketing abroad of a cruise missile called the Club-K, which can be concealed, complete with launcher, inside an innocuous-looking shipping container until the moment it is fired.
However, the development that has most alarmed Washington is Russian testing of a medium-range cruise missile which the Obama administration claims is a clear violation of the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty, the agreement that brought to an end the dangerous standoff between US and Russian cruise missiles in Europe. By hugging the contours of the Earth, cruise missiles can evade radar defences and hit strategic targets with little or no notice, raising fears on both sides of surprise pre-emptive attacks.
At a contentious congressional hearing on 10 December, Republicans criticised two of the administration's leading arms control negotiators, Rose Gottemoeller of the State Department and Brian McKeon of the Pentagon, for not responding earlier to the alleged Russian violation and for continuing to observe the INF treaty.
Gottemoeller said she had raised US concerns over the new missile "about a dozen times" with her counterparts in Moscow and Obama had written to Putin on the matter. She said the new Russian cruise missile which she did not identify but is reported to be the Iskander-K with a reach in the banned 500-5,500km range appeared to be ready for deployment.
The Russians have denied the existence of the missile and have responded with counter-allegations about American infringements of the INF treaty that Washington rejects.
McKeon said the Pentagon was looking at a variety of military responses to the Russian missile, including the deployment of an American equivalent weapon.
"We have a broad range of options, some of which would be compliant with the INF treaty, some of which would not be, that we would be able to recommend to our leadership if it decided to go down that path," McKeon said. He later added: "We don't have ground-launched cruise missiles in Europe now, obviously, because they are prohibited by the treaty but that would obviously be one option to explore."
Reintroducing cruise missiles into Europe would be politically fraught and divisive, but the Republican majority in Congress is pushing for a much more robust American response to the Russian missile.
The US military has also been rattled by the resurgence of the Russian submarine fleet. Moscow is building new generations of giant ballistic missile submarines, known as "boomers", and attack submarines that are equal or superior to their US counterparts in performance and stealth. From a low point in 2002, when the Russian navy managed to send out no underwater patrols at all, it is steadily rebounding and reasserting its global reach.
There have been sporadic reports in the US press about Russian submarines reaching the American east coast, which have been denied by the US military. But last year Jacoby, the head of Norad and the US northern command at the time, admitted concerns about being able to counter new Russian investment in cruise missile technology and advanced submarines.
"They have just begun production of a new class of quiet nuclear submarines specifically designed to deliver cruise missiles," Jacoby told Congress.
Peter Roberts, who retired from the Royal Navy a year ago after serving as a commanding officer and senior UK liaison officer with the US navy and intelligence services, said the transatlantic forays by Akula-class Russian attack submarines had become a routine event, at least once or twice a year.
"The Russians usually put out a sortie with an Akula or an Akula II around Christmas … It normally stops off Scotland, and then through the Bay of Biscay and out over the Atlantic. It will have nuclear-capable missiles on it," he said.
Roberts, who is now senior research fellow for sea power and maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said the appearance of a periscope off the western coast of Scotland, which triggered a Nato submarine hunt last month, was a sign of the latest such Russian foray.
He said the Russian attack submarine was most likely heading for the US coast. "They go across to eastern seaboard, usually to watch the carrier battle groups work up [go on exercises].
"It's something the Americans have been trying to brush off but there is increasing concern about the American ability to … track these subs. Their own anti-sub skills have declined, while we have all been focused on landlocked operations, in Afghanistan and so on."
The Akula is being superseded by an even stealthier submarine, the Yasen. Both are multipurpose: hunter-killers designed to track and destroy enemy submarine and carrier battle groups. Both are also armed with land-attack cruise missiles, currently the Granat, capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
On any given sortie, Roberts said, "it is completely unknown whether they are nuclear-tipped".
A Russian media report described the Akula as carrying Granat missiles with 200-kilotonne warheads, but the reliability of the report is hard to gauge.
The US and Russia removed cruise missiles from their submarines after the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction treaty (Start), but that expired at the end of 2009. Its successor, New Start, signed by Obama and the then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, in 2010 does not include any such limitation, nor does it even allow for continued exchange of information about cruise missile numbers.
Pavel Podvig, a senior research fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research and the leading independent analyst of Russian nuclear forces, said: "The bottom line is that we don't know, but it's safe to say that it's quite possible that Russian subs carry nuclear SLCMs [submarine-launched cruise missiles].
Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and founding publisher of ArmsControlWonk.com, believes the JLENS blimps are primarily a response to a Russian move to start rearming attack submarines with nuclear weapons.
"For a long time, the Russians have been saying they would do this and now it looks like they have," Lewis said. He added that the fact that data exchange on cruise missiles was allowed to expire under the New Start treaty is a major failing that has increased uncertainty.
The Russian emphasis on cruise missiles is in line with Putin's strategy of "de-escalation", which involves countering Nato's overwhelming conventional superiority with the threat of a limited nuclear strike that would inflict "tailored damage" on an adversary.
Lewis argues that Putin's accentuation of Russia's nuclear capabilities is aimed at giving him room for manoeuvre in Ukraine and possibly other neighbouring states.
"The real reason he talks about how great they are is he saying: I'm going to go ahead and invade Ukraine and you're going to look the other way. As long as I don't call it an invasion, you're going to look at my nuclear weapons and say I don't want to push this,'" he said.
With both the US and Russia modernising their arsenals and Russia investing increasing importance its nuclear deterrent, Hans Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said we are facing a period of "deepening military competition".
He added: "It will bring very little added security, but a lot more nervous people on both sides."

[David Guyatt]

Keep peddling lies and do not, ever, admit the truth.

From The Consortium:

NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine

January 6, 2015

Exclusive: The New York Times keeps insisting that last year's Ukrainian coup wasn't a coup and anyone who thinks so lives inside "the Russian propaganda bubble." But a slanted Times "investigation" shows that the newspaper remains lost inside the U.S. government's "propaganda bubble," writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
During my years at Newsweek in the late 1980s, when I would propose correcting some misguided conventional wisdom, I'd often be told, "let's leave that one for the historians," with the magazine not wanting to challenge an erroneous storyline that all the important people "knew" to be true. And if false narratives only affected the past, one might argue my editors had a point. There's always a lot of current news to cover.
But most false narratives are not really about the past; they are about how the public perceives the present and addresses the future. And it should fall to journalists to do their best to explain this background information even if it embarrasses powerful people and institutions, including the news organizations themselves.

The neo-Nazi Wolfsangel symbol on a banner in Ukraine.

Yet, rather than take on that difficult task, most major news outlets prefer to embroider onto their existing tapestry of misinformation, fitting today's reporting onto the misshapen fabric of yesterday's. They rarely start from scratch and admit the earlier work was wrong.
So, how does the mainstream U.S. news media explain the Ukraine crisis after essentially falsifying the historical record for the past year? Well, if you're the New York Times, you keep on spinning the old storyline, albeit with a few adjustments.
For instance, on Sunday, the Times published a lengthy article that sought to sustain the West's insistence that the coup overthrowing elected President Viktor Yanukovych wasn't really a coup just the crumbling of his government in the face of paramilitary violence from the street with rumors of worse violence to come though that may sound to you pretty much like a coup. Still, the Times does make some modifications to Yanukovych's image.
In the article, Yanukovych is recast from a brutal autocrat willfully having his police slaughter peaceful protesters into a frightened loser whose hand was "shaking" as he signed a Feb. 21 agreement with European diplomats, agreeing to reduce his powers and hold early elections, a deal that was cast aside on Feb. 22 when armed neo-Nazi militias overran presidential and parliamentary offices.
Defining a Coup
One might wonder what the New York Times thinks a coup looks like. Indeed, the Ukrainian coup had many of the same earmarks as such classics as the CIA-engineered regime changes in Iran in 1953 and in Guatemala in 1954.
The way those coups played out is now historically well known. Secret U.S. government operatives planted nasty propaganda about the target leader, stirred up political and economic chaos, conspired with rival political leaders, spread rumors of worse violence to come and then as political institutions collapsed chased away the duly elected leader before welcoming the new "legitimate" order.
In Iran, that meant reinstalling the autocratic Shah who then ruled with a heavy hand for the next quarter century; in Guatemala, the coup led to more than three decades of brutal military regimes and the killing of some 200,000 Guatemalans.
Coups don't have to involve army tanks occupying the public squares, although that is an alternative model which follows many of the same initial steps except that the military is brought in at the end. The military coup was a common approach especially in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s.
But the preferred method in more recent years has been the "color revolution," which operates behind the façade of a "peaceful" popular uprising and international pressure on the targeted leader to show restraint until it's too late to stop the coup. Despite the restraint, the leader is still accused of gross human rights violations, all the better to justify his removal.
Later, the ousted leader may get an image makeover; instead of a cruel bully, he is ridiculed for not showing sufficient resolve and letting his base of support melt away, as happened with Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran and Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
The Ukraine Reality
The reality of what happened in Ukraine was never hard to figure out. George Friedman, the founder of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, called the overthrow of Yanukovych "the most blatant coup in history." It's just that the major U.S. news organizations were either complicit in the events or incompetent in describing them to the American people.
The first step in this process was to obscure that the motive for the coup pulling Ukraine out of Russia's economic orbit and capturing it in the European Union's gravity field was actually announced by influential American neocons in 2013.
On Sept. 26, 2013, National Endowment for Democracy President Carl Gershman, who has become a major neocon paymaster, took to the op-ed page of the neocon Washington Post and called Ukraine "the biggest prize" and an important interim step toward toppling Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At the time, Gershman, whose NED is funded by the U.S. Congress to the tune of about $100 million a year, was financing scores of projects inside Ukraine training activists, paying for journalists and organizing business groups.
As for that even bigger prize Putin Gershman wrote: "Ukraine's choice to join Europe will accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents. … Russians, too, face a choice, and Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself."
At that time, in early fall 2013, Ukraine's President Yanukovych was exploring the idea of reaching out to Europe with an association agreement. But he got cold feet in November 2013 when economic experts in Kiev advised him that the Ukrainian economy would suffer a $160 billion hit if it separated from Russia, its eastern neighbor and major trading partner. There was also the West's demand that Ukraine accept a harsh austerity plan from the International Monetary Fund.
Yanukovych wanted more time for the EU negotiations, but his decision angered many western Ukrainians who saw their future more attached to Europe than Russia. Tens of thousands of protesters began camping out at Maidan Square in Kiev, with Yanukovych ordering the police to show restraint.
Meanwhile, with Yanukovych shifting back toward Russia, which was offering a more generous $15 billion loan and discounted natural gas, he soon became the target of American neocons and the U.S. media, which portrayed Ukraine's political unrest as a black-and-white case of a brutal and corrupt Yanukovych opposed by a saintly "pro-democracy" movement.
The Maidan uprising was urged on by American neocons, including Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who passed out cookies at the Maidan and told Ukrainian business leaders that the United States had invested $5 billion in their "European aspirations."
In the weeks before the coup, according to an intercepted phone call, Nuland discussed with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt who should lead the future regime. Nuland said her choice was Arseniy Yatsenyuk. "Yats is the guy," she told Pyatt as he pondered how to "midwife this thing."
Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, also showed up, standing on stage with right-wing extremists from the Svoboda Party and telling the crowd that the United States was with them in their challenge to the Ukrainian government.
As the winter progressed, the protests grew more violent. Neo-Nazi and other extremist elements from Lviv and western Ukrainian cities began arriving in well-organized brigades or "sotins" of 100 trained street fighters. Police were attacked with firebombs and other weapons as the violent protesters began seizing government buildings and unfurling Nazi banners and even a Confederate flag.
Though Yanukovych continued to order his police to show restraint, he was still depicted in the major U.S. news media as a brutal thug who was callously murdering his own people. The chaos reached a climax on Feb. 20 when mysterious snipers opened fire on police and some protesters, killing scores. As police retreated, the militants advanced brandishing firearms and other weapons. The confrontation led to significant loss of life, pushing the death toll to around 80 including more than a dozen police.
U.S. diplomats and the mainstream U.S. press immediately blamed Yanukovych for the sniper attack, though the circumstances remain murky to this day and some investigations have suggested that the lethal sniper fire came from buildings controlled by Right Sektor extremists.
To tamp down the worsening violence, a shaken Yanukovych signed a European-brokered deal on Feb. 21, in which he accepted reduced powers and an early election so he could be voted out of office. He also agreed to requests from Vice President Joe Biden to pull back the police.
The precipitous police withdrawal then opened the path for the neo-Nazis and other street fighters to seize presidential offices and force Yanukovych's people to flee for their lives. Yanukovych traveled to eastern Ukraine and the new coup regime that took power and was immediately declared "legitimate" by the U.S. State Department sought Yanukovych's arrest for murder. Nuland's favorite, Yatsenyuk, became the new prime minister.
Media Bias
Throughout the crisis, the mainstream U.S. press hammered home the theme of white-hatted protesters versus a black-hatted president. The police were portrayed as brutal killers who fired on unarmed supporters of "democracy." The good-guy/bad-guy narrative was all the American people heard from the major media.
The New York Times went so far as to delete the slain policemen from the narrative and simply report that the police had killed all those who died in the Maidan. A typical Times report on March 5, 2014, summed up the storyline: "More than 80 protesters were shot to death by the police as an uprising spiraled out of control in mid-February."
The mainstream U.S. media also sought to discredit anyone who observed the obvious fact that an unconstitutional coup had just occurred. A new theme emerged that portrayed Yanukovych as simply deciding to abandon his government because of the moral pressure from the noble and peaceful Maidan protests.
Any reference to a "coup" was dismissed as "Russian propaganda." There was a parallel determination in the U.S. media to discredit or ignore evidence that neo-Nazi militias had played an important role in ousting Yanukovych and in the subsequent suppression of anti-coup resistance in eastern and southern Ukraine. That opposition among ethnic-Russian Ukrainians simply became "Russian aggression."
This refusal to notice what was actually a remarkable story the willful unleashing of Nazi storm troopers on a European population for the first time since World War II reached absurd levels as the New York Times and the Washington Post buried references to the neo-Nazis at the end of stories, almost as afterthoughts.
The Washington Post went to the extreme of rationalizing Swastikas and other Nazi symbols by quoting one militia commander as calling them "romantic" gestures by impressionable young men. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Ukraine's Romantic' Neo-Nazi Storm Troopers."]
Yet, despite the best efforts of the Times, the Post and other mainstream outlets to conceal this ugly reality from the American people, alternative news sources presenting a more realistic account of what was happening in Ukraine began to chip away at the preferred narrative.
Instead of buying the big media's storyline, many Americans were coming to realize that the reality was much more complicated and that they were again being sold a bill of propaganda goods.
Denying a Coup
To the rescue rode the New York Times on Sunday, presenting what was portrayed as a detailed, granular "investigation" of how there was no coup in Ukraine and reaffirming the insistence that only Moscow stooges would think such a thing.
"Russia has attributed Mr. Yanukovych's ouster to what it portrays as a violent, neo-fascist' coup supported and even choreographed by the West and dressed up as a popular uprising," wrote Andrew Higgins and Andrew E. Kramer."Few outside the Russian propaganda bubble ever seriously entertained the Kremlin's line. But almost a year after the fall of Mr. Yanukovych's government, questions remain about how and why it collapsed so quickly and completely."
The Times' article concluded that Yanukovych "was not so much overthrown as cast adrift by his own allies, and that Western officials were just as surprised by the meltdown as anyone else. The allies' desertion, fueled in large part by fear, was accelerated by the seizing by protesters of a large stock of weapons in the west of the country. But just as important, the review of the final hours shows, was the panic in government ranks created by Mr. Yanukovych's own efforts to make peace."
Yet, what is particularly curious about this article is that it ignores the substantial body of evidence that the U.S. officials were instrumental in priming the crisis and fueling the ultimate ouster of Yanukovych. For instance, the Times makes no reference to the multitude of U.S.-financed political projects in Ukraine including scores by Gershman's NED, nor the extraordinary intervention by Assistant Secretary of State Nuland.
Nuland's encouragement to those challenging the elected government of Ukraine would surely merit mentioning, one would think. But it disappears from the Times' version of history. Perhaps even more amazing there is no reference to the Nuland-Pyatt phone call, though Pyatt was interviewed for the article.
Even if the Times wanted to make excuses for the Nuland-Pyatt scheming claiming perhaps it didn't prove that they were coup-plotting you would think the infamous phone call would deserve at least a mention. But Nuland isn't referenced anywhere. Nor is Gershman. Nor is McCain.
The most useful part of the Times' article is its description of the impact from a raid by anti-Yanukovych militias in the western city of Lviv on a military arsenal and the belief that the guns were headed to Kiev to give the uprising greater firepower.
The Times reports that "European envoys met at the German Embassy with Andriy Parubiy, the chief of the protesters' security forces, and told him to keep the Lviv guns away from Kiev. We told him: "Don't let these guns come to Kiev. If they come, that will change the whole situation,"' Mr. Pyatt recalled telling Mr. Parubiy, who turned up for the meeting wearing a black balaclava.
"In a recent interview in Kiev, Mr. Parubiy denied that the guns taken in Lviv ever got to Kiev, but added that the prospect that they might have provided a powerful lever to pressure both Mr. Yanukovych's camp and Western governments. I warned them that if Western governments did not take firmer action against Yanukovych, the whole process could gain a very threatening dimension,' he said.
"Andriy Tereschenko, a Berkut [police] commander from Donetsk who was holed up with his men in the Cabinet Ministry, the government headquarters in Kiev, said that 16 of his men had already been shot on Feb. 18 and that he was terrified by the rumors of an armory of automatic weapons on its way from Lviv. It was already an armed uprising, and it was going to get worse,' he said. We understood why the weapons were taken, to bring them to Kiev.'"
The Times leaves out a fuller identification of Parubiy. Beyond serving as the chief of the Maidan "self-defense forces," Parubiy was a notorious neo-Nazi, the founder of the Social-National Party of Ukraine (and the national security chief for the post-coup regime). But "seeing no neo-Nazis" in Ukraine had become a pattern for the New York Times.
Still, the journalistic question remains: what does the New York Times think a coup looks like? You have foreign money, including from the U.S. government, pouring into Ukraine to finance political and propaganda operations. You have open encouragement to the coup-makers from senior American officials.
You have hundreds of trained and armed paramilitary fighters dispatched to Kiev from Lviv and other western cities. You have the seizure of an arsenal amid rumors that these more powerful weapons are being distributed to these paramilitaries. You have international pressure on the elected president to pull back his security forces, even as Western propaganda portrays him as a mass murderer.
Anyone who knows about the 1954 Guatemala coup would remember that a major element of that CIA operation was a disinformation campaign, broadcast over CIA-financed radio stations, about a sizeable anti-government force marching on Guatemala City, thus spooking the Arbenz government to collapse and Arbenz to flee.
But the Times article is not a serious attempt to study the Ukraine coup. If it had been, it would have looked seriously at the substantial evidence of Western interference and into other key facts, such as the identity of the Feb. 20 snipers. Instead, the article was just the latest attempt to pretend that the coup really wasn't a coup.

[David Guyatt]

A surprise announcement about the closure of USAF (RAF) Mildenhall in Suffolk, the whole thing is being redeployed to Germany.

What's planned for our region's US airbases: the details

The airbases affected by the US announcementPhoto: ITV AngliaThe closure of RAF Mildenhall is the main headline in the announcement from the Pentagon.
The Suffolk base - which is home to special operation forces, air refuelling tankers and 3200 personnel - will close and most of its work move to Germany.
Here's a list of what's planned:

• RAF Mildenhall - to close - it's KC-135 re-fuelling planes and the 352nd Special Operations Wing move to Germany. The RC-135 reconnaissance planes will stay in the UK.
  
• RAF Alconbury/RAF Molesworth - to close. Most US personnel based there will be transferred to RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire.
  
• RAF Lakenheath - to get two squadrons of F-35s from 2020.
  

[Magda Hassan]

Well who is going to protect the British from the nasty invading Russians now?

This is good news for the UK but bad news for Germany. I'm not sure of the state of things exactly but pretty sure that the US (and possibly UK and France) can do as they wish there under post ww2 treaty terms. Merkel and the German people will just have to wear it regardless if they do not want the unwelcome visitors.

[David Guyatt]

It seems pretty transparent that defence chiefs are using this story to apply pressure to the government to fund a new line of anti-submarine aircraft --- presumably US manufactured, so that everyone on both sides of the Atlantic will be in clover.

MoD asks for American help in searching for Russian submarine near Scotland



Britain is lacking anti-submarine patrol aircraft

JAMIE MERRILL

Thursday 08 January 2015

The Ministry of Defence has been forced to request US military assistance to track a suspected Russian submarine off the coast of Scotland.

Two US Navy aircraft have been conducting anti-submarine patrols in the north Atlantic this week on the trail of a Russian vessel in the area. A Royal Navy frigate has also been dispatched. It is believed the Russian presence could be linked to the reported departure of one of the Royal Navy's Vanguard-class nuclear submarines from Faslane naval base at Gare Loch on the River Clyde. Vanguards carry Trident ballistic missiles.
Two American P3 Orion maritime patrol aeroplanes were called in to fill what defence experts described as a "gaping chasm" in Britain's anti-submarine capability following the scrapping of the RAF's £4bn fleet of Nimrod surveillance aircraft in 2010.
Angus Robertson, the Scottish National Party's defence spokesman and MP for Moray, said the US deployment showed that Britain had resorted to going to its allies with a "begging bowl".
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Defence analysts said it raised questions about the UK's ability adequately to protect its nuclear submarines. Sources said "visits" from Russian subs were "happening quite often" off the north and west coasts of Scotland.
This week's operation follows a deployment last month by maritime patrol aircraft from Canada, France and the US, first revealed in Aviation Week magazine. On that occasion, it was suggested that a suspected Russian submarine may have been trying to track one of Britain's four Vanguard-class boats after a fishing trawler spotted an "unknown submarine periscope" close to Faslane.
In this week's search, the US crews co-ordinated with the anti-submarine frigate HMS Somerset, which has been operating off Scotland for a month. According to an aviation photographer at RAF Lossiemouth, the US aircraft, known as Skinny Dragons and usually based in Hawaii, have been flying up to two missions a day since New Year's Eve.
Peter Roberts, a senior fellow of the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said: "HMS Somersetis a capable platform and I have no doubt that her deployment alongside these US Navy aircraft is related to the reported departure of a Royal Navy Vanguard ballistic missile submarine from Faslane, and the countering of any Russian deployment from over the horizon."
The Ministry of Defence has enlisted the help of the US military to search for a Russian submarine near Scotland (Getty Images)
Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear policy expert with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said: "I would put my money on it being a Russian attack submarine with cruise missiles on a patrol taking it past Britain and into the north Atlantic and on the US eastern seaboard. The Russians are trying to threaten Nato and Nato is threatening them right back by showing that we can shadow them, and that if they tried this for real we would be able to kill them."
However, the US intervention has raised questions about Britain's ability to protect its nuclear fleet. Mr Roberts said: "Ministry of Defence chiefs have been scratching their heads ever since Nimrod was scrapped in a highly political decision. It has left a gaping chasm in the UK's capabilities and left us highly dependent on co-operation from our allies."
Plans to equip the RAF with the BAE Systems Nimrod MRA4 aircraft were cancelled in 2010 as a result of the Strategic Defence and Security Review, at which point the project was £789m over-budget and more than nine years late.

The MRA4 was intended to replace the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod MR2, which had been in service since 1969. Its main job would have been to ensure that no foreign submarines could track Royal Navy vessels coming in and out of Faslane. All of the ageing Nimrods, and their planned replacements, were withdrawn despite a National Audit Office ruling that the loss of the aircraft would have "an adverse effect on the protection of the strategic nuclear deterrent".
A spokesman for the MoD said: "Tough decisions had to be taken in order to rebalance the Defence budget, which included removing the Nimrod MR2 from service. However, maritime surveillance is provided through a combination of layered capabilities including surface ships, submarines, and air assets such as the RAF Hercules which searched for the missing yacht Cheeki Rafiki in May. The UK continues to work closely with its NATO allies in the operation of Maritime Patrol Aircraft."

[David Guyatt]

From Boiling Frogs Post

BFP Exclusive: A Rothschild Plot against Putin?

FILIP KOVACEVIC | JANUARY 8, 20151 COMMENT
The elaboration of the tightly-knit business links between Oleg Deripaska & Nathaniel RothschildPrologue
More than six years ago, on October 1, 2008, with the 2008 presidential elections just a month away, the left-wing Nation magazine published an article entitled "McCain's Kremlin ties".[i] This article investigated the ties between one of the richest and politically most powerful persons in Russia, the husband of Boris Yeltsin's grand-daughter, Oleg Deripaska and the long-time US Senator and, at the time, the Republican presidential candidate John McCain.
The article made much of a meeting between Deripaska and McCain in the coastal Montenegrin town of Kotor on August 30, 2006. Allegedly, McCain celebrated his 70th birthday on board of Deripaska's multi-million dollar yacht Queen K, which at the time was anchored there.
As the member of the six-person US Senate Republican delegation visiting several European countries, McCain made a stop in Montenegro to give support to US ideological and political assets/vassals, including the Speaker of the Parliament Ranko Krivokapic.[ii] It appears, however, that McCain had also other appointments to keep.
Still, from my perspective, the equally important part of the article is the elaboration of the tightly-knit business links between Deripaska and Nathaniel Rothschild, the only son and heir of Lord Jacob Rothschild who, as the New York Times claimed in 2007, may become "the richest Rothschild" yet.[iii] The article notes that the lobbying of the US corporate intelligence company Diligence, partially owned by Rothschild, helped Deripaska receive an important loan from the World Bank/EBRD.
More generally, the young Rothschild, known to promote a radical transnational neoliberal agenda, has been very active in helping Deripaska cultivate friendly relations with the influential British and US politicians. He had also helped McCain's bid for presidency, having hosting, together with his father, a McCain fundraiser at London's prestigious Spencer House in March 2008.[iv]
That same year, the close ties between Deripaska and Rothschild led to the eruption of another scandal. This time the target was an EU rather than a US politician. The British Labor politician Peter Mandelson, the EU Commissioner for Trade, met with Rothschild and Deripaska on board of Deripaska's yacht (just like McCain earlier), only this time not in Montenegro, but in Greece (the island of Corfu where Rothschild owns an estate). It was alleged that they talked about EU import tariff reductions which would favor Deripaska's alluminum business.[v]
Both sides denied the reports, but, as the British Conservatives continued to complain, Rothschild wrote an open letter to the media, stating that Mandelson's Conservative 'shadow government' counterpart John Osborne was not only also present at the meeting, but even tried to solicit a donation from Deripaska for the Conservative party.[vi]
Obviously, this only stoked the fires of the scandal further with mutual accusations flaring. It also revealed to what extent major British politicians have been under the sway of powerful but secretive business monopolies. And to what extent democracy (the rule of the people) in the West has become a pipe dream.
In relation to this and other Mandelson's dealings with Deripaska, in 2010 Rothschild was named "a puppet master" by the British tabloid Daily Mail, the designation he considered libelous and which led to his suit against the newspaper. However, the High Court judge Michael Tugenhadt thought otherwise and Rothschild lost the case in 2012.[vii]
Deripaska's and Rothschild's friendship is also strongly affirmed by their joint business investments in Montenegro. They make an excellent rule-despising company to the corrupt Montenegrin prime minister and regional mafia strongman Milo Djukanovic. Thanks to his friendship with Djukanovic, Rothschild was granted Montenegrin citizenship in what was an extremely nontransparent manner. This citizenship can offer him protection from the eventual EU or Russian criminal prosecution.[viii]
The Plotters?
In 2014, the geopolitical situation in Europe has radically changed. Russia found itself exposed to the brutal US-EU sanctions and the pressure of NATO covert intelligence and military operations. As many observers have pointed out, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Russia is at stake and the President Vladimir Putin is doing his utmost to rise above the momentous challenge.
However, without paying very careful attention to the activities of his inner circle of oligarchs, Putin will probably not be successful. Precisely because of his close ties with Rothschild and the enormous profits both had derived from the transnational neoliberal agenda, Deripaska seems to me as the person most likely to turn against Putin at some crucial moment in near future.
Several years ago, Deripaska himself admitted in an interview on BBC that he was already pressured by the US intelligence agencies to cooperate with them against Russian interests.[ix] He claimed that he had refused and that his US visa was revoked as a result. However, this time around, when Putin is being marketed in the US-EU as Hitler's younger brother, he may be offered much more to change sides. Perhaps even the presidency of Russia. After all, he is a member of the Yeltsin dynasty.
In fact, the turning of the Russian economy toward controlled markets and import substitution, which is necessary if Russia is to protect its sovereignty, will make persons like Deripaska appear anachronistic. Their tremendous riches will seem to the vast majority of the ordinary Russian people as the unpleasant remainders of the unjust past they would rather forget and move on. This will make Deripaska's position even more precarious and make him even more willing to act on behalf of the neoliberal world order which made him a billionaire but which Putin must of necessity wreck.
So far, Putin acts as if he noticed no danger. In November 2014, Deripaska was included in the Russian business delegation at APEC summit in Beijing and was a moderator of Putin's speech at the occasion.[x] But with Rothschild ever present in Deripaska's favorite haunts in Switzerland, Greece, Montenegro and elsewhere in Europe, the danger will only grow over time. Forewarned is forearmed.
# # # #Filip Kovacevic, Boiling Frogs Post contributing author and analyst, is a geopolitical author, university professor and the chairman of the Movement for Neutrality of Montenegro. He received his BA and PhD in political science in the US and was a visiting professor at St. Petersburg State University in Russia for two years. He is the author of seven books, dozens of academic articles. He has been invited to lecture throughout the EU, Balkans, ex-USSR and the US. He currently resides in San Francisco, and can be contacted at fk1917@yahoo.com

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