On Wednesday, the Pentagon released its 2015 National Military Strategy, a 24-page blueprint for ruling the world through military force. While the language in the report is subtler and less incendiary than similar documents in the past, the determination to unilaterally pursue US interests through extreme violence remains the cornerstone of the new strategy. Readers will not find even a hint of remorse in the NMS for the vast destruction and loss of life the US caused in countries that posed not the slightest threat to US national security. Instead, the report reflects the steely resolve of its authors and elite constituents to continue the carnage and bloodletting until all potential rivals have been killed or eliminated and until such time that Washington feels confident that its control over the levers of global power cannot be challenged.
Category: Head Stories
Russia: Tit for Tat Hail, fire and brimstone, new sanctions or the US tanks on its borders, Russia takes things in stride. President Putin could adopt the motto of William of Orange: saevis tranquillus in undis, calm amidst the tempest. The tempest is all around. American tanks moved into the Baltic states. American warships sail up the Black sea. The EU sanctions against Russia were extended for another six months. Russian assets were seized in France and Belgium. In Syria, Damascus is threatened by the US-armed rebels. Greece wants to embrace Russia, but probably will not dare. Armenia, a small country hidden between Iran and Turkey, just joined the Eurasian Union of Russia-led states, and already there are public disturbances ominously reminding everyone of Kiev 2013. Ukraine is in shambles, sending waves of refugees to Russia. A weaker nation would become hysterical. Putin and Russia remain nonplussed.
On June 25 local time, the State Department of the United States released its country reports on human rights practices once again, making comments on the human rights situations in many countries while showing not a bit of regret for or intention to improve its own terrible human rights record. Plenty of facts show that, in 2014, the U.S., a self-proclaimed human rights defender, saw no improvements in its existent human rights issues, but reported numerous new problems. While its own human rights situation was increasingly grave, the U.S. violated human rights in other countries in a more brazen manner, and was given more “red cards” in the international human rights field.
Here’s the scoop: Two days before the swaggering Sec-Def touched down in Germany, Gazprom announced that it was putting the finishing touches on a massive deal that would double the amount of Russian gas flowing to Germany via a second Nord Stream pipeline. The shocking announcement made it look like the clueless Carter had no idea what was going on and that his efforts to isolate Russia were a complete flop. And, make no mistake; the deal is huge, big enough to change the geopolitical calculus of the entire region. Robert Morley explains what’s going on in a recent article at The Trumpet:
St. Petersburg International Forum: Story of Great Success The 2015 International Economic Forum (SPIEF) has gone down in history as an unprecedented success story. A total of 205 contracts estimated at $5.4 billion (293.4 billion rubles at current exchange rates) were signed at the annual forum said Anton Kobyakov, the executive secretary of this year’s SPIEF organizing committee. The figure does not include agreements kept away from public as commercial secrets. The event was attended by the delegations from 120 countries. The level of representation was high. No matter the United States and the European Union have been instigating tensions by driving anti-Russia sentiments recently, big business expressed its desire to develop the relationship with Moscow. The list of guests included: BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Enel, Eni, Pirelli, Lloyds, Jack Ma, the founder of Chinese Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce giant that provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer sales services via web portals.
Vladimir Putin on France and Europe: “The NATO members have renounced their sovereignty” “As you know, the modern world, especially the Western world, is highly monopolised and many Western countries – whether they want to hear this or not – have voluntarily given up a considerable part of their sovereignty. To some extent, this is a result of the politics of blocs. Sometimes we find it very difficult to come to terms with them on geopolitical issues. It is hard to reach an agreement with people who whisper even at home for fear of being overheard by the Americans. This is not a joke or a figure of speech.” Vladimir Putin denounces, more and more explicitly, the servility of France and Europe towards the United States, whether in the case of wire-tapping French leaders or that of Mistral ships.
US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is willing to risk a war with China in order to defend “freedom of navigation” in the South China Sea. Speaking in Honolulu, Hawaii on Wednesday, Carter issued his “most forceful” warning yet, demanding “an immediate and lasting halt to land reclamation” by China in the disputed Spratly Islands. Carter said: “There should be no mistake: The United States will fly, sail, and operate wherever international law allows, as we do all around the world.” He also added that the United States intended to remain “the principal security power in the Asia-Pacific for decades to come.”
We all remember how, in early June, President Putin announced that Russia would deploy more than 40 new ICBMs “able to overcome even the most technically advanced anti-missile defense systems.” Oh dear; the Pentagon and their European minions have been freaking out on overdrive ever since. First was NATO Secretary-General, Norwegian figurehead Jens Stoltenberg, who condemned it as “nuclear saber rattling.” Then there’s Lt. Gen. Stephen Wilson, the head of US Global Air Strike Command – as in the man responsible for US ICBMs and nuclear bombers – at a recent briefing in London; “[They’ve] annexed a country, changing international borders, raising rhetoric unlike we’ve heard since the cold war times…”
While much of the world focused last week on whether or not the Federal Reserve was going to raise interest rates, or whether the Greek debt crisis would bring Europe to a crisis, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded a $50 billion judgment to shareholders of the former oil company Yukos in their case against the Russian government. The governments of Belgium and France moved immediately to freeze Russian state assets in their countries, naturally provoking the anger of the Russian government. The timing of these actions is quite curious, coming as the Greek crisis in the EU seems to be reaching a tipping point and Greece, having perhaps abandoned the possibility of rapprochement with Europe, has been making overtures to Russia to help bail it out of its mess.
It’s Official: America Has a China-Containment Policy Actually, that was a title of a post I wrote in July 2010, before island-building, before the Senkaku crises, before the rare earths brouhaha, even before Hillary Clinton declared that the US had a “national interest” in freedom of navigation at the 2010 ASEAN foreign ministers’ conference in Hanoi and formally kicked off the “pivot”. I offer it as a reminder to the indignant commentators who declare we’re just out in the South China Sea responding to the PRC threat, a theme serendipitously sounded in an op-ed in The Australian by the Lowy Institute’s Alan Dupont after I thought I had finished this piece, but not too late some last-minute cut and paste: