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ClubOrlov: The Imperial Collapse Playbook
ClubOrlov: The Imperial Collapse Playbook.
Some people enjoy having the Big Picture laid out in front of them—the biggest possible—on what is happening in the world at large, and I am happy to oblige. The largest development of 2014 is, very broadly, this: the Anglo-imperialists are finally being forced out of Eurasia. How can we tell? Well, here is the Big Picture—the biggest I could find. I found it thanks to Nikolai Starikov and a recent article of his.
Now, let’s first define our terms. By Anglo-imperialists I mean the combination of Britain and the United States. The latter took over for the former as it failed, turning it into a protectorate. Now the latter is failing too, and there are no new up-and-coming Anglo-imperialists to take over for it. But throughout this process their common playbook had remained the same: pseudoliberal pseudocapitalism for the insiders and military domination and economic exploitation for everyone else. Much more specifically, their playbook always called for a certain strategem to be executed whenever their plans to dominate and exploit any given country finally fail. On their way out, they do what they can to compromise and weaken the entity they leave behind, by inflicting a permanently oozing and festering political wound. “Poison all the wells” is the last thing on their pre-departure checklist.
• When the British got tossed out of their American Colonies, they did all they could, using a combination of import preferences and British “soft power,” to bolster the plantation economy of the American South, helping set it up as a sort of anti-United States, and the eventual result was the American Civil War.
The Vineyard of the Saker: 2014 “End of Year” report and a look into what 2015 might bring
The Vineyard of the Saker: 2014 “End of Year” report and a look into what 2015 might bring.
By any measure 2014 has been a truly historic year which saw huge, I would say, even tectonic developments. This year ends in very high instability, and the future looks hard to guess. I don’t think that anybody can confidently predict what might happen next year. So what I propose to do today is something far more modest. I want to look into some of the key events of 2014 and think of them as vectors with a specific direction and magnitude. I want to look in which direction a number of key actors (countries) “moved” this year and with what degree of intensity. Then I want to see whether it is likely that they will change course or determination. Then adding up all the “vectors” of these key actors (countries) I want to make a calculation and see what resulting vector we will obtain for the next year. Considering the large number of “unknown unknowns” (to quote Rumsfeld) this exercise will not result in any kind of real prediction, but my hope is that it will prove a useful analytical reference.
The main event and the main actors
A comprehensive analysis of 2014 should include most major countries on the planet, but this would be too complicated and, ultimately, useless. I think that it is indisputable that the main event of 2014 has been the war in the Ukraine. This crisis not only overshadowed the still ongoing Anglo-Zionist attack on Syria, but it pitted the world’s only two nuclear superpowers (Russia and the USA) directly against each other. And while some faraway countries did have a minor impact on the Ukrainian crisis, especially the BRICS, I don’t think that a detailed discussion of South African or Brazilian politics would contribute much. There is a short list of key actors whose role warrants a full analysis. They are:
- The USA
- The Ukrainian Junta
- The Novorussians (DNR+LNR)
- Russia
- The EU
- NATO
- China
I submit that these seven actors account for 99.99% of the events in the Ukraine and that an analysis of the stance of each one of them is crucial. So let’s take them one by one:
‘CIA fingerprints’ all over Kiev massacre – Oliver Stone — RT News
‘CIA fingerprints’ all over Kiev massacre – Oliver Stone — RT News.
The armed coup in Kiev is painfully similar to CIA operations to oust unwanted foreign leaders in Iran, Chile and Venezuela, said US filmmaker Oliver Stone after interviewing Ukraine’s ousted president for a documentary.
Stone spent four hours in Moscow talking to Viktor Yanukovich, who was deposed from power during the February 2014 coup, the filmmaker wrote on his Facebook page.
“Details to follow in the documentary, but it seems clear that the so-called ‘shooters’ who killed 14 police men, wounded some 85, and killed 45 protesting civilians, were outside third party agitators,” he said.“Many witnesses, including Yanukovych and police officials, believe these foreign elements were introduced by pro-Western factions – with CIA fingerprints on it.”
READ MORE: Reuters investigation exposes ‘serious flaws’ in Maidan massacre probe
The filmmaker added that the events in Kiev, which led to collapse of the Ukrainian government and imposition of a new one hostile towards Russia, were similar to those in other countries, which he called“America’s soft power technique called ‘Regime Change 101’.”
The Biggest Risks To Canada’s Economy In 2015, And Beyond
The Biggest Risks To Canada’s Economy In 2015, And Beyond.
We welcome 2015 at a rather tumultuous time for the global economy — from falling oil prices to hacker threats against a movie studio, to a crucial election in Greece.
The global economy is at a crossroads that could see it either finally escape the aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, or it could sink back into a slowdown. Personal and public debt loads are high, while the recovery in job markets and income levels has been disappointing and income disparities within countries are widening. Many of the biggest threats to Canada’s economy will sound familiar, they’ve been building since the Great Recession, but 2015 also poses a unique set of challenges that could affect Canadians this year.
Epsilon Theory – Salient Partners | The Clash of Civilizations
Epsilon Theory – Salient Partners | The Clash of Civilizations.
Lots of quotes this week, particularly from my two favorite war criminals – Sam Huntington and Henry Kissinger. Everyone has heard of Kissinger, fewer of Huntington, who may have been even more of a hawk and law-and-order fetishist than Kissinger but never sufficiently escaped the ivory towers of Harvard to make a difference in Washington. Like me, Kissinger bolted academia at his first real opportunity for a better gig and never looked back, which is probably why I always found him to be so personally engaging and fun to be around. Sam Huntington … not so much.
But Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” argument is not just provocative, curmudgeonly, and hawkish. It is, I think, demonstrably more useful in making sense of the world than any competing theory, which is the highest praise any academic work can receive. Supplement Huntington’s work with a healthy dose of Kissinger’s writings on “the character of nations” and you’ve got a cogent and predictive intellectual framework for understanding the Big Picture of international politics. It’s a lens for seeing the world differently – a lens constructed from history and, yes, game theory – and that’s what makes this a foundational topic for Epsilon Theory.
Huntington and Kissinger were both realists (in the Thucydides and Bismarck sense of the word), as opposed to liberals (in the John Stuart Mill and Woodrow Wilson sense of the word), which basically just means that they saw human political history as essentially cyclical and the human experience as essentially constant. Life is fundamentally “nasty, brutish, and short”, to quote Thomas Hobbes, and people band together in tribes, societies, and nation-states to do something about that. As such, we are constantly competing with other tribes, societies, and nation-states, and the patterns of that competition – patterns with names like “balance of power” and “empire” and “hegemony” – never really change across the centuries or from one continent to another. Sure, technology might provide some “progress” in creature comforts and quality of life (thank goodness for modern dentistry!), but basically technology just provides mechanisms for these political patterns to occur faster and with more devastating effect than before.
Target Liberty: Who’s A Threat To Whom?
Target Liberty: Who’s A Threat To Whom?.
Apparently, Russia’s new military doctrine lists NATO, US as major foreign threats. Are those crazy Ruskies out of their mind.
NATO and the U.S. (sorry for repeating myself) are just minding their own business.
Just look at the map:
You know who else is a threat? Those crazy mullahs in Iran.
The U.S. government is sitting peacefully in the Northern Hemisphere overseeing the freest and most awesomest land on the planet. Meanwhile those mullahs are going to wreck the world with non-existent nuclear weapons.
The government that laid waste to Hiroshima and Nagasaki must prevent the mullahs from threatening the world.
Once again, just look at the map:
After turbulent 2014, next year may be no calmer | Reuters
After turbulent 2014, next year may be no calmer | Reuters.
(Reuters) – From financial crisis in Russia to cyber warfare withNorth Korea, 2014 has generated new flashpoints right into its final days, setting 2015 up to be just as turbulent.
Almost all of the major confrontations, such as the battle with Islamic State militants, the West’s stand-off with Russia overUkraine and the fight against Ebola, will rumble on. Others could erupt at short notice.
“Normally after a year like this you might expect things to calm down,” said John Bassett, former senior official with British signals intelligence agency GCHQ now an associate at Oxford University. “But none of these problems have been resolved and the drivers of them are not going away.”
The causes are varied – a global shift of economic power from the West, new technologies, regional rivalries and anger over rising wealth gaps.
In June, a report by the Institute for Economics and Peace showed world peace declining for the seventh consecutive year since 2007, reversing a trend of improvement over decades.
Did Anyone See 2014’s Many Crises Coming?
Did Anyone See 2014’s Many Crises Coming?.
This year has been marred by crises across the globe, as protests and conflicts have dominated headlines. Groups that were unknown to many, such as the Islamic State and Boko Haram, have become well-known. Tragedies like the downing of flight MH17 instantly entered public consciousness. Other crises, such as the continuously rising death toll in Syria and the increasing death toll of migrants, have occurred at a slower, yet relentless pace.
Some of these crises have been gestating a long time, while others seemed to develop in an instant. But were any of them predictable?
Predicting Conflict
Each year, political scientists working in the field of crisis and conflict forecasting run complex models analyzing the propensity for conflict in different regions across the world. These are usually published around the beginning of the year as a primer for both policy makers and the public on the threats to watch out for in the months ahead.
Each of these forecasts is unique; some prioritize risks in relation to U.S. interests, and others focus on aspects such as the potential for a mass killing. Taken together, they give a general idea of the regions and actors that concerned people looking at what the world would face in 2014.
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: I Call BS on Projections of a Decade of $20/Barrel Oil
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: I Call BS on Projections of a Decade of $20/Barrel Oil.
The ability of oil exporters to trigger a short-term collapse in price does not automatically translate into an ability to control the financial conflagration such a crash ignites.
My BS detector went off when two stories with similar headlines touting $20/barrel oil were published on the same day. Color me skeptical, but it’s almost as if mere $40/barrel oil is no longer enough to get the blood flowing, so both stories blared the more extreme $20/barrel price point.
Stratfor founder: ‘US fears a resurgent Russia’ — RT News
Stratfor founder: ‘US fears a resurgent Russia’ — RT News.
Washington “fears” a resurgent Russia, which harps back to the Cold War says George Friedman, the CEO and founder of forecasters Stratfor. He also believes the US started to meddle in Ukraine in retaliation for Russia outfoxing Obama over Syria.
Friedman says the United States has been intervening around the globe for over a century with the goal of making sure it keeps potential rivals in check. For the United States, any rising power in Europe represents a threat, and despite the end of the Cold War, Washington is still “hypersensitive” to the possible reemergence of Russia as a super power.
“The United States intervened in World War I in 1917 to block German hegemony, and again in World War II. In the Cold War the goal was to prevent Russian hegemony. US strategic policy has been consistent for a century,” he stated in an article on Stratfor’s website.
Startfor is a geopolitical intelligence firm that provides strategic analysis and forecasting to individuals and organizations around the world. It first came to prominence in 1999 with the release of its Kosovo Crisis Center, during NATO airstrikes over Serbia. It has often tried to predict various paths that governments and political leaders may take.
A Pessimist’s Guide To The World In 2015 | Zero Hedge
A Pessimist’s Guide To The World In 2015 | Zero Hedge.
Skirmishes in the South China Sea lead to full-scale naval confrontation. Israel bombs Iran, setting off an escalation of violence across the Middle East. Nigeria crumbles as oil prices fall and radicals gain strength. Bloomberg News asked foreign policy analysts, military experts, economists and investors to identify the possible worst-case scenarios, based on current global conflicts, that concern them most heading into 2015.
The Global Energy Security War
The Global Energy Security War.
Concerns about energy security have shot to the top of the political agenda in Europe. But the US has no intention of letting the EU down. “The United States will be working with the EU to develop a plan for the mid- to long-term evolution of a more energy-secure future”, said US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz at a conference of the Atlantic Council in Istanbul. At this summit, top US officials and energy experts showed themselves surprisingly positive about the progress the EU has made reducing its dependence on Russia. “A few years ago, we couldn’t have solved the Ukrainian problem. Now we can.” With US LNG exports under way, the “monumental” Southern Corridor under construction, and Gazprom’s South Stream project increasingly under pressure, Europe’s position will only get stronger. Karel Beckman reports from Istanbul.
In his opening address at the Atlantic Council’s Energy and Economic Summit 2014 in Istanbul (19-20 November), President and CEO Frederick Kempe immediately made it clear the Atlantic Council is playing for high stakes. “Europe is in the middle of an inflection point of its history”, he said. 2014 “is every bit as dramatic as 1815 – the year of Versailles”. Or, he added, 1989, the year of the fall of Communism. “The future of the international liberal order”, said Kempe, “is at stake”.
Actually, listening to many of the presentations at the Istanbul summit, the mood among the Americans recalled not so much of a specific year, as a period in history: the Cold War. Clearly for the Atlanticists – and it’s probably fair to say that the bipartisan Atlantic Council represents the conventional geopolitical look of the Washingon DC establisment – with the “resurgence” of Russia the Cold War is back all the way.
New York Times on Benefits of Gold in Currency Wars | www.goldcore.com
New York Times on Benefits of Gold in Currency Wars | www.goldcore.com.
The New York Times published an important article this week in which the benefits of gold to nation states during a period of currency wars was highlighted. The article was noteworthy as the New York Times has rarely covered gold in a positive manner.
The article, entitled ‘The Golden Age’ is about the growing use of gold in geopolitical affairs. They drew attention to the gold repatriation movements in Europe and to the accumulation of the precious metals in vast quantities by the central banks of the East – particularly Russia and China.
The Times attempts to get into the mind-set of the central banks who are buying gold or attempting to repatriate their current stocks of the metal. It presents two major rationales for the current trend.
“Some that’ve interpreted the metal’s mini-comeback as an indication that financial Armageddon, in the guise of runaway inflation, is approaching. Others have read the recent move as a symbolic way for central banks and governments to make a show of strength in nervously uncertain economic times.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Middle East in 2015 and Beyond: Trends and Drivers (Page 1)
The Middle East in 2015 and Beyond: Trends and Drivers (Page 1).
Four years after the uprisings that broke the mold of the old Middle East, 2015 promises to be another year of tumultuous change. The eruptions of 2011 unleashed decades of pent-up tensions and dysfunction in the political, socioeconomic, and cultural spheres; these dynamics will take many years, if not decades, to play themselves out and settle into new paradigms and equilibriums.
In 2014, four Arab countries—Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen—sank decisively into the ranks of failed states with no longer any effective central authority over the expanse of national territory. ISIS arose as the largest radical threat in the region’s modern history, challenging political borders and order and proposing political identities and governance paradigms. Sunni-Shi’i conflict intensified throughout the Levant and reached Yemen; an intra-Sunni conflict also pitted supporters and opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt rebuked its previously ruling Islamists and elected a military officer as president who has prioritized security and economics and cracked down heavily on dissent. Tunisia’s secular nationalists and Islamists found a way forward with a new constitution and inclusive national elections. Jordan and Lebanon have managed to maintain stability despite massive refugee inflows. A cautious Algeria maintained its status quo, reelecting an aging president to a fourth term. And Morocco continued its experiment in accommodation between a powerful monarchy and a government led by the moderate Islamist PJD party.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Breakdown Of International Cooperation | Zero Hedge
The Breakdown Of International Cooperation | Zero Hedge.
The Breakdown Of International Cooperation
Some of the major problems that humanity faces today transcend borders, and as such international cooperation is of vital importance. But recent events make such cooperation increasingly more challenging.
Without going into the wisdom of the decision, sanctions imposed on Russia over its foreign policy in Ukraine have a wide range of implications that go much beyond the economic sphere. For one, international dialogue is breaking down fast; just this week Russian President Vladimir Putin unceremoniously left the G20 meeting early.
Inevitably, this will have repercussions on major international cooperation initiatives, perhaps irreversibly in some cases. Here are a few notable examples:
Non-Proliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament
It is in no one’s interest that nuclear weapons go rogue. But the fear – or threat – of this happening can still carry some negotiating leverage.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
