New Multipolar World

War of words between Mexico and the US continues



Looks like Mexico's president is a new Chavez

...19. In order to facilitate the adaptation of the world order to the realities of a multipolar world, the Russian Federation intends to give priority attention to:

1) eliminating the rudiments of the dominance of the United States and other unfriendly states in world affairs, creating conditions for the rejection of any state from neocolonial and hegemonic ambitions
...

;

The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation, as amended on March 31, 2023

The Capital of the Multipolar World,
A Moscow Diary, by Pepe Escobar for Strategic Culture Foundation. 03.31.2023.

In Moscow you feel no crisis. No effects of sanctions. No unemployment. No homeless people in the streets. Minimal inflation.

How sharp was good ol’ Lenin, prime modernist, when he mused, “there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. This global nomad now addressing you has enjoyed the privilege of spending four astonishing weeks in Moscow at the heart of an historical crossroads – culminating with the Putin-Xi geopolitical game-changing summit at the Kremlin.

To quote Xi, “changes that haven’t been seen in 100 years” do have a knack of affecting us all in more ways than one.

James Joyce, another modernity icon, wrote that we spend our lives meeting average and/or extraordinary people, on and on and on, but in the end we’re always meeting ourselves. I have had the privilege of meeting an array of extraordinary people in Moscow, guided by trusted friends or by auspicious coincidence: in the end your soul tells you they enrich you and the overarching historical moment in ways you can’t even begin to fathom.

Here are some of them. The grandson of Boris Pasternak, a gifted young man who teaches Ancient Greek at Moscow State University. A historian with unmatched knowledge of Russian history and culture. The Tajik working class huddling together in a chaikhana with the proper ambience of Dushanbe.

Chechens and Tuvans in awe doing the loop in the Big Central Line. A lovely messenger sent by friends extremely careful about security matters to discuss issues of common interest. Exceptionally accomplished musicians performing underground in Mayakovskaya. A stunning Siberian princess vibrant with unbounded energy, taking that motto previously applied to the energy industry – Power of Siberia – to a whole new level.

A dear friend took me to Sunday service at the Devyati Muchenikov Kizicheskikh church, the favorite of Peter the Great: the quintessential purity of Eastern Orthodoxy. Afterwards the priests invited us for lunch in their communal table, displaying not only their natural wisdom but also an uproarious sense of humor.

At a classic Russian apartment crammed with 10,000 books and with a view to the Ministry of Defense – plenty of jokes included – Father Michael, in charge if Orthodox Christianity relations with the Kremlin, sang the Russian imperial anthem after an indelible night of religious and cultural discussions.

I had the honor to meet some of those who were particularly targeted by the imperial machine of lies. Maria Butina – vilified by the proverbial “spy who came in from the cold” shtick – now a deputy at the Duma. Viktor Bout – which pop culture metastasized into the “Lord of War”, complete with Nic Cage movie: I was speechless when he told me he was reading me in maximum security prison in the USA, via pen drives sent by his friends (he had no internet access). The indefatigable, iron-willed Mira Terada – tortured when she was in a U.S. prison, now heading a foundation protecting children caught in hard times.

I spent much treasured quality time and engaged in invaluable discussions with Alexander Dugin – the crucial Russian of these post-everything times, a man of pure inner beauty, exposed to unimaginable suffering after the terrorist assassination of Darya Dugina, and still able to muster a depth and reach when it comes to drawing connections across the philosophy, history and history of civilizations spectrum that is virtually unmatched in the West.

On the offensive against Russophobia

And then there were the diplomatic, academic and business meetings. From the head of international investor relations of Norilsk Nickel to Rosneft executives, not to mention the EAEU’s Sergey Glazyev himself, side by side with his top economic adviser Dmitry Mityaev, I was given a crash course on the current A to Z of Russian economy – including serious problems to be addressed.

At the Valdai Club, what really mattered were the meetings on the sidelines, much more than the actual panels: that’s when Iranians, Pakistanis, Turks, Syrians, Kurds, Palestinians, Chinese tell you what is really in their hearts and minds.

The official launch of the International Movement of Russophiles was a special highlight of these four weeks. A special message written by President Putin was read by Foreign Minister Lavrov, who then delivered his own speech. Later, at the House of Receptions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, four of us were received by Lavrov at a private audience. Future cultural projects were discussed. Lavrov was extremely relaxed, displaying his matchless sense of humor.

This is a cultural as much as a political movement, designed to fight Russophobia and to tell the Russian story, in all its immensely rich aspects, especially to the Global South.

I am a founding member and my name is on the charter. In my nearly four decades as a foreign correspondent, I have never been part of any political/cultural movement anywhere in the world; nomad independents are a fierce breed. But this is extremely serious: the current, irredeemably mediocre self-described “elites” of the collective West want no less than cancel Russia all across the spectrum. No pasarán.

[N]Spirituality, compassion, mercy

Decades happening in only four weeks imply precious time needed to put it all in perspective.

The initial gut feeling the day I arrived, after a seven-hour walk under snow flurries, was confirmed: this is the capital of the multipolar world. I saw it among the West Asians at the Valdai. I saw it talking to visiting Iranians, Turks and Chinese. I saw it when over 40 African delegations took over the whole area around the Duma – the day Xi arrived in town. I saw it throughout the reception across the Global South to what Xi and Putin are proposing to the overwhelming majority of the planet.

In Moscow you feel no crisis. No effects of sanctions. No unemployment. No homeless people in the streets. Minimal inflation. Import substitution in all areas, especially agriculture, has been a resounding success. Supermarkets have everything – and more – compared to the West. There’s an abundance of first-rate restaurants. You can buy a Bentley or a Loro Pianna cashmere coat you can’t even find in Italy. We laughed about it chatting with managers at the TSUM department store. At the BiblioGlobus bookstore, one of them told me, “We are the Resistance.”

By the way, I had the honor to deliver a talk on the war in Ukraine at the coolest bookshop in town, Bunker, mediated by my dear friend, immensely knowledgeable Dima Babich. A huge responsibility. Especially because Vladimir L. was in the audience. He’s Ukrainian, and spent 8 years, up to 2022, telling it like it really was to Russian radio, until he managed to leave – after being held at gunpoint – using an internal Ukrainian passport. Later we went to a Czech beer hall where he detailed his extraordinary story.

In Moscow, their toxic ghosts are always lurking in the background. Yet one cannot but feel sorry for the psycho Straussian neocons and neoliberal-cons who now barely qualify as Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski’s puny orphans.

In the late 1990s, Brzezinski pontificated that, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical center because its very existence as an independent state helps transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”

With or without a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, Russia has already changed the narrative. This is not about becoming a Eurasian empire again. This is about leading the long, complex process of Eurasia integration – already in effect – in parallel to supporting true, sovereign independence across the Global South.

I left Moscow – the Third Rome – towards Constantinople – the Second Rome – one day before Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev gave a devastating interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta once again outlining all the essentialities inherent to the NATO vs. Russia war.

This is what particularly struck me: “Our centuries-old culture is based on spirituality, compassion and mercy. Russia is a historical defender of sovereignty and statehood of any peoples who turned to it for help. She saved the U.S. itself at least twice, during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. But I believe that this time it is impractical to help the United States maintain its integrity.”

In my last night, before hitting a Georgian restaurant, I was guided by the perfect companion off Pyatnitskaya to a promenade along the Moscow River, beautiful rococo buildings gloriously lighted, the scent of Spring – finally – in the air. It’s one of those “Wild Strawberry” moments out of Bergman’s masterpiece that hits the bottom of our soul. Like mastering the Tao in practice. Or the perfect meditative insight at the top of the Himalayas, the Pamirs or the Hindu Kush.

So the conclusion is inevitable. I’ll be back. Soon.

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/the-capital-of-the-multipolar-world-a-moscow-diary/

"Manu" is a spoilt child but frankly speaking there's no alternative to him:

Macron Urges Europe to Stay Out of Feud Between US, China Over Taiwan, 04.09.2023.

PARIS (Sputnik) - Europe should not let itself be drawn into the confrontation between the United States and China over Taiwan conforming to "the American rhythm," French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday.

"The question asked to us, Europeans, is this: are we interested in the forced solution to the Taiwan issue? No. The worst thing would be to think that we, Europeans, should follow this suit and adjust to the American rhythm and Chinese overreaction. Why must we move at the pace chosen by others?" Macron told the French newspaper.

Macron noted that Europeans need to "wake up" and think about their own interests.

"Our priority is not to adapt to the agenda of other countries in all regions of the world," the French leader added.

Macron's remarks come on the heels of his visit to China this past week, during which he praised Beijing's role in the international arena and underlined the importance of bilateral French-Chinese relations in various spheres. A series of commercial contracts has been signed between companies of the two countries during the visit.


The situation around Taiwan escalated last August after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi traveled to the island. Beijing condemned Pelosi's trip, which it regarded as a gesture of support for separatism, and launched large-scale military drills in the vicinity of the island. Despite China's acute reaction, Pelosi's visit unleashed a wave of trips by Western politicians to the island.

Beijing views the island as its province, while Taiwan insists on autonomy. Beijing opposes any official contacts of foreign states with Taipei and considers Chinese sovereignty over the island indisputable - with accordance to one-China policy.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230409/macron-urges-europe-to-stay-out-of-feud-between-us-china-over-taiwan-1109300224.html

Waiting for the End of the World, by Pepe Escobar for Vedomosti. 04.13.2023.

We were waiting for the end of the world
Waiting for the end of the world, waiting for the end of the world
Dear Lord, I sincerely hope You’re coming
‘Cause You really started something


Elvis Costello, Waiting for the End of the World, 1977.

NOTE: THIS IS THE ENGLISH ORIGINAL OF A COLUMN SPECIALLY COMMISSIONED BY LEADING RUSSIAN BUSINESS DAILY VEDOMOSTI:


https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/columns/2023/04/10/970144-konets-sveta-dlya-gegemona.

We cannot even begin to fathom the non-stop ripple effects deriving from the 2023 geopolitical earthquake that shook the world: Putin and Xi, in Moscow, de facto signaling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana.

This has been the ultimate anathema for rarified Anglo-American hegemonic elites for over a century: a signed, sealed, comprehensive strategic partnership of two peer competitors, intertwining a massive manufacturing base and pre-eminence in supply of natural resources – with value-added Russian state of the art weaponry and diplomatic nous.
From the point of view of these elites, whose Plan A was always a debased version of the Roman Empire’s Divide and Rule, this was never supposed to happen. In fact, blinded by hubris, they never saw it coming. Historically, this does not even qualify as a remix of the Tournament of Shadows; it’s more like Tawdry Empire Left in the Shade, “foaming at the mouth” (copyright Maria Zakharova).

Xi and Putin, with one Sun Tzu move, immobilized Orientalism, Eurocentrism, Exceptionalism and, last but not least, Neo-Colonialism. No wonder the Global South was riveted by what developed in Moscow.

Adding insult to injury, we have China, the world’s largest economy by far when measured by purchasing power parity (PPP), as well as the largest exporter. And we have Russia, an economy that by PPP is equivalent or even larger than Germany’s – with the added advantages of being the world’s largest energy exporter and not forced to de-industrialize.

Together, in synch, they are focused on creating the necessary conditions to bypass the US dollar.

Cue to one of President Putin’s crucial one-liners: “We are in favor of using the Chinese yuan for settlements between Russia and the countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.”

A key consequence of this geopolitical and geoeconomic alliance, carefully designed throughout the past few years, is already in play: the emergence of a possible triad in terms of global trade relations and, in many aspects, a Global Trade War.

Eurasia is being led – and largely organized – by the Russia-China partnership. China will also play a key role across the Global South, but India may also become quite influential, agglutinating what would be a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on steroids. And then there is the former “indispensable nation” ruling over the EU vassals and the Anglosphere rounded up in the Five Eyes.

What the Chinese really want


The Hegemon, under its self-concocted “rules-based international order”, essentially never did diplomacy. Divide and Rule, by definition, precludes diplomacy. Now their version of “diplomacy” has degenerated even further into crude insults by an array of US, EU and UK’s intellectually challenged and frankly moronic functionaries.

It’s no wonder that a true gentleman, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, has been forced to admit, “Russia is no longer a partner of the EU… The European Union ‘lost’ Russia. But the Union itself is to blame. After all, EU member states… openly declare that Russia should be dealt a strategic defeat. That is why we consider the EU to be an enemy organization.”

And yet the new Russian foreign policy concept, announced by Putin on March 31st, makes it quite clear: Russia does not consider itself an “enemy of the West” and does not seek isolation.

The problem is there’s virtually no adult to talk to on the other side, rather a bunch of hyenas. That has led Lavrov to once again stress that “symmetrical and asymmetrical” measures may be used against those involved in “hostile” actions against Moscow.

When it comes to Exceptionalistan, that’s self-evident: the US is designated by Moscow as the prime anti-Russia instigator, and the collective West’s overall policy is described as “a new type of Hybrid War.”

Yet what really matters for Moscow are the positives further on down the road: non-stop Eurasia integration; closer ties with “friendly global centers” China and India; increased help to Africa; more strategic cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean, the lands of Islam – Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt – and ASEAN.

And that brings us to something essential that was – predictably – ignored en masse by Western media: the Boao Forum for Asia, which took place nearly simultaneously with the announcement of Russia’s new foreign policy concept.

The Boao Forum, started in early 2001, still in the pre-9/11 era, has been modeled on Davos, but it’s Top China through and through, with the secretariat based in Beijing. Boao is in Hainan province, one of the islands of the Gulf of Tonkin and today a tourist paradise.

One of the key sessions of this year’s forum was on development and security, chaired by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is currently Boao’s president.

The problem is these two initiatives are directly linked to the UN’s concept of peace and security and the extremely dodgy Agenda 2030 on “sustainable development” – which is not exactly about development and much less “sustainable”: it’s a Davos uber-corporate concoction. The UN for its part is basically a hostage of Washington’s whims. Beijing, for the moment, plays along.

Premier Li Qiang was more specific. Stressing the trademark concept of “community of shared future for mankind” as the basis for peace and development, he linked peaceful coexistence with the “Spirit of Bandung” – in direct continuity with the emergence of NAM in 1955: that should be the “Asian Way” of mutual respect and building consensus – in opposition to “the indiscriminate use of unilateral sanctions and long-reaching jurisdiction”, and the refusal of “a new Cold War”.

And that led Li Qiang to the emphasis on the Chinese drive to deepen the RCEP East Asian trade deal, and also advance the negotiations on the free trade agreement between China and ASEAN. And all that integrated with the new expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in contrast to trade protectionism.

So for the Chinese what matters, intertwined with business, is cultural interactions; inclusivity; mutual trust; and a stern refusal of “clash of civilizations” and ideological confrontation.

As much as Moscow easily subscribes to all of the above – and in fact practices it via diplomatic finesse – Washington is terrified by how compelling is this Chinese narrative for the whole Global South. After all, Exceptionalistan’s only offer in the market of ideas is unilateral domination; Divide an Rule; and “you’re with us or against us”. And in the latter case you will be sanctioned, harassed, bombed and/or regime-changed.

Is it 1848 all over again?


Meanwhile, in vassal territories, a possibility arises of a revival of 1848, when a big revolutionary wave hit all over Europe.

In 1848 these were liberal revolutions; today we have essentially popular anti-liberal (and anti-war) revolutions – from farmers in the Netherlands and Belgium to unreconstructed populists in Italy and Left and Right populists combined in France.

It may be too early to consider this a European Spring. Yet what’s certain in several latitudes is that average European citizens feel increasingly inclined to shed the yoke of Neoliberal Technocracy and its dictatorship of Capital and Surveillance. Not to mention NATO warmongering.

As virtually all European media is technocrat-controlled people won’t see this discussion in the MSM. Yet there’s a feeling in the air this may be heralding a Chinese-style end of a dynasty.

There are indeed intimations that Europe may be witnessing a rebirth.

The period of upheaval will be long and arduous – due to the hordes of anarco-liberals who are such useful idiots for the Western oligarchy – or it could all come to a head in a single day. The target is quite clear: the death of Neoliberal Technocracy.

That’s how the Xi-Putin view could make inroads across the collective West: show that this ersatz “modernity” (which incorporates rabid cancel culture) is essentially void compared to traditional, deeply rooted cultural values – be it Confucianism, Taoism or Eastern Orthodoxy. The Chinese and Russian concepts of civilization-state are much more appealing than they appear.

Well, the (cultural) revolution won’t be televised; but it may work its charms via countless Telegram channels. France, infatuated with rebellion throughout its history, may well be jump to the vanguard – again.

Yet nothing will change if the global financial casino is not subverted. Russia taught the world a lesson: it was preparing itself, in silence, for a long-term Total War. So much so that its calibrated counterpunch turned the Financial War upside down – completely destabilizing the casino. China, meanwhile, is re-balancing, and is on the way to be also prepared for Total War, hybrid and otherwise.

The inestimable Michael Hudson, fresh from his latest book, The Collapse of Antiquity, where he deftly analyzes the role of debt in Greece And Rome, the roots of Western civilization, succinctly explains our current state of play:

“America has pulled a color revolution at the top, in Germany, Holland, England, and France, essentially, where the foreign policy of Europe is not representing their own economic interests (…) America simply said, – We are committed to support a war of (what they call) democracy (by which they mean oligarchy, including the Nazism of Ukraine) against autocracy (…) Autocracy is any country strong enough to prevent the emergence of a creditor oligarchy, like China has prevented the creditor oligarchy.”

So “creditor oligarchy”, in fact, can be explained as the toxic intersection between globalist wet dreams of total control and militarized Full Spectrum Dominance.

The difference now is that Russia and China are showing to the Global South that what American strategists had in store for them – you’re going to “freeze in the dark” if you deviate from what we say – is no longer applicable. Most of the Global South is now in open geoeconomic revolt.

Globalist neoliberal totalitarianism of course won’t disappear under a sand storm. At least not yet. There’s still a maelstrom of toxicity ahead: suspension of constitutional rights; Orwellian propaganda; goon squads; censorship; cancel culture; ideological conformity; irrational curbs of freedom of movement; hatred and even persecution of – Slav – Untermenschen; segregation; criminalization of dissent; book burnings, show trials; fake arrest mandates by the kangaroo ICC; ISIS-style terror.

But the most important vector is that both China and Russia, each exhibiting their own complex particularities – and both dismissed by the West as unassimilable Others – are heavily invested in building workable economic models that are not connected, in several degrees, to the Western financial casino and/or supply chain networks. And that’s what’s driving the Exceptionalists berserk – even more berserk than they already are.

Pepe Escobar is a Eurasia-wide independent geopolitical analyst and author. His latest book is Raging Twenties (Nimble Books, 2021). Follow him on Telegram at @rocknrollgeopolitics.

"Manu" is a spoilt child but frankly speaking there's no alternative to him:

This little weasel is only proposing this quid pro quo in the hopes of preventing China from supplying Russia in the future. In return he offers for Europe to stay out of the Taiwan issue.

Up to China if they want to go for this. I don't see the benefit for China really, considering that if Russia hypothetically falls, then Macron is a nobody and the US neocons will be driving everyone to confront China anyway. And that Europe won't be able to interfere in the Taiwan issue with much even if they had the upmost of motivation to do so. On the other hand, stroking Macron's ego and prodding him towards even just a verbal rift with Washington certainly has its benefits too.

Either way though, from China - Russia needs trade, investment, diplomatic cover and so on more than direct military support.

I think Xi accept his grovelling mainly because Russia doesn't really need military help as such from China, and splitting China between the EU and US, when the US cuts and runs when it is time to clean up a Chinese peace keeping force in the parts of Ukraine that don't want to unify with the RF would be rather handy.

China does not need to send weapons and equipment and ammo to Russia... but Russia does need them to keep trading with them, and buying their energy and food etc, and China remains a good source for the other things Russia might want too.

Putin held a working meeting with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, by Olga Ivanova for VZGLYAD. 04.16.2023.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with a member of the State Council of China, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov said.

He noted that information about the meeting will follow, RIA Novosti reports.

Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Chinese Defense Minister Colonel General Li Shangfu would pay an official visit to Russia from April 16 to 18, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu would discuss with his Chinese counterpart the prospects for bilateral cooperation in the defence sector.

https://vz.ru/news/2023/4/16/1207822.html

Stop! you're beautiful!, Goethe's Faust.

The Empire’s Revenge: Set Fire to Southern Eurasia, by Pepe Escobar for Strategic Culture Foundation. 04.24.2023.

The collective cognitive dissonance displayed by the pack of hyenas with polished faces driving U.S. foreign policy should never be underestimated.

And yet those Straussian neo-con psychos have been able to pull off a tactical success. Europe is a ship of fools heading for Scylla and Charybdis – with quislings such as France’s Le Petit Roi and Germany’s Liver Sausage Chancellor cooperating in the debacle, complete with the galleries drowning in a maelstrom of hysterical moralism.

It’s those driving the Hegemon that are destroying Europe. Not Russia.

But then there’s The Big Picture of The New Great Game 2.0.

Two Russian analysts, by different means, have come up with an astonishing, quite complementary, and quite realistic road map.

General Andrei Gurulyov, retired, is now a member of the Duma. He considers that the NATO vs. Russia war on Ukrainian soil will end only by 2030 – when Ukraine would basically have ceased to exist.

His deadline is 2027-2030 – something that no one so far has dared to predict. And “ceasing to exist”, per Gurulyov, means actually disappearing from any map. Implied is the logical conclusion of the Special Military Operation – reiterated over and over again by the Kremlin and the Security Council: the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine; neutral status; no NATO membership; and “indivisibility of security”, equally, for Europe and the post-Soviet space.

So until we have these facts on the ground, Gurulyov is essentially saying that the Kremlin and the Russian General Staff will make no concessions. No Beltway-imposed “frozen conflict” or fake ceasefire, which everyone knows will not be respected, just like the Minsk agreements were never respected.

And yet Moscow, we got a problem. As much as the Kremlin may always insist this is not a war against the Slavic Ukrainian brothers and cousins – which translates into no American-style Shock’n Awe pulverizing everything in sight – Gurulyov’s verdict implies the destruction of the current, cancerous, corrupt Ukrainian state is a must.

A comprehensive sitrep of the crucial crossroads, as it stands, correctly argues that if Russia was in Afghanistan for 10 years, and in Chechnya, all periods combined, for another 10 years, the current SMO – otherwise described by some very powerful people in Moscow as an “almost war” – and on top of it against the full force of NATO, could well last another 7 years.

The sitrep also correctly argues that for Russia the kinetic aspect of the “almost war” is not even the most relevant.

In what for all practical purposes is a war to the death against Western neoliberalism, what really matters is a Russian Great Awakening – already in effect: “Russia’s goal is to emerge in 2027-2030 not as a mere ‘victor’ standing over the ruins of some already-forgotten country, but as a state that has re-connected with its historic arc, has found itself, re-established its principles, its courage in defending its vision of the world.”

Yes, this is a civilizational war, as Alexander Dugin has masterfully argued. And this is about a civilizational rebirth. And yet, for the Straussian neo-con psychos, that’s just another racket towards plunging Russia into chaos, installing a puppet and stealing its natural resources.

Fire in the hole

The analysis by Andrei Bezrukov neatly complements Gurulyov’s (here, in Russian). Bezrukov is a former colonel in the SVR (Russian foreign intel) and now a Professor of the Chair of Applied Analysis of International Problems at MGIMO and the chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy think tank.

Bezrukov knows that the Empire will not take the incoming, massive NATO humiliation in Ukraine lying down. And even before the possible 2027-2030 timeline proposed by Gurulyov, he argues, it is bound to set fire to southern Eurasia – from Turkey to China.

President Xi Jinping, in his memorable visit to the Kremlin last month, told President Putin the world is now undergoing changes “not seen in 100 years”.

Bezrukov, appropriately, reminds us of the state of things then: “In the years from 1914 to 1945, the world was in the same intermediate state that it is in now. Those thirty years changed the world completely: from empires and horses to the emergence of two nuclear powers, the UN, and transatlantic flight. We are entering a similar period, which this time will last about twenty years.”

Europe, predictably, will “whither away”, as “it is no longer the absolute center of the universe.” Amidst this redistribution of power, Bezrukov goes back to one of the key points of a seminal analysis developed in the recent past by Andre Gunder Frank: “200-250 years ago, 70 percent of manufacturing was in China and India. We are going back to about there, which will also correspond to population size.”

So it’s no wonder that the fastest-developing region – which Bezrukov characterizes as “southern Eurasia” – may become a “risk zone”, potentially converted by the Hegemon into a massive power keg.

He outlines how southern Eurasia is peppered by conflicting borders – as in Kashmir, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan. The Hegemon is bound to invest in a flare-up of military conflicts over disputed borders as well as separatist tendencies (for instance in Balochistan). CIA black ops galore.

Still Russia will be able to get by, according to Bezrukov: “Russia has very big advantages, because we are the biggest producer of food and supplier of energy. And without cheap energy there will be no progress and digitalization. Also, we are the link between East and West, without which the continent cannot live, because the continent has to trade. And if the South burns, the main routes will not be through the oceans in the South, but in the North, mainly overland.”

The biggest challenge for Russia will be to keep internal stability: “All states will divide into two groups at this historic turning point: those that can maintain internal stability and move reasonably, bloodlessly into the next technological cycle – and then those that are unable to do so, that slip off the path, that bloom a bloody internal showdown like we had a hundred years ago. The latter will be set back ten to twenty years, will subsequently lick their wounds and try to catch up with everyone else. So our job is to maintain internal stability.”

And that’s where the Great Awakening hinted at by Gurulyov, or Russia reconnecting with its true civilizational ethos, as Dugin would argue, will play its unifying role.

There’s still a long way to go – and a war against NATO to win. Meanwhile, in other news, Hegemon hacks are spinning that the North Atlantic has relocated to South China. Goodnight, and good luck.

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/the-empires-revenge-set-fire-to-southern-eurasia/

Adventures in NATOstan, by Pepe Escobar for Strategic Council Foundation. 05.22.2023.
Sparks Flying in Ibiza, Locked Down Bilderberg in Lisbon

Let’s start with a graphic depiction of where the Global North and the Global South really stand.

1. Xian, former imperial capital, and key hub of the Ancient Silk Roads: Xi Jinping hosts the China-Central Asia summit, attended by all Heartland “stans” (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgzystan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan).
   

The final statement stresses economic cooperation and “a resolute stand” against Hegemon-concocted color revolutions. That expands what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are already implementing. In practice, the summit seals that the Russia-China strategic partnership will be protecting the Heartland.

2. Kazan: the Russia-Islamic World forum unites not only religious leaders but top  of no less than 85 nations. Multipolar Russia proceeded in parallel to the Arab League Summit in Jeddah, which welcomed back Syria to the “Arab family”. Arab nations unanimously pledged to end “foreign interference” for good.

3. Hiroshima: the ever-shrinking G7, actually G9 (adding two unelected EU bureaucrats), imposes a single agenda of more sanctions on Russia; more weapons to black void Ukraine; and more lecturing of China.

4. Lisbon: the annual Bilderberg meeting – a NATO/Atlanticist fest – takes place in a not so secret hotel completely locked down. Top item in the agenda; war – hybrid and otherwise – on the “RICs” in BRICS (Russia, India, China).

I could have been in Xian, or most likely Kazan. Instead, honoring a previous commitment, I was in Ibiza, and then scraped the idea of flying to Lisbon as a waste of time. Allow me to share with you the reason why: call it a little tale from the Baleares, breaking the trademark pledge that what happens in swinging, sweaty deep house Ibiza stays in Ibiza.

I was a guest at a top business gathering – mostly Spanish but also featuring Portuguese, Germans, Brits and Scandinavians: ultra high-level executives – in real estate, asset management, investment banking. Our panel was titled “Global Geopolitical Shifts and Their Consequences”. Before the panel, participants were invited to vote on what worried them most when it comes to the future of their business. Number one was inflation and interest rates. Number two was geopolitics. That prefigured a very lively debate ahead.

When a EU hagiographer goes berserk


Little did I – and the audience – know that would turn into a wild ride. The first presentation came from the director of a “Center for European Politics” in Copenhagen. She bills herself as a political science professor, and is an adviser to EU Chief Gardener Borrell.

Well, I adopted a Cheshire cat stance after the tsunami of clichés spewed out about “European values” and evil Russkies, as well as her being “frightened” by the future of Europe. At least immediate relief was provided by the impeccably diplomatic Lanxin Xiang, an adorable character, always with a cheerful smile on his face, and one of the very few leading experts on China who actually knows what he’s talking about, in fluent English.

Lanxin Xiang, among other accomplishments, is Emeritus Professor of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva; director of the Institute of Security Policy at the China National Institute for SCO International Exchange; and executive director of the Washington Foundation for European Studies.

Professor Xiang offered a masterly exposition on the American obsession to fabricate a “Taiwan problem” and how Europe, already squeezed by the U.S. proxy war against Russia, must be very careful when it comes to lecturing China.

When it was my turn, I went for the kill, dismissing all those EU press release platitudes as absolute nonsense, and stressing how Europe is already being eaten alive by the proverbial “American interests”. As briefly as possible I explained the whole geopolitical background of the war in Ukraine.

Well, this was all delivered to top business people who consume The Economist, Financial Times and Bloomberg as their prime sources of information. Their reaction would speak volumes.

Predictably, the EU-paid bureaucrat completely freaked out, and shrieking with outrage, went full pre-ordained script, from threatening to abandon the stage to accusing me of being “paid by the Kremlin”. I asked her, point blank, to “contradict me, with facts”. No facts were provided. Just fear and bewilderment, mixed with intimations of cancel culture.

To his great merit the vastly experienced moderator, Struan Robertson from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, kept things civil, giving more time for Lanxin Xiang to explain the Chinese mindset and opening the floor for a sequence of very good questions.

In the end, the audience loved it. Many came to personally thank me for information they will never have access to in El Pais, Le Monde or The Economist. A minority in the room was simply stunned – but our debate at least must have left them musing over a lot of preconceived notions.

It’s the total merit of the key organizers, Jose Maria Pons and head of the program Cristina Garcia-Peri, to host such a debate in fabulous Ibiza, in Spain, prime NATOstan territory. In the current situation, this would be absolutely impossible in France or Germany, not to mention Scandinavia or those demented Baltics.

There’s no way to counter-act the fabricated narratives parroted by EU-paid hacks and bureaucrats except for ridiculing them – in their faces. They become livid and barely manage to stutter when their lies are exposed. For instance, one of the questions from the floor, by a top of the line German businessman, enumerated a litany of dark facts about Ukrainian “democracy” that are absolutely verbotten by EUrocracy.

The G-Less Than Zero freaks out


What happened in Ibiza dovetails with what happened in U.S.-nuclear bombed Hiroshima – Hegemons don’t do apologies – and in that locked down Lisbon hotel.

With the G7 “leadership” mired in a sticky swamp of intellectual shallowness, predictably the only agenda in colonized Japan was more sanctions on Russia – imposed over third countries and on companies in the energy and military-industrial sectors; more weapons to the Ukrainian black void; and a ridiculous counter-productive new obsession of piling up on China “containment” for alleged “economic coercion.”

In the photo ops, by the way, it’s not a shrinking G7 that shows up: but a warmongering G9, artificially augmented by that pathetic couple of unelected EUrocrats, Charles Michel and Pustula von der Lugen.

As far as the real Global Majority – or Global South – is concerned, this looks more like a G-Less Than Zero. The more the senseless, illegal Sanctions Wars are “expanded”, the more the absolute majority of the Global South moves away from the collective West, diplomatically, geopolitically and geoeconomically.

And that’s why the top Bilderberg agenda at the hijacked Lisbon hotel was to revamp NATO/Atlanticist coordination in a war – hybrid and otherwise – against the driving force in BRICS; the RICs (Russia, India, China).

There were other items on the menu – from AI to the acute banking crisis, from “energy transition” to “fiscal challenges”, not to mention proverbial “U.S. leadership”.

But when you get in the same room people like NATO’s Stoltenberg; director of U.S. intel Avril Haines; senior director for Strategic Planning at the National Security Council Thomas Wright; Goldman Sachs president John Waldron; Chief Gardener Borrell (whose minion was in Ibiza); vice chair of Brookfield Asset Management, Mark Carney (one of their executives also in Ibiza); Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Christopher Cavoli; and Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, among other Atlanticist shills, the plot is self-evident:

It’s war on the multipolar world. At least we can dance it away in Ibiza.

https://www.unz.com/pescobar/adventures-in-natostan/

NATzO clown brains are like a broken record player playing the same retarded tune over and over. Russia is not an export dependent banana republic.
It can swallow losing exports of energy and resources. NATzO clowns will have to eat high inflation and shortages.

Also, most of the world wants Russia's energy and resources and will fight to get them. Some collection of congenital idiots in NATzO who fancy
themselves masters of the universe will not stop them.

Pepe Escobar: Eurasian Heartland Rises to Challenge the West, by Pepe Escobar for Sputnikglobe.com. 05.26.2023.

President Xi Jinping telling President Putin at the end of their summit last March in Moscow that we’re now facing “great changes not seen in a century” directly applies to the new spirit reigning across the Heartland.

Cue to the China-Central Asia summit last week in Xian, the former imperial capital, where Xi solidified the expansion of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from Western China in Xinjiang to its western neighbors and then all the way to Iran, Turkey and Eastern Europe.

Xi in Xian particularly stressed the complementing aspects between BRI and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), once again showing that all five Central Asian “stans”, acting together, should counter-act the proverbial external interference via “terrorism, separatism and extremism”

The message was stark: these hybrid war strategies are all integrated with the attempt by the Hegemon to continue fostering serial color revolutions. The purveyors of the “rules-based international order”, Xi implied, will go no holds barred to prevent ongoing Heartland integration.

The usual suspects in fact are already spinning that Central Asia is falling into a potential trap, fully captured by Beijing. Yet this is something Kazakhstan’s “multi-vector diplomacy”, coined way back in the Nazarbayev years, would never allow.

What Beijing is developing, instead, is an integrated approach via a C+C5 secretariat with no less than 19 separate channels of communication.

The heart of the matter is to turbo-charge Heartland connectivity via the BRI’s Middle Corridor.

And that, crucially, includes technology transfer. As it stands, there are dozens of industrial transfer programs with Kazakhstan, a dozen in Uzbekistan, and several in discussion with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These are extolled by Beijing as part of “harmonious Silk Roads”.

Xi himself, as a post-modern pilgrim, detailed the connectivity in his keynote speech in Xian: “The China-Kyrgystan-Uzbekistan highway that runs across the Tian shan Mountains, the China-Tajikistan expressway that defies the Pamir Plateau, and the China-Kazakhstan crude oil pipeline and the China-Central Asia Gas Pipeline that traverse the vast desert – they are the present-day Silk Road.”

The Revival of the Heartland “Belt”

Xi’s China is once again mirroring lessons from History. What’s happening now brings us back to the first half of the first millennium B.C., when the Persian Achaemenid empire established itself as the largest to date, stretching from India in the east and Central Asia in the northeast to Greece in the west and Egypt in the southwest.

For the first time in history, territories that spanned Asia, Africa and Europe were brought together; and that led to a boom in trade, culture and ethnic interactions (what BRI defines today as “people to people exchanges”).

That’s how we had the Hellenistic world first getting in touch with India and Central Asia – as they set up the first Greek settlements in Bactria (in today’s Afghanistan).

By the end of the first millennium B.C. all the way to the first millennium A.D. an immense area from the Pacific to the Atlantic – encompassing the Han Chinese empire, the Kushan kingdom, the Parthians and the Roman empire, among others – formed “a continuous belt of civilizations, states and cultures”, as Prof. Edvard Rtveladze of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan defined it.

This, in a nutshell, is at heart of the Chinese concept of “belt” and “road”: the “belt” refers to the Heartland, the “road” refers to the Maritime Silk Road.

So slightly less than 2,000 years ago, that was the first time in human history that the borders of several states and kingdoms were immediately adjacent to each other along no less than 11,400 km, from east to west. No wonder the fabled Ancient Silk Road – actually a maze of roads -, the first transcontinental thoroughfare, emerged at the time.

That was a direct consequence of a series of political, economic and cultural whirlwinds involving the peoples of Eurasia. History, in the high acceleration 21st century, is now retracing these steps.

Geography, after all, is destiny. Central Asia was traversed by countless migrations of Near Eastern, Indo-European, Indo-Iranian and Turkic peoples; was the focus of serious intercultural interaction (Iranian, Indian, Turkic, Chinese, Hellenistic cultures); and criss-crossed virtually all major religions (Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Christianity, Islam).

The Organization of Turkic States, led by Turkiye, is even engaged in rebuilding the Turkic identity overtones of the Heartland – a vector that will be developing in parallel to the influence of China and Russia.

That Greater Eurasia Partnership

Russia is evolving its own path. A key debate was held аt a recent Valdai Club session on the Greater Eurasian Partnership when it comes to the interaction between Russia and the Heartland and neighbors China, India and Iran.

Moscow regards the concept of a Greater Eurasian Partnership as the key framework for achieving much desired “political cohesion” in the post-Soviet space – under the imperative of indivisibility of regional security.

This means, once again, maximum attention towards serial attempts of provoking color revolutions across the Heartland.

As much as in Beijing, there are no illusions in Moscow that the collective West will take no prisoners in regimenting Central Asia to the Russophobic drive. For over a year now Washington for all practical purposes already addresses the Heartland in terms of threats of secondary sanctions and crude ultimatums.

So Central Asia matters only in terms of the evolving hybrid war – and otherwise – against the Russia-China strategic partnership. No fabulous trade and connectivity prospects under the New Silk Roads; no Greater Eurasia Partnership; no security arrangements under the CSTO; no mechanism of economic cooperation like the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

Either you’re a “partner” in the sanctions dementia and/or a secondary front in the war against Russia, or there will be a price to pay.

The “price”, set by the proverbial Straussian neocon psychos currently in charge of US foreign policy, is always the same: proxy war via terror, to be provided by ISIS-Khorasan*, whose black cells are ready to be awakened in selected backwoods of Afghanistan and the Ferghana valley.

Moscow is very much aware of the high stakes. For instance, for a year and a half virtually every month a Russian delegation arrives in Tajikistan to implement, in practice, the “pivot to the East”, developing projects in agriculture, health care, education, science and tourism.

Central Asia should have a leading role in BRICS+ expansion – something supported by both BRICS leaders Russia and China. The idea of a BRICS + Central Asia is being seriously floated from Tashkent to Almaty.

That would imply establishing a strategic continuum from Russia and China to Central Asia, South Asia, West Asia, Africa and Latin America – spanning the logistics of connectivity trade, energy, manufacture production, investment, technological breakthroughs and cultural interaction.

Beijing and Moscow, each in their own way, and with their own formulations, are already setting the framework for this ambitious geoeconomic project to be viable: the Heartland back in action as a protagonist in the forefront of History, just like those kingdoms, merchants and pilgrims of nearly 2,000 years ago.

*ISIS-Khorasan is an affiliate of Daesh (also known and ISIS/ISIL/IS) terrorist group active in South Asia and Central Asia, it is banned in Russia and many other countries.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230526/pepe-escobar-eurasian-heartland-rises-to-challenge-the-west-1110600622.html

I was going to post this article in the degrading west thread but I think it fits better here in the multipolar world thread.

If you talk to most western people the history of the cold war has been the west and democracy and freedom vs the commies and such a description is not up for question or discussion, yet this article frames it (by Putin) from a Russian perspective that WWII was about destroying fascists but that the Cold War was actually about destroying the remaining colonial hold on the rest of the world... the article explains it better than I can:

American elites are starting to concede that the world is rebelling against the US, and Washington has nobody to blame but itself
A former White House official has acknowledged the reality of growing resistance to the country's imperialism

Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released book Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention & Resistance.

American elites are starting to concede that the world is rebelling against the US, and Washington has nobody to blame but itself

In an interesting recent speech in Tallinn, Estonia, former White House official Fiona Hill showed that at least someone in Washington has enough self awareness to see what's happening in the world.

Hill acknowledged that the conflict in Ukraine has sparked a global “proxy rebellion,” led by Russia, against American hegemony. This is quite true, as many of us could see from the very start of Moscow’s military offensive, in the spring of last year. But this kickback has been a long-time coming, and the US has brought it upon itself through its own deeds.

First of all, it must be pointed out that the Soviet Union, modern Russia’s predecessor, led a rebellion against American hegemony throughout much of its history. Especially during the Cold War, Moscow's support was critical for Third World countries striving to overturn centuries of Western colonialism in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The US took it upon itself to forcefully defend this colonial system. Indeed, the Cold War was really a giant proxy war between the US and Soviet Union over colonialism, with the US fighting to maintain this system and the Soviet Union fighting to dismantle it. Much of the world’s population continues to be grateful for the help they received from the Soviets in breaking their colonial chains.

The Russian Federation recently acknowledged all of this in its foreign policy statement of March 31, 2023, in which it stated that the Soviet Union’s chief foreign policy achievements were the defeat of Nazism during the Second World War and its part in the successful decolonization of the world. Modern-day Russia states that, as the “legal successor” to the USSR, it continues to pursue these goals. It is my observation, after just returning from Russia and the May 9 Victory Day celebrations, that the Russian people continue to cherish these accomplishments of the Soviet Union, with the hammer and sickle red flag ubiquitous in every city I visited from St. Petersburg to Yalta.

Meanwhile, after the Eastern Bloc collapsed in 1989 and the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the US saw the opportunity to reassert Western dominance of the world largely unchecked. While the US referred to its goal as Pax Americana, its methods had little to do with peace and everything to do with war. Thus, Washington wasted no time in invading and attacking other countries from Panama (1989), to Iraq (1990), Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq again (2003) and Libya (2011). This does not even count the smaller invasions and many proxy and terror wars waged by the US during this time, such as Syria, beginning in 2011, and in Ukraine with the coup it helped instigate in 2014.

Russia and the rest of the world, unable to counter the superior US military might, largely sat back and took this. But anger and resentment grew, for none of these wars were necessary or just. They were wars of choice, which the US waged to protect what it saw as its economic and geopolitical interests, all the while dressing up its actions as “humanitarian.” As a rule they claimed these interventions as necessary to protect the target country’s population from an “oppressive,” “brutal” or “dictatorial” regime. While Americans largely bought into such justifications, the rest of the world grimaced at the patent absurdity.

In 2015, the Russian bear started to awaken once more, intervening in Syria to beat back the brutal terrorist war against that country, which the US actively instigated and supported.

While the US tries to claim that the whole world stands with it in opposing Russia’s actions, in Ukraine, this is simply not true, and US officials know it. “The world” supports the US only if one excludes Latin America, Asia and Africa. These regions, home to most of the planet’s population, did not and do not support the Americans. Many countries in these regions are weary of the US intervening in their backyards at will in the form of aggressive wars, coups d’etat and the support of armed insurgents, and they were happy to see that someone – namely Russia – was finally fighting back. Meanwhile, even Saudi Arabia, a long-time ally and co-conspirator of the US in its imperial machinations, has broken ranks with the US by refusing to boost oil supplies. It has additionally begun engaging with Iran, demonstrating that the world is getting fed up with Washington’s meddling.

The US government pretends it doesn’t see this, and much of the American public really doesn’t, demonstrating the pervasiveness of propaganda and its ability to drown out and obfuscate reality. This again brings to mind playwright Harold Pinter’s 2005 Nobel Prize speech in which he scolded the US imperium, which “supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War,” leading to “hundreds of thousands of deaths.” But thanks to the power of propaganda, “it never happened,” Pinter said. “Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. America has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good,” something Pinter describes as a “highly successful act of hypnosis.”

It is high time that the American people awaken to the crimes their country has committed, and to the fact that the rest of the world is painfully aware of them and is rebelling accordingly. After acknowledging this, Americans could finally start to hold their government accountable for its actions and demand that it stop antagonizing the world through unprovoked violence, and instead try to engage with other nations as equals in addressing the world’s pressing problems of poverty, illness and environmental degradation. It is the only course of action that can save humanity.

Source: https://www.rt.com/news/576588-resistance-us-washington-imperialism/

And I would add:

First of all, it must be pointed out that the Soviet Union, modern Russia’s predecessor, led a rebellion against American hegemony throughout much of its history.

Note the Soviets fought American hegemony... not America... there were no plans to invade the US or start any insurrections or to pervert their democracy... they did that themselves with stupid witch hunts and the polarisation into two hard core extremist camps... republicans and democrats.

That's right. The US had actual plans to nuke the USSR in the 1950s while it still had the advantage in nukes but the USSR never
had any similar plans to nuke the USA. The USA is afflicted with the disease of exceptionalism, like the German Reich.

I hear people claiming the USSR was an imperial entity. So all of the countries in the Warsaw Pact and the constituent republics of the
USSR were supposedly "colonies". The only colonies in history where the "colonizer" expended vast amounts of resources to develop
them. Listen to the drivel from Poland about how the USSR "exploited" it and that Soviet soldiers pulled up thousands of kilometers
of rail track and "looted hundreds of enterprises" to transfer to the USSR and you can hear the same insane drivel as Banderite Ukr
claims about being the first organized state after Adam and Eve and digging up the Black Sea.