Home » Posts tagged 'strategic culture foundation' (Page 12)
Tag Archives: strategic culture foundation
Azov Sea Flashpoint: Russia, Ukraine Teetering on the Brink of War
Azov Sea Flashpoint: Russia, Ukraine Teetering on the Brink of War
Ukraine has increased its military presence in the Azov Sea region. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council met on Sept. 7 and agreed to take a variety of steps to boost the country’s combat capabilities in the area, including the creation of a missile-equipped naval infantry group to counter potential amphibious attacks and naval shore bombardments. Ukraine’s Gurza-M-class armored artillery boats have been brought in to boost the naval component of the forces deployed in the region.
Russia and Ukraine enjoy free use of the Sea of Azov under the 2003 “Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Ukraine on cooperation in the use of the sea of Azov and the strait of Kerch.” The document is in place but it does not specify any precise border. The parties agree that the Sea of Azov and the Strait of Kerch are the internal waters of both Ukraine and Russia.
Talks have dragged on for a long time but have failed to produce a solution. Ukraine does not want to recognize Russia’s rights, which are based on the fact that Crimea has joined the Russian Federation. Moreover, Ukrainian authorities insist on their right to detain any ship traveling to or from Crimea without Kiev’s permission.
Ukraine is calling for the imposition of international sanctions against Russian Black Sea ports, due to what it calls the “blockade” of the Sea of Azov. It has already imposed punitive measures unilaterally. Tensions have heightened since March, when ships were detained and searched. On March 24, Ukrainian border guards stopped the Russian-flagged, Crimean-registered Nord fishing vessel in the Sea of Azov. The ship was hijacked.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum Wrap Up: De-Dollarization Tops Agenda
Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum Wrap Up: De-Dollarization Tops Agenda
The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) was held in Vladivostok on Sept.11-13. Founded in 2015, the event has become a platform for planning and launching projects to strengthen business ties in the Asia-Pacific region.
This year, the EEF brought together delegations from over 60 countries to discuss the topic “The Far East: Expanding the Range of Possibilities”. A total of 100 business events involving over 6,000 participants were held during the three days. 1,357 media personnel worked to cover the forum. Last year, the number of participants was 5,000 with 1,000 media persons involved in reporting and broadcasting. The EEF-18 gathered 340 foreign and 383 Russian CEOs. Nearly 80 start-ups from across South-East Asia joined the meeting.
This year, a total of 175 agreements worth of 2.9 trillion rubles (some $4.3 billion) were signed. For comparison, the sum was 2.5 trillion rubles (roughly $3.7 billion) in 2017. They included the development of the Baimsky ore deposits in Chukotka, the construction of a terminal for Novatek LNG at Bechevinskaya Bay in Kamchatka and the investment of Asian countries in Russia’s agricultural projects in the Far East. Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Mail.Ru Group, Megafon and Chinese Alibaba inked an agreement on establishing AliExpress trade joint venture. Rosneft and Chinese CNPC signed an oil exploration agreement.
The Chinese delegation was the largest (1,096 people), followed by the Japanese (570 members). The list of guests included the president of Mongolia and prime ministers of Japan and South Korea. It was also the first time Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the event to meet his Russian counterpart. The issue of de-dollarization topped the agenda. Russia and China reaffirmed their interest in expanding the use of national currencies in bilateral deals.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The US’s Choice: WWIII or Saving Face in Syria
The US’s Choice: WWIII or Saving Face in Syria
Sometimes when I step back from the overwhelming flow of geopolitical insanity I’m reminded of the old adage that coming close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.
To which, I always add, “And nuclear war.”
I’ve been watching the build up to the operation to liberate Idlib in Syria which includes the endless neocon and Israeli moral preening warning Assad against using chemical weapons with a sense of detachment. And I keep thinking to myself, “Do they really think we’re that stupid?”
Three times the chemical weapons canard has been used to justify further aggression against Syria and three times a full-blown U.S. invasion has been averted. First by Vladimir Putin’s deft diplomacy and General Dunford’s refusal to implement a ‘no-fly zone’ in 2013 and then during the Trump years with ineffectual air strikes on Syrian airbases.
How much of that ineffectuality of those airstrikes were designed by Defense Secretary James Mattis to avoid a wider conflagration and how much was Russian EW/missile defense is anyone’s guess.
The truth most likely lies somewhere in the middle.
That is why everyone who is worrying about the U.S.’s blustering over Syria’s Idlib campaign needs to take a big step back and think the scenario through.
Because the neoconservatives and Israel are forcing the situation to its crisis point, thinking they can manipulate the headlines and the levers of power to still eke out a victory in Syria that will allow them to continue on their quest to destroy Russia first and conquer the rest of Asia after that.
And they are willing to blackmail us with the threat of WWIII over 50,000 head-chopping mercenaries to get their cookie.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Beware of the American Political Snake Oil Salesmen
Beware of the American Political Snake Oil Salesmen
The election engineering merchants of George Soros and other “one-size-fits-all” democracy templates may have been vanquished in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Myanmar, but they are, by no means, down and out. International non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have simply borrowed a page from international consultancies and gone quasi-private, racking up lucrative contracts as political advisers to pro-capitalist candidates around the world.
With the US Foreign Service largely neutered under President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, there is virtually no one left at various US embassies in far-flung diplomatic posts to warn host governments about the modern version of American “snake oil salesmen” pitching their election assistance wares to unsuspecting candidates for office.
Take Vanguard Africa, a Washington, DC-based election campaign consultancy that seeks public contributions under the aegis of the Democratic Party’s fundraising organization, ActBlue. During a time when there are complaints in the United States of foreign interference in American elections, why is an outfit like Vanguard America involved in elections in The Gambia and Niger? What is good for the goose should be good for the gander.
If someone donates to ActBlue to elect more Democrats to the US Congress, state legislatures, and mayors’ offices, why is ActBlue, working with Vanguard Africa, involved in helping to elect in January 2017, Adama Barrow as president of The Gambia in West Africa? Vanguard Africa’s US leadership includes Joe Trippi, former Vermont Democratic Governor Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign chairman, and former Democratic US Representative Al Wynn of Maryland.
Vanguard Africa unabashedly admits on its website that it mixes election engineering with lobbying in Washington: “Access to Influential Leaders – Opening lines of communication and building trusted, long-term relationships with key pro-democracy groups, civic leaders, elected officials and policymakers – in Washington, DC and internationally.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Russian Media Irritates French Government: Curbing Press Freedom
Russian Media Irritates French Government: Curbing Press Freedom
The report titled Information Manipulation: a Challenge for Our Democracies prepared by two government-linked think tanks – the French Foreign Ministry’s Center for Analysis, Planning and Strategy (CAPS) and the Defense Ministry’s Institute for Strategic Studies (IRSEM) – saw light on Sept.4. The paper urges the French government to “name and isolate” outlets that act as “foreign propaganda organs.” It suggests that journalists of Russian RT and Sputnik news outlets should not be accredited or invited to press conferences. “It’s important never to grant [these organizations] accreditation rather than to invite them to press conferences for journalists,” the document states.
Moscow is the prime target of the efforts to curb freedom of speech. The 200-page long report mentions Russia 60 times, the word Kremlin is used 48 times, Sputnik is referred to 14 times and RT is also not forgotten with the abbreviation repeated 10 times. The authors say they express personal opinions but it’s hard to believe it as they work for the government.
The French administration has demonstrated its hostile attitude toward the Russian outlets a number of times. Last year, President Emmanuel Macron accused them of having spoken “mistruths” about him and his campaign behaving not as “media outlets and journalists” but as “organs of influence, propaganda, and false propaganda.” That’s what he affirms though not a single example of spreading misinformation by the Russian media outlets has ever been provided.
The activities of Russian journalists in France are often obstructed. It’s not unusual for them to become victims of harassment. For instance, when RT France channel started to broadcast last December, 11 French public figures called on the county’s broadcasting watchdog Conseil superieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) to recall its license.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
New Alliance Emerges in Eastern Mediterranean to Reshape Regional Security Landscape
New Alliance Emerges in Eastern Mediterranean to Reshape Regional Security Landscape
The military-political landscape in Europe and the Mediterranean is changing. NATO is not as unified as it once was, and Turkey’s membership has become more of a formality than a real thing. A pro-US group consisting of Great Britain, Poland, and the Baltic States has emerged as part of a North Atlantic Alliance that is divided by differences and the open rift over the 2% financial contribution, a decree that is largely ignored, along with the other divisions that are weakening the bloc. Other groups are arising that also have common security interests. A new pact, an Arab NATO allied with the United States, will soon materialize in the Middle East. Changes are coming, but they are hard to predict as everything is currently in a state of flux.
“The United States is interested in increasing its use of military bases and ports in Greece,” said General Joseph Dunford, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), on Sept. 4 during his visit to Athens. “If you look at geography, and you look at current operations in Libya, and you look at current operations in Syria, you look at potential other operations in the eastern Mediterranean, the geography of Greece and the opportunities here are pretty significant,” he added. According to the Military Times, “[N]o specific bases have been identified, but that Supreme Allied Commander Europe Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti is evaluating several options for increased US flight training, port calls to do forward-based ship repairs and additional multilateral exercises.” US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross came to Greece right after the CJCS’s visit to take part in the annual Thessaloniki International Trade Fair.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How US Government Relies on Lying Media
How US Government Relies on Lying Media
On Friday, August 31st, the neoconservative US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said “The 3 million Syrians who have already been forced out of their homes and are now in #Idlib, will suffer from this aggression. Not good. The world is watching.”
By “this aggression,” he was referring to the completion, by the Syrian Government and its allies Russia and Hezbollah, of their elimination of jihadist terrorists from Syria. Pompeo’s remark was a veiled threat, especially to Russia, not to intervene in the US-led invasion of Syria, which Pompeo and his boss, US President Donald Trump, and the US ‘Defense’ Department, have planned, in continuation of the policies of aggression against Syria, by the prior US President, Barack Obama, and by his Administration — their policies to protect and train and arm those terrorists, so as to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government.
Pompeo, as a politician, can say things like that — pontificate ‘morality’, to the portion of the world that’s deceived by their national ‘news’-media to believe the opposite of what is about to be documented here. He can do it only because of what the US-and-allied ‘news’-media have assiduously kept hidden from their respective publics. The Syrian people blame US — not Assad — for the ‘civil war’ there, which they know actually has been a US-Saud-led invasion of Syria, an invasion and military occupation so as to overthrow Syria’s Government, and to replace it by the Sauds’ s‘elected’ stooges.
So that the publics in the US and its allied countries can know the truth here, they must be informed, finally, of truths hidden by the media, truths such as these:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Is a ‘Suez’ Event Being Prepared for Syria?
Is a ‘Suez’ Event Being Prepared for Syria?
So, the metamorphosis is done. President Trump has finally, fully, shed his 2016 Campaign ‘skin’ of loosely imagining a grand foreign policy bargain that could be the foundation for “WORLD PEACE, nothing less!” as Trump tweeted when imposing sanctions on Iran. We wrote, on 3 August, quoting Prof Russell-Mead, that Trump’s ‘8 May metamorphosis’ (the US exit from JCPOA), constituted a step-change of direction: one that reflected “[Trump’s] instincts, telling him that most Americans are anything but eager, for a “post-American” world. Trump’s supporters don’t want long wars, “but neither are they amenable to a stoic acceptance of national decline”.
It all began, very precisely, with Trump’s ‘8 May metamorphosis’ – which is to say, to the moment when the US president definitively took the Israeli ‘line’: exiting from the Iranian nuclear accord, deciding to sanction and to lay siege to Iran’s economy, and when he endorsed the (old, never materialized) idea of a Sunni ‘Arab NATO’, led by Riyadh, that would confront Shi’a Iran.
In practical terms, Trump’s Art of the Deal geo-strategy, as we now see, became thus transformed into the search for radical US leverage (through weaponising a strong dollar and tariffs) — looking always to the means to force the capitulation of the counter-party. This cannot be rightly termed negotiation: It is rather, more as if the script has been lifted from The Godfather.
But, when Trump unreservedly took the Israeli (or, more properly the Netanyahu) ‘line’, he assumed to himself all ‘the baggage’ that comes with it, too. The 1996 Clean Break document, prepared by a study group led by Richard Perle for Binjamin Netanyahu, meshed the Israeli and US neocon camps into one. And they are still umbilically linked.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Schools and Universities are Liberals’ Trojan Horse for New World Order Indoctrination
Schools and Universities are Liberals’ Trojan Horse for New World Order Indoctrination
From NFL players ‘taking a knee’ during the national anthem, to preschoolers being brainwashed with the ideology of transgenderism, these left-leaning movements have one goal in mind, and that is to undermine and destroy the foundation of the Western nation state.
This month, the Liberal propaganda machine shifted into overdrive, publicizing yet another divisive scandal to forward their agenda of creating a New World Order.
Atlanta school Principal Lara Zelski clearly did not have her local community in mind when she informed parents and faculty that the morning recital of the pledge of allegiance would be eliminated, substituted with a pledge to “school family, community, country and our global society.”
“Over the past couple of years it has become increasingly obvious that more and more of our community were choosing to not stand and/or recite the pledge,” Zelski said. “There are many emotions around this and we want everyone in our school family to start their day in a positive manner.”
Zelski never reveals any numbers to support what she means by “more and more of our community” who are purportedly snubbing the flag. This is how the proponents of a “global society” move forward with their destructive agenda. Using the Hegelian dialectic, they press some hot-button ‘issue’ – same-sex marriage, unisexual bathrooms, transsexual rights, Civil War statues in the public square, marijuana use, you name it – that is guaranteed to pit America’s two primary political ideologies fiercely against each other. Then they sit back and watch the fireworks display of their creation.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why US Imperialism Loves Afghan Quagmire
Why US Imperialism Loves Afghan Quagmire
It may seem paradoxical that any American interest would seek to deliberately prolong the Afghan quagmire. Costing trillions of dollars to the national debt, one would think that US planners are anxious to wind down the war and cut their immense losses. Not so, it seems.
Like the classic 1960s satire film, Dr Strangelove, and how he came to “love the A-bomb”, there are present-day elements in the US military-security apparatus that seem to be just fine about being wedded to the mayhem in Afghanistan.
That war is officially the longest-ever war fought by US forces overseas, outlasting the Vietnam war (1964-75) by six years – and still counting.
After GW Bush launched the operation in October 2001, the war is now under the purview of its third consecutive president. What’s more, the 17-year campaign to date is unlikely to end for several more years to come, after President Donald Trump last year gave the Pentagon control over its conduct.
This week saw two developments which show that powerful elements within the US state have very different calculations concerning the Afghan war compared with most ordinary citizens.
First there was the rejection by Washington of an offer extended by Russia to join a peace summit scheduled for next month. The purpose of the Moscow conference is to bring together participants in the war, including the US-backed Afghan government of President Ashraf Ghani, as well as the Taliban militants who have been fighting against American military occupation.
Washington and its Afghan surrogate administration in Kabul said they would not be participating because, in their view, such a dialogue would be futile.
The US refusal to attend the Moscow event, after previously showing an apparent interest, drew an angry response from Russia. Russia’s foreign ministry said the “refusal to attend the Moscow meeting on Afghanistan shows Washington has no interest in launching a peace process.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Five Years On, Death of Journalist Michael Hastings Remains a Mystery
Five Years On, Death of Journalist Michael Hastings Remains a Mystery
Michael Hastings was one of America’s most popular modern journalists, perhaps best known for his 2010 expose in Rolling Stone magazine, The Runaway General, which led to the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, then commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.
In the early hours of June 18, 2013, a vehicle purported to have been driven by Michael Hastings crashed in Los Angeles, thus snuffing out the life of an already prolific young talent whose best years were still ahead of him. And that is where the worst part of this tragedy begins: the death of Michael Hastings, despite him being an influential member of the journalistic community, was never given the thorough investigative approach it rightly deserved.
This article will not go into all of the details of Hastings’ life, since much of that is already known. Suffice it to say that the author probably had just as many enemies – many of them high-ranking officials – as he had friends. Ruining the career of an Army general, while declaring on one occasion that the media should “declare war” on the government, has a tendency to do those things. On top of that, Wikileaks reported that Hastings had contacted them just hours before his death, saying he was under investigation by the FBI. The federal agency, however, denied the claim. Those bits of information were enough for many people to frame his premature and very violent death as some sort of premeditated murder.
On the other hand, maybe Hastings was never actually killed on the morning of June 18, 2013. I understand that idea will probably sound outrageous, but once one compares the information contained in Hastings’ autopsy report with the observable evidence from the crash that possibility appears more plausible. More on that in a moment.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
One Minute to Midnight: Latest US Sanctions Propel Nations Towards Risk of War
One Minute to Midnight: Latest US Sanctions Propel Nations Towards Risk of War
The State Department’s announcement on August 8 that the US government was going to impose sweeping new economic sanctions on Russia over the still mysterious and unresolved Skripal Affair was a truly fateful one. The famous Doomsday Clock of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists should have immediately been moved forward to one minute to midnight on receipt of the news. (It already is set at only two minutes to the midnight that signifies catastrophic global thermonuclear war.)
For the lesson of history is a clear one: Such sanctions do far worse than prevent constructive dialogue and efforts to settle major differences of policy and interest between great nations. When they are seen as an existential threat to the very existence of that nation, they drive the targeted country’s government to consider all-out war.
That is exactly how the trans-oceanic total war between the United States and Japan – the very first and so far thankfully only war that has seen the use of nuclear weapons against cities and human populations – began. And it was the United States that triggered it.
Japan had been remorselessly expanding into China and across the Pacific Theater for a decade and its ferocious war of conquest against China was already four years old and had claimed millions of lives by the summer of 1941.
It was then that US code breakers learned of Japan’s plans also to occupy the French colonial territories of Indochina – today the nations of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
In response therefore, and at the insistent urging of his assistant secretary of state for economic affairs Dean Acheson, President Franklin D. Roosevelt imposed a devastating embargo on the US export of raw materials that Japan could use for war.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Defections from Pax Americana Coming Louder and Faster
Defections from Pax Americana Coming Louder and Faster
It seems everyday I wake up and see another instance of defections coming from US allies over the behavior of some corner of the Trump Administration.
Over the weekend Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte hit back strongly at US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Affairs Randall Schriver who told Duterte to “think very carefully” about acquiring a Russian submarine.
Now if you know anything about Duterte he rarely thinks very carefully before opening his mouth. And this time was no different. He rightly told Schriver publicly to get stuffed and make his case why the Philippines shouldn’t pursue its best interests.
Moreover, as always, Duterte invited Schriver to a face-to-face meeting over this.
The US is applying the same pressure to India over buying S-400 missile defense systems from Russia. Turkey’s troubles with the US are all over the news with Pastor Brunson the public reason but it is Turkey’s working closely with Russia on important energy projects like the massive Turkish Stream pipeline, nuclear power plants as well as committing India’s sin of choosing the S-400 over the US Patriot system.
A Patriot system, by the way, that has been proven in recent months by the Syrian Army to be very ineffective. Meanwhile Iran unveiled its first homegrown fighter jet in a clear act of independence which will not be tolerated.
What started as small moments of defiance a few years ago are turning into full-throated shouts of opposition as the US pushes its leverage in financial markets to step on the necks of anyone who doesn’t toe the line.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
How a Free Market Inevitably Produces Dictatorship
How a Free Market Inevitably Produces Dictatorship
Who rules the land? A deeper and truer version of this question is: What rules the land? Is it the money (the aristocracy), or is it the people (the public, the residents on that land)? (For the interest of paleoconservatives, the issue of residents’ citizenship will come later here, as “immigrants” instead of as “citizenship”; but our basic focus is not ethnicity/nationality; it’s class: the money, versus the voters; not the natives, versus the foreigners.)
In a democracy, the public rule — the people do — and it’s on authentically a one-person-one-vote basis, and anyone who is a resident in that land can easily vote, just like anyone else who lives there, because only the residents there, during the specific time-period of the voting, are the ultimate decision-makers, over that land, and over its laws. This is what a democracy is: it’s one-person-one-vote, and, in the political sense, it’s total equality-of-rights and total equality-of-obligations — real and total equality-by-law: equal rights, and equal obligations, for all residents. A democracy applies the same requirements to everyone.
This does not mean that individuals are equal in their abilities and in their needs, and so it’s not a statement about the economy; it is purely a statement about the government — a political question. The economy is a separate matter, though it’s highly dependent upon the government — the laws that are in place and enforced. Many people confuse these two fields, and mistakenly think that the economy is basic to the government.
So: the economy is dependent upon the government; the government determines the economy, which, in any land, is highly dependent upon the laws that are in place and that are enforced — the government.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Geopolitics of Energy
The Geopolitics of Energy
Some brief notes on the situation around the world with respect to the influence that energy has on political developments.
1. The Middle East
The Middle East continues to play a major role in the global energy scene. Notwithstanding changes that have occurred in the political situation of many countries in the area — i.e., Libya, Iraq, Qatar, and Iran — the Middle East still remains one of the most important providers of oil and natural gas in the world. This is why many global powers, namely the United States, China, and Russia, keep a close eye on developments there. Events in Iraq, Iran, and on the Arabian peninsula continue to ring alarm bells in major world capitals, since whatever happens there has severe repercussions on the price of energy. This in turn affects the economic welfare of many parts of the world and puts huge strains on the diplomatic efforts of major countries to design policies to deal with the resulting problems.
The antagonism between Saudi Arabia and Iran sets off a variety of political reverberations affecting the countries of the Persian Gulf, unsettling the situation between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, and entangling Russia and the United States in the ensuring imbroglio.
The countries of North Africa, Egypt, and of course Israel/Palestine are part of the same puzzle that mixes energy and diplomacy at every step of the way.
2. The Russian Federation
Russia plays a crucial role in the politics of global energy. Russia is one of the world’s most important exporters of oil and natural gas. This means that apart from playing a pivotal role in the formation of world energy prices, its presence, behaviour, and diplomatic manoeuvring is of paramount importance when it comes to energy security and the possibility of preventing or causing peripheral animosities or establishing peace and stability.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
