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The EMP Threat: How It Works and What It Means for the Korean Crisis
The EMP Threat: How It Works and What It Means for the Korean Crisis
Before we begin with this week’s installment of This Week in Geopolitics, I want to draw your attention to the 2018 Strategic Investment Conference. Last year at the SIC, I said the United States would likely launch a pre-emptive attack on North Korea. I failed to anticipate the level of opposition from South Korea, which would bear the brunt of the casualties in such an attack. Without South Korea’s support, the US reconsidered its position. No attack came.
Obviously, I would like it if GPF were right about everything. Our track record is pretty good, but in this case, we were wrong. Still, I view this as the reason the SIC is such a valuable conference. The SIC’s greatest asset is how it brings together thinkers with profoundly different viewpoints to discuss the most important issues in the world today—people who aren’t afraid to tell you what they think, or to admit when they were wrong. I’m honored to be speaking once more at the SIC, where the theme for the year ahead is “Crossroads.”
And indeed, the world is at a crossroads. The post-2008 financial crisis “recovery” has not curbed speculation or reduced inequality. It has not halted the rise of political instability in the world’s most important countries. As Europe celebrates what 10 years ago would have been meager growth rates—and as the US celebrates sky-high stock prices one day only to watch them fall the next—the world stands on a precipice where the choices seem to be imminent chaos or delayed crisis.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Almost All Countries In Europe Have Border Issues
Almost All Countries In Europe Have Border Issues
For centuries, Europe has fought wars over borders. In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, Europe’s borders shifted wildly. As empires fragmented, new nations arose and wars were waged.
After 1945 and the beginning of the Cold War, a new principle emerged on the Continent. The borders that existed at the end of World War II were deemed sacrosanct—not to be changed.
Europeans knew that border disputes had been one of the reasons of the two world wars and that even raising the legitimacy of post-war borders risked igniting passions that led to violence.
Similarly, untouchable were the existing spheres of influence on the Continent. There was the East and the West, and neither would mess with the other.
Thus, when the Soviets crushed independence movements in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the United States refrained from any military action (not that there were many options). When Yugoslavia chose a pro-Western neutrality over membership in the Warsaw Pact, the Soviets didn’t intervene.
But in the early 1990s, everything changed.
Border Issues Arise, Again
In 1991–1992, two things happened.
First came the fall of the Soviet Union; then came the signing of the Maastricht Treaty and the creation of the European Union. Border issues began to drive events again.
The border of the Soviet Union collapsed, and a multitude of countries popped up to reclaim their past. There were many questions about borders that were mumbled about.
But for Eastern European countries, other problems took precedence: establishing national sovereignty, finding their place in a Europe that they longed to join, and building a new life for their people. They let the border issue drop—for the most part.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Why Syria Matters to You
Why Syria Matters to You
Firstly, I want to thank all of you who reserved your online seat for the premiere of my new documentary, Crisis & Chaos: Are We Moving Toward World War III? The keen response has shown us just how many of you are deeply concerned about the turmoil casting a shadow on most of the Eastern Hemisphere and its potential effects on the United States.
With a week to go before the exclusive premiere on September 26, you still have time to save your seat—and get a special bonus report from Geopolitical Futures, American Exposure to the European Financial Crisis. You can do so right here.
And now, let’s dig into this week’s edition of This Week in Geopolitics.
The war in Syria is significant in two ways. First, the outcome can reshape the Arab Middle East. Second, and perhaps more important, Syria is not simply about Syrians. The US, Russian, Iranian, Turkish, and French forces are engaged there along with the Islamic State (IS), al-Qaida, and secular Arabs. The Saudis and the rest of the Arab monarchies also exert political and economic influence on Syria.
I have written in the past about how the growing crises in Eurasia are increasingly interacting. Syria is the place where that interaction is the greatest and most violent.
Prior to World War II, there was a civil war in Spain. Nazi Germany and fascist Italy sent troops. The Soviet Union did as well. In addition, leftists from around the world flocked there to fight. The French and British refused to get involved, trying not to be drawn in. The Spanish Civil War was said to be a rehearsal for World War II. The major players of the European war were there—though some weren’t. New weapons were tried out. The civil war ended in April 1939, five months before Germany invaded Poland, which began World War II.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
George Friedman: Italy Is the Mother of All Systemic Threats
George Friedman: Italy Is the Mother of All Systemic Threats
Italy has been in a crisis for at least eight months, though mainstream media did not recognize it until July. This crisis has nothing to do with Brexit, although opponents of Brexit will claim it does. Even if Britain had voted to stay in the EU, the Italian crisis would still have been gathering speed.
The high level of non-performing loans (NPLs) has been a problem since before Brexit. It is clear that there is nothing in the Italian economy that can reduce them. Only a dramatic improvement in the economy would make it possible to repay these loans. And Europe’s economy cannot improve drastically enough to help. We have been in crisis for quite a while.
Banks were simply carrying loans as non-performing that were actually in default and discounting the NPLs rather than writing them off. But that only hid the obvious. As much as 17 percent of Italy’s loans will not be repaid. This will crush Italian banks’ balance sheets. And this will not only be in Italy.
Italian loans are packaged and resold, and Italian banks take loans from other European banks. These banks in turn have borrowed against Italian debt. Since Italy is the fourth largest economy in Europe, this is the mother of all systemic threats.
Bail-Ins, Not Bail Outs
The only way to help is a government bailout. The problem is that Italy is not only part of the EU, but part of the eurozone. As such, its ability to print its way out of the crisis is limited. In addition, EU regulations make it difficult for governments to bail out banks.
The EU has a concept called a bail-in, which means the depositors and creditors to the bank will lose their money.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
“Stratfor [VIDEO]: US aims to prevent a German-Russian Alliance”
“Stratfor [VIDEO]: US aims to prevent a German-Russian Alliance”
The head of the private intelligence agency Stratfor has for the first time publicly said that the US government considers to be its overriding strategic objective the prevention of a German-Russian alliance. Blocking that alliance is the only way to prevent an alternative world power capable of challenging extension of the American position of being the world’s lone superpower. [In this video, he says that the U.S. will fail in that overriding objective; German technology and capital will combine with Russian natural resources and “land-power,” to produce a truly bipolar world: U.S. v. Eurasia. So: he sees the U.S. strategy as being to block that, by weakening both Germany and Russia. That strategy would explain what Obama is doing in Ukraine, and the sanctions that are hurting both Russia and Germany, but Friedman thinks that nothing can work.]
Background:
The American political scientist George Friedman is chief of intelligence think tank “Stratfor Global Intelligence”, which he founded in 1996. The headquarters of Stratfor is located in Texas. Stratfor advises 4,000 companies, individuals and governments around the world, reports the New York Times. These include Bank of America, the US State Department, Apple, Microsoft and Lockheed Martin, Monsanto and Cisco, on security issues.
In December 2011 there was a hacker attack on the computer system of Stratfor.Then 90,000 names, addresses, credit card numbers, passwords Stratfor clients were published. The attack was by the hacker Jeremy Hammond. But later it turned out that an FBI employee Hammond had instigated the attack on the Stratfor system. The FBI was involved in all phases of the attack.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
