Brzezinski Backs Away from US Global Dominance - Says Let's Make Frieds with Russia & China

[David Guyatt]

Colour me shocked. Shocked!

The architect of US world domination, the blighted experimental madness that he wanted to foist on us all, has recanted.

I'm going to rename him Paul Brzezinski...

Friendship and fair trade. Anyone see anything wrong with that equation? For me it's common sense.

Anyway, I can easily see how the main media is skirting the interview.

AUGUST 25, 2016

The Broken Chessboard: Brzezinski Gives Up on Empire

by MIKE WHITNEY

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Photograph courtesy of Munich Security Conference, distributed under a CC-BY 2.0 license.

The main architect of Washington's plan to rule the world has abandoned the scheme and called for the forging of ties with Russia and China. While Zbigniew Brzezinski's article in The American Interest titled "Towards a Global Realignment" has largely been ignored by the media, it shows that powerful members of the policymaking establishment no longer believe that Washington will prevail in its quest to extent US hegemony across the Middle East and Asia. Brzezinski, who was the main proponent of this idea and who drew up the blueprint for imperial expansion in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, has done an about-face and called for a dramatic revising of the strategy. Here's an excerpt from the article in the AI:

"As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture.
Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signaling the coming of a new global realignment.
The first of these verities is that the United States is still the world's politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power." (Toward a Global Realignment, Zbigniew Brzezinski, The American Interest)

Repeat: The US is "no longer the globally imperial power." Compare this assessment to a statement Brzezinski made years earlier in Chessboard when he claimed the US was " the world's paramount power."

"…The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever, a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as a key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as the world's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power." ("The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives," Zbigniew Brzezinski, Basic Books, 1997, p. xiii)

Here's more from the article in the AI:

"The fact is that there has never been a truly "dominant" global power until the emergence of America on the world scene….. The decisive new global reality was the appearance on the world scene of America as simultaneously the richest and militarily the most powerful player. During the latter part of the 20th century no other power even came close. That era is now ending." (AI)

But why is "that era is now ending"? What's changed since 1997 when Brzezinski referred to the US as the "world's paramount power"?
Brzezinski points to the rise of Russia and China, the weakness of Europe and the "violent political awakening among post-colonial Muslims" as the proximate causes of this sudden reversal. His comments on Islam are particularly instructive in that he provides a rational explanation for terrorism rather than the typical government boilerplate about "hating our freedoms." To his credit, Brzezinski sees the outbreak of terror as the "welling up of historical grievances" (from "deeply felt sense of injustice") not as the mindless violence of fanatical psychopaths.
Naturally, in a short 1,500-word article, Brzezniski can't cover all the challenges (or threats) the US might face in the future. But it's clear that what he's most worried about is the strengthening of economic, political and military ties between Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and the other Central Asian states. This is his main area of concern, in fact, he even anticipated this problem in 1997 when he wrote Chessboard. Here's what he said:

"Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power." (p.55)
"…To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." (p.40)

"…prevent collusion…among the vassals." That says it all, doesn't it?
The Obama administration's reckless foreign policy, particularly the toppling of governments in Libya and Ukraine, has greatly accelerated the rate at which these anti-American coalitions have formed. In other words, Washington's enemies have emerged in response to Washington's behavior. Obama can only blame himself.
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin has responded to the growing threat of regional instability and the placing of NATO forces on Russia's borders by strengthening alliances with countries on Russia's perimeter and across the Middle East. At the same time, Putin and his colleagues in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, Iran, China and South Africa) countries have established an alternate banking system (BRICS Bank and AIIB) that will eventually challenge the dollar-dominated system that is the source of US global power. This is why Brzezinski has done a quick 180 and abandoned the plan for US hegemony; it is because he is concerned about the dangers of a non-dollar-based system arising among the developing and unaligned countries that would replace the western Central Bank oligopoly. If that happens, then the US will lose its stranglehold on the global economy and the extortionist system whereby fishwrap greenbacks are exchanged for valuable goods and services will come to an end.
Unfortunately, Brzezinski's more cautious approach is not likely to be followed by presidential-favorite Hillary Clinton who is a firm believer in imperial expansion through force of arms. It was Clinton who first introduced "pivot" to the strategic lexicon in a speech she gave in 2010 titled "America's Pacific Century". Here's an excerpt from the speech that appeared in Foreign Policy magazine:

"As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise in the Asia-Pacific region…
Harnessing Asia's growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology…..American firms (need) to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia…
The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama's goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia…and our investment opportunities in Asia's dynamic markets."
("America's Pacific Century", Secretary of State Hillary Clinton", Foreign Policy Magazine, 2011)

Compare Clinton's speech to comments Brzezinski made in Chessboard 14 years earlier:

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia… (p.30)….. Eurasia is the globe's largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world's three most advanced and economically productive regions. ….About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources." (p.31)

The strategic objectives are identical, the only difference is that Brzezinski has made a course correction based on changing circumstances and the growing resistance to US bullying, domination and sanctions. We have not yet reached the tipping point for US primacy, but that day is fast approaching and Brzezinski knows it.
In contrast, Clinton is still fully-committed to expanding US hegemony across Asia. She doesn't understand the risks this poses for the country or the world. She's going to persist with the interventions until the US war-making juggernaut is stopped dead-in-its-tracks which, judging by her hyperbolic rhetoric, will probably happen some time in her first term.
Brzezinski presents a rational but self-serving plan to climb-down, minimize future conflicts, avoid a nuclear conflagration and preserve the global order. (akaThe "dollar system") But will bloodthirsty Hillary follow his advice?
Not a chance.

Source

[Drew Phipps]

There is also this factor, but I have no idea if Brzezinski considered this as a factor: The US is no longer as energy-dependent upon petroleum from the Middle East as it was in the 90'S and early Ought's. At this point efficiency gains, alternative energies, and domestic production, have all ramped up so that the US could be energy-independent. In fact, Congress just recently (2016) lifted the ban on exporting US petroleum.

Of course, allowing other nations to dominate or control the resources of Eurasia would be really short-sighted if the US were to (by future inaction) fail to maintain its own energy independence.

[David Guyatt]

I'm posting below Brzezinski's full interview and article, but no Drew, this doesn't appear to be about US domestic independence of oil but, as the foregoing article suggests, it's more about the near future loss of singular reserve currency status, once the BRICS currency comes on stream.

I note that in the below, he rather subtly looks to future US administrations ("a constructive U S policy must be guided by a long range vision) to ensure that (a post Putin) Russia becomes convinced that its future is in Europe and not with China and the whole of Eurasia - which, of course, weakens and inhibits both Russia and China's strategic plan for the future.

My take on this is that he truly fears that the Sino-Russian Eurasian ambition, should it fully emerge, would in the long term relegate the US to a secondary, rather than a primary player. And, of course, this is more or less why he made such a big point about Eurasia in his Grand Chessboard book. Thus, his new strategy as set out in this article hopes to foresee a tripartite world equally balanced between these three great powers.

But why would Russia and China give up their plan to suit the US that has spend decades working towards their ruin? That, at least, would be the question I think the Russian and Chinese would ask themselves. Maybe I'm wrong, but his general tenor seems to me to one of now trying to preserve something for the US out of the future.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Toward a Global Realignment?






*NOTE: The content below is presented here for reasons of gaining an insightful look into the eyes and mind of the establishments champion Zbigniew Brzezinski;


Brzezinski's lays out his advice regarding geopolitical and economic conquest in the 21st Century.


There are some very interesting admissions by Zbigniew Brzezinski in the video and text below that also clarifies the western establishments position while shedding light on the way they perceive the ongoing geopolitical conflicts throughout the world.


Reflections on Global History in the 20th Century: Towards a New Vision for the 21st Century 2 (Dec 14, 2015)



Toward a Global Realignment


By: Zbigniew Brzezinski


As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture.


Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signaling the coming of a new global realignment.


The first of these verities is that the United States is still the world's politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power. But neither is any other major power.


The second verity is that Russia is experiencing the latest convulsive phase of its imperial devolution. A painful process, Russia is not fatally precluded if it acts wisely from becoming eventually a leading European nation-state. However, currently it is pointlessly alienating some of its former subjects in the Islamic southwest of its once extensive empire, as well as Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia, not to mention the Baltic States.


The third verity is that China is rising steadily, if more slowly as of late, as America's eventual coequal and likely rival; but for the time being it is careful not to pose an outright challenge to America. Militarily, it seems to be seeking a breakthrough in a new generation of weapons while patiently enhancing its still very limited naval power.


The fourth verity is that Europe is not now and is not likely to become a global power. But it can play a constructive role in taking the lead in regard to transnational threats to global wellbeing and even human survival. Additionally, Europe is politically and culturally aligned with and supportive of core U.S. interests in the Middle East, and European steadfastness within NATO is essential to an eventually constructive resolution of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.


The fifth verity is that the currently violent political awakening among post-colonial Muslims is, in part, a belated reaction to their occasionally brutal suppression mostly by European powers. It fuses a delayed but deeply felt sense of injustice with a religious motivation that is unifying large numbers of Muslims against the outside world; but at the same time, because of historic sectarian schisms within Islam that have nothing to do with the West, the recent welling up of historical grievances is also divisive within Islam.


Taken together as a unified framework, these five verities tell us that the United States must take the lead in realigning the global power architecture in such a way that the violence erupting within and occasionally projected beyond the Muslim worldand in the future possibly from other parts of what used to be called the Third Worldcan be contained without destroying the global order. We can sketch this new architecture by elaborating briefly each of the five foregoing verities.


First, America can only be effective in dealing with the current Middle Eastern violence if it forges a coalition that involves, in varying degrees, also Russia and China. To enable such a coalition to take shape, Russia must first be discouraged from its reliance on the unilateral use of force against its own neighborsnotably Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic Statesand China should be disabused of the idea that selfish passivity in the face of the rising regional crisis in the Middle East will prove to be politically and economically rewarding to its ambitions in the global arena. These shortsighted policy impulses need to be channeled into a more farsighted vision.


Second, Russia is becoming for the first time in its history a truly national state, a development that is as momentous as it is generally overlooked. The Czarist Empire, with its multinational but largely politically passive population, came to an end with World War I and the Bolshevik creation of an allegedly voluntary union of national republics (the USSR), with power resting effectively in Russian hands, took its place. The collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 led to the sudden emergence of a predominantly Russian state as its successor, and to the transformation of the former Soviet Union's non-Russian "republics" into formally independent states. These states are now consolidating their independence, and both the West and Chinain different areas and different waysare exploiting that new reality to Russia's disadvantage. In the meantime, Russia's own future depends on its ability to become a major and influential nation-state that is part of a unifying Europe. Not to do so could have dramatically negative consequences for Russia's ability to withstand growing territorial-demographic pressure from China, which is increasingly inclined as its power grows to recall the "unequal" treaties Moscow imposed on Beijing in times past.


Third, China's dramatic economic success requires enduring patience and the country's awareness that political haste will make for social waste. The best political prospect for China in the near future is to become America's principal partner in containing global chaos of the sort that is spreading outward (including to the northeast) from the Middle East. If it is not contained, it will contaminate Russia's southern and eastern territories as well as the western portions of China. Closer relations between China and the new republics in Central Asia, the post-British Muslim states in Southwest Asia (notably Pakistan) and especially with Iran (given its strategic assets and economic significance), are the natural targets of Chinese regional geopolitical outreach. But they should also be targets of global Sino-American accommodation.


Fourth, tolerable stability will not return to the Middle East as long as local armed military formations can calculate that they can be simultaneously the beneficiaries of a territorial realignment while selectively abetting extreme violence. Their ability to act in a savage manner can only be contained by increasingly effectivebut also selectivepressure derived from a base of U.S.-Russian-Chinese cooperation that, in turn, enhances the prospects for the responsible use of force by the region's more established states (namely, Iran, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt). The latter should also be the recipients of more selective European support. Under normal circumstances, Saudi Arabia would be a significant player on that list, but the current inclination of the Saudi government still to foster Wahhabi fanaticism, even while engaged in ambitious domestic modernization efforts, raises grave doubts regarding Saudi Arabia's ability to play a regionally significant constructive role.


Fifth, special attention should be focused on the non-Western world's newly politically aroused masses. Long-repressed political memories are fueling in large part the sudden and very explosive awakening energized by Islamic extremists in the Middle East, but what is happening in the Middle East today may be just the beginning of a wider phenomenon to come out of Africa, Asia, and even among the pre-colonial peoples of the Western Hemisphere in the years ahead.


Periodic massacres of their not-so-distant ancestors by colonists and associated wealth-seekers largely from western Europe (countries that today are, still tentatively at least, most open to multiethnic cohabitation) resulted within the past two or so centuries in the slaughter of colonized peoples on a scale comparable to Nazi World War II crimes: literally involving hundreds of thousands and even millions of victims. Political self-assertion enhanced by delayed outrage and grief is a powerful force that is now surfacing, thirsting for revenge, not just in the Muslim Middle East but also very likely beyond.


Much of the data cannot be precisely established, but taken collectively, they are shocking. Let just a few examples suffice. In the 16th century, due largely to disease brought by Spanish explorers, the population of the native Aztec Empire in present-day Mexico declined from 25 million to approximately one million. Similarly, in North America, an estimated 90 percent of the native population died within the first five years of contact with European settlers, due primarily to diseases. In the 19th century, various wars and forced resettlements killed an additional 100,000. In India from 1857-1867, the British are suspected of killing up to one million civilians in reprisals stemming from the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The British East India Company's use of Indian agriculture to grow opium then essentially forced on China resulted in the premature deaths of millions, not including the directly inflicted Chinese casualties of the First and Second Opium Wars. In the Congo, which was the personal holding of Belgian King Leopold II, 10-15 million people were killed between 1890 and 1910. In Vietnam, recent estimates suggest that between one and three million civilians were killed from 1955 to 1975.


As to the Muslim world, in Russia's Caucasus, from 1864 and 1867, 90 percent of the local Circassian population was forcibly relocated and between 300,000 and 1.5 million either starved to death or were killed. Between 1916 and 1918, tens of thousands of Muslims were killed when 300,000 Turkic Muslims were forced by Russian authorities through the mountains of Central Asia and into China. In Indonesia, between 1835 and 1840, the Dutch occupiers killed an estimated 300,000 civilians. In Algeria, following a 15-year civil war from 1830-1845, French brutality, famine, and disease killed 1.5 million Algerians, nearly half the population. In neighbouring Libya, the Italians forced Cyrenaicans into concentration camps, where an estimated 80,000 to 500,000 died between 1927 and 1934.


More recently, in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989 the Soviet Union is estimated to have killed around one million civilians; two decades later, the United States has killed 26,000 civilians during its 15-year war in Afghanistan. In Iraq, 165,000 civilians have been killed by the United States and its allies in the past 13 years. (The disparity between the reported number of deaths inflicted by European colonizers compared with the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan may be due in part to the technological advances that have led to the ability to use force more precisely, and in part as well to a shift in the world's normative climate.) Just as shocking as the scale of these atrocities is how quickly the West forgot about them.


In today's postcolonial world, a new historical narrative is emerging. A profound resentment against the West and its colonial legacy in Muslim countries and beyond is being used to justify their sense of deprivation and denial of self-dignity. A stark example of the experience and attitudes of colonial peoples is well summarized by the Senegalese poet David Diop in:


"Vultures"


In those days,
When civilization kicked us in the face
The vultures built in the shadow of their talons
The blood stained monument of tutelage…


The growing evocation of these memories, in the Muslim world and increasingly beyond, shows how the past still influences the present, but it certainly does not justify the violent behaviors that are transpiring in the Middle East today.


Given all this, a long and painful road toward an initially limited regional accommodation is the only viable option for the United States, Russia, China, and the pertinent Middle Eastern entities. For the United States, that will require patient persistence in forging cooperative relationships with some new partners (particularly Russia and China) as well as joint efforts with more established and historically rooted Muslim states (Turkey, Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia if it can detach its foreign policy from Wahhabi extremism) in shaping a wider framework of regional stability. Our European allies, previously dominant in the region, can still be helpful in that regard.


A comprehensive U.S. pullout from the Muslim world favored by domestic isolationists, could give rise to new wars (for example, Israel vs. Iran, Saudi Arabia vs. Iran, a major Egyptian intervention in Libya) and would generate an even deeper crisis of confidence in America's globally stabilizing role. In different but dramatically unpredictable ways, Russia and China could be the geopolitical beneficiaries of such a development even as global order itself becomes the more immediate geopolitical casualty. Last but not least, in such circumstances a divided and fearful Europe would see its current member states searching for patrons and competing with one another in alternative but separate arrangements among the more powerful trio.


A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision. It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual realization in Russia (probably post-Putin) that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe. China's increasing role in the Middle East should reflect the reciprocal American and Chinese realization that a growing U.S.-PRC partnership in coping with the Middle Eastern crisis is an historically significant test of their ability to shape and enhance together wider global stability.


The alternative to a constructive vision, and especially the quest for a one-sided militarily and ideologically imposed outcome, can only result in prolonged and self-destructive futility. For America, that could entail enduring conflict, fatigue, and conceivably even a demoralizing withdrawal to its pre-20th century isolationism. For Russia, it could mean major defeat, increasing the likelihood of subordination in some fashion to Chinese predominance. For China, it could portend war not only with the United States but also, perhaps separately, with either Japan or India or with both. And, in any case, a prolonged phase of sustained ethnic, quasi-religious wars pursued through the Middle East with self-righteous fanaticism would generate escalating bloodshed within and outside the region, and growing cruelty everywhere.


The fact is that there has never been a truly "dominant" global power until the emergence of America on the world scene. Imperial Great Britain came close to becoming one, but World War I and later World War II not only bankrupted it but also prompted the emergence of rival regional powers. The decisive new global reality was the appearance on the world scene of America as simultaneously the richest and militarily the most powerful player. During the latter part of the 20th century no other power even came close.


That era is now ending. While no state is likely in the near future to match America's economic-financial superiority, new weapons systems could suddenly endow some countries with the means to commit suicide in a joint tit-for-tat embrace with the United States, or even to prevail. Without going into speculative detail, the sudden acquisition by some state of the capacity to render the America militarily broadly inferior would spell the end of America's global role. The result would most probably be global chaos. And that is why it behooves the United States to fashion a policy in which at least one of the two potentially threatening states becomes a partner in the quest for regional and then wider global stability, and thus in containing the least predictable but potentially the most likely rival to overreach. Currently, the more likely to overreach is Russia, but in the longer run it could be China.


Since the next twenty years may well be the last phase of the more traditional and familiar political alignments with which we have grown comfortable, the response needs to be shaped now. During the rest of this century, humanity will also have to be increasingly preoccupied with survival as such on account of a confluence of environmental challenges. Those challenges can only be addressed responsibly and effectively in a setting of increased international accommodation. And that accommodation has to be based on a strategic vision that recognizes the urgent need for a new geopolitical framework.
-----------------------------------


*The author acknowledges the helpful contribution of his research assistant Paul Wasserman, and the scholarship on the subject of colonial brutality by Adam Hochschild, Richard Pierce, William Polk, and the Watson Institute at Brown University, among others.


Zbigniew Brzezinski is a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and was the National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977-81. He is the author, most recently, of Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power.

Source

[Paul Rigby]

Exceptionalists vs Integrationalists: The Eurasian-Wide Struggle

by Andrew Korybko

May 11, 2015

http://thesaker.is/exceptionalists-vs-in...-struggle/

All the chaos that's been unleashed in Eurasia can be attributed to the existential battle between the Exceptionalists and the Integrationalists, represented respectively by the unipolar and multipolar worlds. A lot has lately been written about the emerging triangle of defensive and incorporative interests between Russia, China, and Iran, yet not much has been published about the offensive alliance between American Exceptionalism, Zionism, and Wahhabism, the three ideologies dedicated to dividing the diverse multipolar forces in Eurasia and perpetuating unipolar dominance. The aim of the piece is not at all to demonize the identities mistakenly caught up in blanket association with these ideologies (Westerners, Jews, Muslims), but rather to illustrate how the most extreme strains of thought tangentially associated with them have become the most destabilizing forces in Eurasia, and how the unholy alliance' between these three has emerged as the primary driver of conflict in the supercontinent.

The Three Exceptions

A brief definition of the three instigators of instability is as follows:

American Exceptionalism:

Adherents of this ideology hold an ingrained belief that the country's unique geography and place on the historical timeline endows its leadership with the right to proselytize (even militarily, if need be) its governing, economic, and social models all across the world.

Zionism:

Proponents assert that Jews have a special relationship with God and an historical imperative to recreate the Biblical Israeli state, which thus gives their leadership the right to do whatever is deemed to be in their global interests.

Wahhabism:

Unquestioning and fervent conviction in the "pureness" of this strain of Islamic interpretation emboldens its practitioners to commit whatever means of savagery and barbarism are necessary to create a global un-"Islamic State".

Cerberus

These three ideologies share pivotal structural similarities that essentially make them separate faces of the same actor, a modern-day Cerberus, if one will. Here are the most important commonalities that tie them together:

Exceptionalist Standards:

The practitioners of these ideologies identify themselves as "special", thus convincing themselves that they're entitled to break established rules and enact a plethora of double standards in order to shape the world according to their design.

Historical Inevitability:

Each of these movements believes that their success is inevitable, and that it's a question of "when" not "if" they succeed.

Global Scope:

Accordingly, in order to facilitate their historical inevitability, they must partake in a global strategy designed to safeguard their interests and promote their core entities (the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, respectively).

Antagonism To Multipolarity:

By their very nature, none of these ideologies is compatible with multipolarity and the plurality of geopolitical thought, which is why they've been harnessed to come together as the Cerberus in attempting to halt and reverse this global trend.

Unrepresentative Nature:

One mustn't make the mistake of forgetting that these movements are not representative of the majority of their blanket associates (Westerners [Europeans are subordinated as second-rate Exceptionalists under American tutelage], Jews, Muslims), although each ideological vanguard attempts to create the illusion that this is so in order to justify' and legitimize' its extreme minority control over affairs.

The Interplay Of Interests

The Cerberus is formed of three different faces that each espouse a different variation of seemingly incompatible Exceptionalism, but in reality they're each complementary to one another's long-term goal in defeating multipolarity. Per their shared hypocritical standards, the only inclusiveness allowed in their vision is the convergence of American Exceptionalism, Zionism, and Wahhabism as an ultra-exclusive unipolar super model. It will later be argued in another section that this unstable arrangement is a geo-ideological gambit that could seriously backfire against Zionism and Wahhabism, all to the US' eventual geopolitical benefit (and perhaps even through its own hand).

Before getting to that point, however, it's necessary to chronicle how the convergence of interest between these three ideologies came to be in the first place and what interplay of interests lays at the crossroads of their strategic cooperation. While it may be possible to document such examples prior to World War II, it wasn't until its aftermath that the relationships really began to come to light and were activated on a massive regional scale throughout the entire Mideast, initiating the destructive processes that have accelerated in the present day.

The American Exceptionalist-Zionist Alliance:

The US emerged from World War II with the capacity to extend its military reach all across Eurasia, but one regional theater (aside from the Soviet Bloc) posed a noticeable problem for its penetration, and that was the Mideast. The US had vested geopolitical interests in shattering Arab unity after World War II (partly in order to preempt the possible creation of a pro-Soviet supranational entity) and creating a geopolitical perch that could allow it to practice a permanent proxy intervention role in picking apart each regional payer, hence the creation of Israel and the formalization of the American Exceptionalist-Zionist strategic convergence. The global significance of the Mideast for American Exceptionalism's grand strategy will be explained in the following section, but what's important to understand at this juncture is that American Exceptionalism's empowerment and support of Zionism was meant to create a proxy partner that had a shared interest in militarily unraveling Arab unity, which is exactly what the ultimate result of the Arab-Israeli wars happened to be.

After the Arab coalitions were defeated, the military component of Arab unity was neutralized, the importance of which cannot be understated. Only through Arab unity could there be a chance of defeating Israel and accordingly remove the US' intergenerational perch in the Mideast, the geostrategic connecting region between Europe and Asia (and equally positioned to exert influence on both, if properly applied). Israel, unlike any other American allies, is directly dependent on the US for both its creation and existence, and is hence much more reliable as a long-term committed ally (both ideologically and politically) than any other country. The US needs Israel's strategic location and regional military contracting services to keep Arab governments perpetually weak and divided, while Israel needs the US' full-spectrum support to continue to exist, thus explaining the intensive depth of support that each entity has for the other.

Despite militarily cracking Arab unity, Israel is inherently incapable of destroying the bond that connects Arab people, hence why another Exceptionalist component had to be brought into the mix in order to achieve this and remove any possibility that an Arab coalition could ever threaten Israel (and by extension, the US' premier Eurasian super base) again.

The Wahhabist Weapon:

Saudi Arabia's official ideology, Wahhabism, was thus selected as the destructive ideology necessary to tear apart Arab unity and sow irreconcilable identity discord among the Arab people for generations. It placed its victims on the horns of a major dilemma, in which they were forced to choose whether they were secular pan-Arabs along the model of Nasser or extremist pan-Islamists like the Saudi Kings. While Nasser preached the importance of a progressive republican form of government, the Saudis strictly supported authoritarian monarchism, thus putting the two Mideast ideologies at odds with one another and motivating the Wahhabis to find external support in eliminating the most pressing threat to their ideological existence.

It was through this imperative, namely the challenge that secular pan-Arab republicanism posed to extremist pan-Islamic authoritative monarchism, that the Wahhabis decided to join the American Exceptionalist-Zionist alliance which also was dedicated to defeating the Saudis' ideological rivals. The Wahhabist virus is such that it's engineered to destabilize secular pan-Arab governments by forcing each citizen to reconsider their most basic identity, thus theoretically making most of these countries' citizens vulnerable to its allure. On top of that, not only does Wahhabism preach the need to overthrow secular governments, but it also carries with it militant takfirism that leads to sectarian warfare. Thus, Wahhabism is uniquely positioned to divide Arabs both from their secular governments and also from themselves, thereby presenting the ultimate divisive ideology to ever serve the interests of the American Exceptionalist-Zionist alliance.

While Wahhabism is known for its unflinching ideological hatred, just like the other two Exceptionalist ideologies, it also partakes in major hypocritical standards, namely in the surprise moderation of its policies towards Israel and the US. It holds out the tantalizing hint of conducting an eventual religious war against Israel but notably never takes steps to actualize it. Instead, it focuses all of its time and energy on dividing the Mideast in as many ways as possible (ergo the takfirism that defines Wahhabism), meaning that any slogans against Israel are purely just that, and are designed simply to spread a marketing campaign for more naïve recruits. At the same time, certain Wahhabist elements have a tendency to go rogue and let ideology get the better of their externally imposed practicality' (whether by design or accident), which can open up either opportunities' or vulnerabilities for the American Exceptionalists depending on the context (to be explained in a later section).

The Significance Of The War On Syria:

Considering all of the aforementioned agreements in strategic focus endemic to the American Exceptionalist-Zionist-Wahhabist alliance (hereto referred to as Cerberus), the War on Syria becomes what may aptly be described as the most pivotal Eurasian resistance struggle today. Other than the fact that all three heads of Cerberus are bitterly engaged in mauling this Mideast nation and its people to pieces, Syria represents the last vestige of secular pan-Arab governance due to the ideological foundations of the Baath Party. This qualifies it as the most Resistant & Defiant state in Israel's nearest vicinity and by itself is reason enough for Cerberus' enemies (thenceforth referred to as the Herculean Coalition [the anchors of which are Russia, China, and Iran] after the Greek hero that defeated Cerberus) to support its democratically elected government. If Cerberus is successful in slaughtering Syria, then this would herald in a Dark Age for the Mideast that would turn the entire region into a launching pad for further destabilization into the Eurasian interior, and thus, expressly target the geographic vulnerabilities of the Herculean Coalition.

Concentrated Overlap

There's a reason that all of Cerberus' three-headed interests coincide in the Mideast, and it's not simply because two of the three ideologies emerged in this region. Rather, there are greater geopolitical underpinnings as to why Cerberus focuses so intently on the area, since just as the mythical beast itself guards the gates of hell in Greek folklore, in Eurasian geostrategy, it's at the forefront of the gate to the supercontinent, being specifically positioned to exert influence on Europe, Asia, and even Africa if need be. It's not to say that Eurasia is hell, but instead to emphasize that in both cases, Cerberus occupies a position of access, the mythological of which was defensive while the geopolitical equivalent is offensive. Modern-day Cerberus is intent on using its location as a springboard for further attacks into Eurasia in an effort to destroy the Herculean Coalition, and its strategy closely follows the dictates of British strategist Halford Mackinder.

This individual prominently pioneered the field of geostrategy and geopolitics over a century ago through this work "The Geopolitical Pivot of History", in which he famously stipulated that:

"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland:

Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island:

Who rules the World-Island commands the World."

He was absolutely correct in ascertaining that command of the Heartland, largely identified with contemporaneous Central Asia, was pivotal in exerting influence all throughout Eurasia, but he neglected to consider additional approaches for controlling this crucial piece of geopolitical real estate. At the time it seemed as though Eastern Europe was the only gateway to achieving this, but increasingly, it appears as though the Mideast can serve just as much, if not more, of a facilitating role given its Eurasian Balkans credentials of demographic chain-reaction fragmentation.

Brzezinski's theoretical innovation to Mackinder's axiom is that command and control do not have to be direct or even require a physical presence, but that given the innate ability of the center to influence the periphery, that massive destabilization in the Heartland (be it through Islamic terrorist insurgency, state collapse, humanitarian crises, and/or a combination thereof plus additional factors) can automatically radiate outwards. In today's world, this means that asymmetrical threats indirectly instigated by out-of-regional actors such as Cerberus can lead to simultaneous challenges for the three main members of the Herculean Coalition, not only putting them on the severe strategic defensive, but actually endangering their existence if allowed to grow out of control (as purposefully envisioned by Cerberus). In the early 20th century, Mackinder may have thought of state armies rolling through Eastern Europe en route to taking control of the Heartland, but in the early 21st century, it's more likely that this will take the form of terrorist brigades originating in or having acquired their battle experience in the Mideast that happen to pop up' in the Heartland without any direct links to state sponsors.

The Mideast is therefore the fulcrum of Eurasian-African (in)stability, and thus, any entity that controls it can export asymmetrical and conventional force in near-equidistant direction to penetrate the heart of Africa, the heart of Europe (or even Eastern Europe, for that matter), and the Eurasian Heartland (the key continental gateway to East Asia). Such a geopolitical understanding of power and force projection adds an updated component to Mackinder and Brzezinski's theoretical contributions and explains the reasoning behind the Mideast-centric application of Cerberus' wrath.

Eurasian Reach

Cerberus isn't limited to only the Mideast, although that's where the majority of its activities and strategic focus are concentrated. One can actually identify its involvement in Europe and Asia as well, which will be explored in this section.

Bark, Bite, Beg:

Prior to commencing the overview, Cerberus' pattern in Europe and Asia needs to be conceptually outlined so as to draw more of the reader's attention to it. Basically, each of its three heads fulfills the interchanging role of barking (threatening, fear mongering), biting (attacking), and begging (lobbying) in order to push its collective interest. Let's look at how they work in practice.

Europe:

The US uses NATO to control the continent, and it bitterly barks at its puppies any time they're reluctant to follow its lead in whatever the issue of the day may be. The US also barks loudly about the so-called "Russian threat" without providing any evidence of what there is to be scared of in the first place. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabi zombies are being deployed to the Balkans and select Western European countries to carry out strategic terrorist attacks designed to take a bite out of continental security and stabilization, as well as to prod the US' NATO puppies into taking Washington's suggested' courses of action on various topics. Finally, Israel rounds up the trio by lobbying the continent and its key political and social figures in order to gather as much financial, political, and normative support for Cerberus as possible. The implicit threat is that a rejection of support for Cerberus will translate into more barking by the US and biting by the Saudis, meaning that it's best to feed the begging mouth in order to avoid the unpleasant consequences from the other two heads.

Asia:

Cerberus has only lately turned its three heads to the East, but it's been relatively successful in such a short timeframe. The US has been barking incessantly about China ever since Hillary Clinton announced the Pivot to Asia in 2011, and its doing this with the intent of scaring the little dogs' surrounding it into a NATO-modeled alliance of anti-Chinese containment. As a means of deepening the US' security engagement with each of these members, especially in the case of Thailand and the Philippines, Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi proxies occasionally carry out terrorist attacks to justify' an increased and intensified US presence and/or strategic oversight, and this pattern is only expected to increase with the creation of the globally oriented un-"Islamic State". Israel's role, while largely muted, is disproportionately significant to its size, in that its begging efforts appear to be on the verge of successfully lobbying India over to the side of Cerberus. Israel has had breakthrough relations with India since the rise of the Modi government, as the new multipolar' Prime Minister is reluctant to become too overtly close with the US and of course hates the Saudis and their Wahhabi terrorism (and political support of Pakistan). Thus, Israel represents the perfect solution for Cerberus to penetrate the subcontinental hegemon and pursue its partners' shared interests.

Extra: Mideast:

Cerberus' home theater is characterized by a dynamic interplay of ever-changing and less clearly defined roles dependent on the specific circumstances at hand. Each of its three heads vigorously cycles through the available roles as is necessary in order to advance the allied entity's shared goals. One example might see the US barking about the un-"Islamic State" while Saudi-supported agents provide the on-the-ground bite to justify the fear America was mongering, whereas another one could see Israel and the Saudis barking about the threat' of Saddam Hussein while the US begs for an international coalition prior to its devastating bite. A future scenario that's not too unlikely might see Israel barking about alleged Iranian non-compliance with the forthcoming nuclear deal, while the US begs the world to support the Arab NATO's Lead-From-Behind punitive bite against Tehran.

Geo-Ideological Gambit

As mentioned near the beginning of the article, Cerberus is centered on an unstable geo-ideological foundation that might unexpectedly crack along its two major Zionist and Wahhabist fault lines. Both sides suspect that the other may turn on them one day, hence why they're both eager to cultivate as privileged relations as possible with their American Exceptionalist sibling, which only works out to Washington's prime strategic benefit. The Zionists are afraid of two scenarios: that the Wahhabi terrorists become strong enough on their own to disobey Riyadh and wage jihad against Israel outside of the US or Saudi Arabia's control; or that Saudi Arabia will one day betray Israel and directly order its terrorist proxies to attack it in order to fully complete the un-"Islamic State". Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is apprehensive of the Zionist Yinon Plan and fully aware of Ralph Peters' "Blood Borders" map and the New York Times' "How 5 Countries Could Become 14" suggestions, all of which deal with the eventual dismemberment of the kingdom. Pure Zionism and pure Wahhabism cannot coexist due to these existential contradictions, hence why a falling out is inevitable if Cerberus eliminates the Herculean Coalition (the main force that glues it together).

If they turn on each other prematurely before the Coalition can be conquered, then both Zionism and Wahhabism open themselves up to being separately defeated in a devastating counter-attack, which would then lead to the disintegration of American Exceptionalist influence in Eurasia. Therefore, the nature of the gambit is that they can prolong their falling out until afterwards, or that the US is able to somehow balance relations between them to the point of precluding such a scenario, which is the policy that it currently practices. Washington regularly intimates that it could throw additional weight towards one or the other and subsequently disrupt the delicate balance keeping the peace between its three heads. It's not serious enough to do so at this point, of course, and all Exceptionalist sides understand that they need the other in order to continue surviving until the reactionary Herculean Coalition can be dealt with, but the prospect of such a suicidal security dilemma succeeds in scaring Israel and Saudi Arabia to the point of unquestionable cooperation within the Cerberus framework (for now, at least).

The only alternative to Cerberus is the eventual removal of the Exceptionalist Ideological minority from each captive entity, which would see the American Exceptionalists ousted from the US, the Zionists from Palestine, and the Wahhabis from Saudi Arabia, thus leading to a change in their foreign policies and internal organization. None of this means that these entities are facing geopolitical elimination, as only the minority Exceptionalist Ideologies and their practitioners are under existential threat of losing anything at all (namely their power and legitimacy'), but it is this fear of those currently in power that desperately motivates them to aggressively summon Cerberus in indefinitely prolonging their unipolar hegemony. Ironically, only through their theoretical success' in destroying the Herculean Coalition do the odds dramatically increase that they may be geopolitically eliminated, as the aforementioned ideological contradictions between Zionist and Wahhbist Exceptionalists inevitably means that they'll militarily clash in a duel to the death someday. Even in the best case' scenario of a victory over the Herculean Coalition and a fragile cold peace between these two incompatible camps, there's no guaranteeing that the American Exceptionalists won't purposely tip the strategic balance towards one side or the other in order to recreate its characteristic cauldron of chaos in the Mideast perfectly suited for its grand geopolitical goals.

Concluding Thoughts

The unipolar Cerberus mutant of American, Zionist, and Wahhabist Exceptionalism is the true reason for Eurasia's destabilization, and only the Resistant & Defiant Herculean Coalition of Russia, China, and Iran is capable of pacifying it. Right now the fate of Eurasia appears to be foreshadowed by the fate of Syria in resisting Cerberus, in that its success or failure would have game-changing reverberations all throughout the supercontinent. If Syria and her people are successful in repelling the onslaught, then it would safeguard the Eurasian interior to a much stronger degree than if it failed, and it would also begin to turn the tide against Cerberus. However, if Syria happens to fall, then Cerberus will waste no time in launching a rapid and aggressive asymmetrical blitzkrieg into the Eurasian Heartland, one which is intended to divide the Herculean Coalition and defeat the champions of multipolarity.

One must always remember, though, that it's not Westerners, Jews, or Muslims who are in any way to blame for what Cerberus does, but instead the most radical ideological components of these societies (unrepresentative of the vast majority, thus making them extreme outliers) which have seized control of key states and are now using their host entities to engage in a global proxy war against the multipolar forces of inclusion and integration. Cerberus' unipolar victory wouldn't mean peace, however, since it's guaranteed that two of its three heads will eventually cannibalize one another, after which the American Exceptionalist one, unscathed by the fraternal infighting, can finish off its weakened surviving sibling and lay full claim to what were thought to have been shared global spoils (but which are really impossible to divide among two Exceptionalists as mutual incompatible as the Zionists and Wahhabists). That being the case, the only way to preclude such a gloomy global forecast is for the Herculean Coalition to succeed in saving Syria from Cerberus before the latter's aggressive pan-continental campaign and post-victory' self-destruction engulf the entire landmass.

[Paul Rigby]

Redrawing New Silk Road: China 'to Shift Its Focus to Russia, India'

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160827...-road.html

By Ekaterina Blinova

27 August 2016

It's time to re-draw New Silk Road routes given security threats emerging in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as a looming economic crisis in the West, geostrategic analyst Mathew Maavak told Sputnik.

While the BRICS bold infrastructural projects aimed at creating a unified trade space in Eurasia have begun to take shape, Russia, India and China need to focus their attention on emerging security and economic challenges, Mathew Maavak, geostrategic analyst and doctoral candidate in Security Foresight at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) believes.

The geostrategic analyst called attention to the fact that some of the New Silk Road's routes run through existing and potential hotbeds of instability, posing a significant risk to the project. Trouble Brewing for New Silk Road Project "The primary threat comes from Islamic states and regions that form a contiguous crescent of instability from Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) to the southern expanses of the Caucasus to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), as well as a narrow spur to Bosnia and Kosovo. Religious fundamentalism and anarchy in MENA is rising unfettered by the year. There is no light at the end of the tunnel here for the foreseeable future," Maavak told Sputnik.

"Not so coincidentally, many of these nations are allied to the West the same West that is continually antagonizing Russia along its western borders, particularly in Ukraine," the analyst remarked. According to Maavak, "prior lack of coordination" between the RIC (Russia, India and China) nations has led to many arterial chokepoints being concentrated in these high risk regions.

Given the threat posed by al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups "it will be myopic to spend hundreds of billions in infrastructure in Central Asia," he believes.

On the other hand, Iran may play a balancing role in the Middle East region, the geostrategic analyst added.

"Iran may play a balancing role here. The newly-opened Chabahar port, built with Indian assistance, provides a viable port of call for a revived maritime silk route in the Indian Ocean. It all depends on the Iranian leadership and whether it desires some form of limited security accommodation with the RIC nations. Otherwise, Iran might smolder with the rest of the Middle East," he stressed.

Redirecting Trade Routes Through Safe Regions

How could major Eurasian powers tackle the problem? First and foremost, Russia, China, Iran "should spread their arterial trade risks across geographically safe regions, and avoid undue reliance on Central Asia as a transit or economic corridor," the analyst explained.

To ensure geo-economic autarky, the RIC nations should prioritize trade routes within their borders to the extent possible. The safest trade routes in the near-future would look something like the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor. Southeast Asia can also reap great rewards from the RIC nations. After all, the entire region was literally forged by the DNAs of both China and India since time immemorial," Maavak underscored.

"Southeast Asia traditionally provided excellent returns on investments. India itself is hungry for new infrastructure with Prime Minister Narendra Modi never missing a chance to promote his 'Make in India' program," he continued.

"Perhaps, the RIC nations along with Malaysia and Thailand can also revive the Kra Canal project, in tandem with upgrades and planned connections to the Kunming-Singapore railway network. China is grappling with excess steel and cement output, and these surpluses could be put to good use by building regional trade arteries of the future," he stressed.

According to the geostrategic analyst, the New Silk Road "rebalancing" may help Central Asian states to maintain long-term neutrality. With the New Silk Road's routes redrawn and risks diminished, Central Asia will see that that its economic future and prosperity lies immediately to the north, east, west and south of the region.

Could Eastern Eurasia's Nations Form Self-Sustaining Ecosystem?

Commenting on Western journalists' assumption that "the ultimate prize in the Silk Road plan" lies in Europe, Maavak called attention to the fact that not everything is rosy in the West's garden. "Where does one start to describe this ticking time bomb? The US debt clock is breaching multiple records by the minute. Around 43 million young Americans are saddled with $1.3 trillion in student loan debt. That is almost equivalent to the entire GDP of India (2013)," the geostrategic analyst told Sputnik.

"Things are not looking good in Europe either. Deutsche Bank now poses the greatest risk to the global financial system, with its derivatives exposure worth $72.8 trillion in 2013. That is equivalent to the entire global GDP. JP Morgan's exposure is reportedly more modest, at around $70 trillion. The current economic paradigm is perched on a giant house of cards," he noted.

"Therefore, it is pointless to build bridges and trade networks to a region facing socio-economic disintegration on a scale that may dwarf anything seen since the 1930s," Maavak suggested. At the same time the East now has an unbeatable advantage over the West, the geostrategic analyst added.

"I had written how Greater Eurasia now forms a self-sustaining ecosystem. For the first time in modern history, the East can survive without the West albeit perhaps at a sub-par level but the West cannot function for a single day without the East. Virtually every nut, bolt and washer is produced in the East. If our economies collapse, it will deprive the West of every hook, line and sinker. And the plumbing tape too! Even their underwear is manufactured in this region," Maavak elaborated.

Eurasia's Hotspots and Zbigniew Brzezinski's 'Arc of Crisis'

According to the analyst, there is no coincidence that the "crescent of instability" has currently engulfed the north and northeast of the African continent, the Middle East, the Central Asia region and beyond.

Back in the 1970s, then President Carter's security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski promoted the idea of the "Arc of Crisis" stretching from the Indian subcontinent in the east to the Horn of Africa in the west with the Middle East as its central core.

The Brzezinski doctrine targeted nation-states of the region which he regarded as a potential bulwark against the USSR and its allies. In his 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur Brzezinski acknowledged that the US had weaponized radical Islamism in the region against the Soviet Union and secular regimes.

Following the collapse of the USSR, Brzezinski wrote in his book "The Grand Chessboard" that the key to preserving the US-led unipolar world order was to prevent the rise of any competitors in Eurasia.

Interestingly enough, a strikingly similar concept was recently voiced by George Friedman, the founder and chairman of the private intelligence and geopolitical forecasting corporation, Stratfor.

During his speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in February 2015 Friedman admitted that though "the United States cannot occupy Eurasia," it can throw its geopolitical rivals off balance to prevent their rise. Washington does "have the ability to support various contending powers [in Eurasia], so that they will concentrate on themselves, with political support, some economic support, military support and advisors," Friedman explained.

Is there possibility that the US will try to complicate the Russo-Sino-Indian infrastructural project in Eurasia? "Without a shadow of doubt!" Maavak asserted. "The West's economic clout is waning rapidly but it wants to take the East down with it. Playing second fiddle to Eurasia is not an option for Washington," he underscored.

[Paul Rigby]

Neo-Con Realist Calls for U.S. Cooperation on China's Belt and Road Policy

https://www.facebook.com/ron.kokinda.1/p...3722452839

Aug. 27 (EIRNS) -- An interesting article in the September-October issue of {Foreign Affairs}, the publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, chides the U.S. government for attempting to ignore the Chinese One Belt, One Road Initiative. The article is most interesting as it is written by Gal Luft, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and a member of Committee on the Present Danger and co-director of the Set America Free Coalition, which also hosts a number of leading neo-cons who want to make the U.S. energy independent.

Luft complains of the folly of the Obama Administration in ignoring the Belt and Road project and encourages U.S. participation in it. ``The B&R is a massive undertaking that will shape Eurasia's future. It will extend from the Pacific to the heart of Europe, stimulate some $4 trillion in investment over the next three decades, and draw in countries that account for 70% of the world's energy reserves,'' Luft writes.``So far, however the United States has fruitlessly attempted to undermine the initiative or avoided engaging with it altogether. That is the wrong course. Washington should instead cautiously back the many aspects of the B&R that advance U.S. interests and oppose those that don't. The United States does not have to choose between securing its global position and supporting economic growth in Asia: selectively backing the B&R would help achieve both goals.''

Outlining the magnitude of the Silk Road project, Luft is concerned that the U.S. is alienating itself from those countries which will definitely benefit from the project as well as allowing China to get the full benefit of the results, warning that such a policy could have the same negative effect as the U.S. attempt to boycott the AIIB, with even allied countries distancing themselves. Luft also points to the obvious tremendous infrastructure deficit in the world, noting that anything that China could do to tackle that problem should be supported simply on its own merits.

Luft warns, however, of giving ``blanket support'' to the project. Moving too close to China on the issue, he warns, will trigger paranoia in Russia, and working too closely with China in the Middle East, where Iran is a key pillar in the Belt and Road, could alienate U.S. allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Perhaps a division of labor, he moots, like the U.S. providing security for some Chinese construction projects or reviving Hillary Clinton's New Silk Road project.

``The Belt and Road Initiative could become either a source of great-power competition or a force for stability and collaboration,'' Luft writes. ``Beijing and Washington can ensure that the latter possibility wins out. In general, the best course for the United States will be one of selective buy-in: it should participate in projects that advance its interests, such as infrastructure investments aimed at improving intraregional trade in Southeast Asia, while avoiding those that undermine them.

``It will take a great deal of magnanimity for the United States to resist the urge to oppose such a grand strategic initiative as the B&R, especially since China's westward push comes at a time when Washington is increasingly confused about its own role in the world. But the United States must remember that its response to the project will help determine the future of U.S.-Chinese relations and of the international order. And as the global economy slows down and hundreds of millions of Asians languish with few hopes of escaping poverty, the United States must recognize that its fate is linked to that of the developing world and that it should give its blessing to initiatives that will lift all boats.''

[Paul Rigby]

China's Xi Jinping Talks Up One Belt, One Road' as Keynote Project Fizzles

Charlie Campbell / Beijing @charliecamp6ell Aug. 18, 2016

http://time.com/4457044/xi-jinping-one-b...-business/

The nebulous trade and infrastructure project is jeopardized by simmering regional conflicts and territorial disputes in the South China Sea

China's "One Belt, One Road" (OBOR) intercontinental trade and infrastructure project must bring real benefits to participant nations, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Wednesday, as his seminal foreign policy initiative faces mounting challenges.

Xi told a meeting in Beijing that more than 100 countries and international organizations have so far signed up to OBOR, which is touted as a revival of the iconic land and maritime Silk Road via a trade-and-infrastructure network spanning East Asia to Western Europe and south through Africa.

"The progress and results of the Belt and Road Initiative have been greater than expected," China's state newswire Xinhua quoted Xi as saying. The Chinese President has traveled extensively over Central Asia and Eastern Europe in recent months to champion the benefits of OBOR.

However, that message has been tricky to sell. OBOR covers over half of the global population, three-quarters of its energy resources and 40% of GDP, yet, crucially, geoeconomic fundamentals have shifted since its unveiling in 2013. Infrastructure routes through resource-rich central Asia were proposed at a time when raw commodity prices were high, but given today's historic lows, the economic viability of such projects has suffered. Plus there is the added problem of China's own economic plateau.

"The unbalanced economic development of countries along One Belt, One Road' is the main challenge," says Xu Fengxian, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "These countries are opening to different degrees, and have different import-export trade and political situations."

Compounding matters, these once freely navigable trade routes, trodden since the expeditions of Marco Polo in the 13th century, are now slashed by festering conflicts most notably in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma (officially now Myanmar), Ukraine and large swaths of the Middle East. China's own westernmost region of Xinjiang is also prone to outbreaks of strife.

"How China and Pakistan set about securitizing the China-Pakistan economic corridor will in particular be a litmus test for the viability of the Belt and Road Initiative," says Alexander Neill, Shangri-La Dialogue senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.

Despite these challenges, Xi's propaganda train hasn't slowed. Every day Chinese newspapers teem with dozens of articles exalting the myriad benefits of OBOR. Academics frequently cite OBOR on research proposals, cognizant that any association will radically boost their chances of approval. The OBOR official website is on a recruitment drive ahead of its launch in October.

However, it is overseas where marketing OBOR needs to be improved. There has been a perception that OBOR is simply about China throwing cash around the region. However, "it's actually supposed to be an inclusive project and Beijing wants international investors to get involved," says Neill. "It's not just about countries sitting back and waiting for China to arrive with investment plans and loans."

Geopolitically, OBOR is seen as a rival to the Washington-led Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade pact, which Beijing has opted not to join. And one of the principle benefits of OBOR is conflict avoidance with U.S. interests, given the Obama Administration's "rebalancing" to Asia.

Yet convincing China's neighbors of the benefits has proved problematic. Although Russia nearing international pariah status since its annexation of the Crimea recently inked a $6.2 billion high-speed rail deal, many countries remaining wary. In March, the Thai government shunned proposed Chinese financing for a $15 billion railway project and opted to pay for a less ambitious rail network itself. A similar $5.1 billion joint venture with state-run Indonesian enterprises has suffered from technical problems and mounting costs, reports the Jakarta Post.

"It's fizzled a bit and hasn't lifted off as they would have hoped, and a lot of that is to do with the message they are delivering abroad," said Neill. "Some target countries felt a bit like deer in headlamps."

Beijing's overlapping disputes in the South and East China Seas may also be galvanizing suspicions that OBOR is a Trojan horse for extending its geopolitical clout, and dumping excess capacity abroad as its economy flags. As such, peacefully resolving these territorial quarrels and building political capital will take on new impetus for the Xi administration. Beijing has already launched a charm offensive with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

"Disputes in the South China Sea jeopardize the regional shipping and resource development," adds Xu. "The problem should be solved among the countries near South China Sea. We need to reach a consensus on this issue."

With reporting by Yang Siqi / Beijing

[Drew Phipps]

I'm curious why the "three way alliance" of the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, (the image of them as "Ceberus", the three headed dog that guards Hell in Greek mythology, is a cute bit of propaganda) is considered "unipolar"; while the three way alliance of Russia, China, and Iran (sadly, not given a mythic characterization, I'd personally favor "Hecate", since "Loki" has but one head) is considered "multipolar" by Korybko. Aren't both sets of these countries working together to promote what they perceive as concurrent national interests? And should we expect countries not to work in their own interests, or refuse to form useful alliances?

It is of course true that NATO is supported by the US, but given all the countries that participate, isn't that multipolar? How about the UN? That seems to me to be the most multipolar organization in existence.

[Paul Rigby]

I'm curious why the "three way alliance" of the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, (the image of them as "Ceberus", the three headed dog that guards Hell in Greek mythology, is a cute bit of propaganda) is considered "unipolar"; while the three way alliance of Russia, China, and Iran (sadly, not given a mythic characterization, I'd personally favor "Hecate", since "Loki" has but one head) is considered "multipolar" by Korybko. Aren't both sets of these countries working together to promote what they perceive as concurrent national interests? And should we expect countries not to work in their own interests, or refuse to form useful alliances?

It is of course true that NATO is supported by the US, but given all the countries that participate, isn't that multipolar? How about the UN? That seems to me to be the most multipolar organization in existence.

Drew, just out of curiosity, where have you been for, say, the past three decades?

[Paul Rigby]

The whole game is about containing Russia-China

By Pepe Escobar

August 29, 2016

http://thesaker.is/the-whole-game-is-abo...sia-china/

The next BRICS summit, in Goa, is less than two months away. Compared to only two years ago, the geopolitical tectonic plates have moved with astonishing speed. Most BRICS nations are mired in deep crisis; Brazil's endless political/economic/institutional debacle may yield the Kafkaesque impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.

BRICS is in a coma. What's surviving is RC: the Russia/China strategic partnership. Yet even the partnership seems to be in trouble with Russia still attacked by myriad metastases of Hybrid War. The Exceptionalist Hegemon remains powerful, and the opposition is dazed and confused.

Or is it?

Slowly but surely see for instance the possibility of an https://www.rt.com/op-edge/357205-turkey...iran-isis/

ATM (Ankara-Tehran-Moscow) coalition in the making global power continues to insist on shifting East. That goes beyond Russia's pivoting to Asia; Germany's industrialists are just waiting for the right political conjunction, before the end of the decade, to also pivot to Asia, conforming a BMB (Berlin-Moscow-Beijing) coalition.

Germany already rules over Europe. The only way for a global trade power to solidify its reach is to go East. NATO member Germany, with a GDP that outstrips the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is not even allowed to share information with the "Five Eyes" secret cabal.

President Putin, years ago, was keen on a Lisbon-to-Vladivostok emporium. He may eventually be rewarded delayed gratification? by BMB, a trade/economic union that, combined with the Chinese-driven One Belt, One Road (OBOR), will eventually dwarf and effectively replace the dwindling post-WWII Anglo-Saxon crafted/controlled international order.

This inexorable movement East underscores all the interconnections and evolving connectivity related to the New Silk Roads, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS's New Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU). The crux of RC, the Russia-China strategic partnership, is to make the multipolar, post-Atlantic world happen. Or, updating Ezra Pound, to Make It New.

Containing RC

Russia's pivot to Asia is of course only part of the story. The core of Russia's industries, infrastructure, population is in the west of the country, closer to Europe. BMB would allow a double pivot simultaneously to Europe and Asia; or Russia exploiting to the max its Eurasian character. Not accidently this is absolute anathema for Washington. Thus the predictable, ongoing no holds barred exceptionalist strategy of preventing by all means necessary closer Russia-Germany cooperation.

In parallel, pivoting to Asia is also essential because that's where the

overwhelming majority of Russia's future customers energy and otherwise are located. It will be a long, winding process to educate Russian public opinion about the incalculable value for the nation of Siberia and the Russian Far East. Yet that has already started. And it will be in full fruition by the middle of the next decade, when all the interpolated New Silk Roads will be online.

"Containment" of RC will continue to be the name of the exceptionalist game whatever happens on November 8. As far as the industrial-military-security-surveillance-corporate media complex is concerned, there will be

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-t...da5ea9afc5 no reset. Proxies will be used from failed state Ukraine to Japan in the East China Sea, as well as any volunteering Southeast Asian faction in the South China Sea.

Still the Hegemon will be in trouble to contain both sides of RC simultaneously. NATO does not help; its trade arm, TPP, may even collapse in the high seas before arriving on shore. No TPP a certainty in case Donald Trump is elected in November means the end of US economic hegemony over Asia. Hillary Clinton knows it; and it's no accident President Obama is desperate to have TPP approved during a short window of opportunity, the lame-duck session of Congress from November 9 to January 3.

Against China, the Hegemon alliance in fact hinges on Australia, India and Japan. Forget about instrumentalizing BRICS member India which will never fall into the trap of a war against China (not to mention Russia, with which India traditionally enjoys very good relations.)

Japan's imperial instincts were reawakened by Shinzo Abe. Yet hopeless economic stagnation persists. Moreover, Tokyo has been prohibited by the US Treasury Dept. to continue unleashing quantitative easing. Moscow sees as a long-term objective to progressively draw Japan away from the US orbit and into Eurasia integration.

Dr. Zbig does Desolation Row

The Pentagon is terrified that RC is now a military partnership as well.

Compared to Russia's superior high-tech weaponry, NATO is a kindergarten mess; not to mention that soon Russian territory will be inviolable to any Star Wars-derived scheme. China will soon have all the submarines and "carrier-killer" missiles necessary to make life for the US Navy hell in case the Pentagon harbors funny ideas. And then there are the regional details from Russia's permanent air base in Syria to military cooperation with Iran and, eventually, disgruntled NATO member Turkey.

No wonder such exceptionalist luminary ideologues as Dr. Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski foreign policy mentor to President Obama are supremely http://www.the-american-interest.com/201...alignment/ dejected.

When Brzezinski looks at progressive Eurasia integration, he simply cannot fail to detect how those "three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy" he outlined in https://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-...chessboard

The Grand Chessboard are simply dissolving; "to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together."

Those GCC vassals starting with the House of Saud are now terrified about their own security; same with the hysteric Baltics. Tributaries are not pliant anymore and that includes an array of Europeans. The "barbarians" coming together are in fact old civilizations China, Persia, Russia fed up with upstart-controlled unipolarity.

Unsurprisingly, to "contain" RC, defined as "potentially threatening" (the Pentagon considers the threats are existential) Brzezinski suggests what else Divide and Rule; as in "containing the least predictable but potentially the most likely to overreach." Still he doesn't know which is which; "Currently, the more likely to overreach is Russia, but in the longer run it could be China."

Hillary "Queen of War" Clinton of course does not subscribe to Brzezinski's "could be" school. After all she's the official, Robert Kagan-endorsed, neocon presidential candidate. She's more in tune with https://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2016/0...epage=true this sort of wacky "analysis".

So one should definitely expect Hillary's "project" to be all-out hegemony expansion all across Eurasia. Syria and Iran will be targets. Even another war on the Korean Peninsula could be on the cards. But against North Korea, a nuclear power? Exceptionalistan only attacks those who can't defend themselves. Besides, RC could easily prevent war by offering some strategic carrots to the Kim family.

In many aspects, not much has changed from 24 years ago when, only three months after the dissolution of the USSR, the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance proclaimed:

"Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival…This requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and southwest Asia."

Talk about a prescient road map of what's happening right now; the "rival", "hostile" power is actually two powers involved in a strategic partnership: RC.

Compounding this Pentagon nightmare, the endgame keeps drawing near; the next manifestations and reverberations of the never-ending 2008 financial crisis may eventually torpedo the fundamentals of the global "order" as in the petrodollar racket/tributary scam.

There will be blood. Hillary Clinton smells it already from Syria to Iran to the South China Sea. The question is whether she and virtually the whole Beltway establishment behind her will be mad enough to provoke RC and buy a one-way ticket to post-MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) territory.