The U.S. fulminates and sputters; the Global Majority is cutting deals and building infrastructure and connectivity. From Pepe Escobar at strategic-culture.su:
The U.S. “containment” of the Russia-China strategic partnership is already unravelling in real time.
The St. Petersburg forum offered a wealth of crucial sessions discussing connectivity corridors. One of the key ones was on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) – or, in Chinese terminology, the Arctic Silk Road: the number one future alternative to the Suez canal.
With an array of main corporate actors in the room – for instance, from Rosneft, Novatek, Norilsk Nickel – as well as governors and ministers, the stage was set for a comprehensive debate.
Top Putin adviser Igor Levitin set the tone: to facilitate seamless container transport, the federal government needs to invest in seaports and icebreakers; a comparison was made – in terms of technological challenge – to the building of the Trans-Siberian railway; and Levitin also stressed the endless expansion possibilities for city hubs such as Murmansk, Archangelsk and Vladivostok.
Add to it that the NSR will connect with another fast-growing trans-Eurasia connectivity corridor: the INSTC (International North South Transportation Corridor), whose main actors are BRICS members Russia, Iran and India.
Alexey Chekunkov, minister for development of the Far East and the Arctic, plugged a trial run of the NSR, which costs the same as railway shipping without the bottlenecks. He praised the NSR as a “service” and coined the ultimate motto: “We need icebreakers!” Russia of course will be the leading player in the whole project, benefitting 2.5 million people who live in the North.
Sultan Sulayem, CEO of Dubai-based cargo logistics and maritime services powerhouse DP World, confirmed that “the current supply chains are not reliable anymore”, as well as being inefficient; the NSR is “faster, more reliable and cheaper”. From Tokyo to London, the route runs for 24k km; via the NSR, it’s only 13k km.
Sulayem is adamant: the NSR is a game-changer and “needs to be implemented now”.
Vladimir Panov, the special representative for the Arctic from Rosatom, confirmed that the Arctic is “a treasure chest”, and the NSR “will unlock it”. Rosatom will have all the necessary infrastructure in place “in five years or so”. He credited the fast pace of developments to the high-level Putin-Xi strategic dialogue – complete with the creation of a Russia-China working group.
Andrey Chibis, the governor of Murmansk, noted that this deep, key port for the NSR – the main container hub in the Arctic – “does not freeze”. He acknowledged the enormity of the logistical challenges – but at the same time that will attract a lot of skilled workers, considering the high quality of life in Murmansk.
We have Brandon’s lazers and AOC’s, umm…looks?
These things happen when it is rainbow uber alles that a tiny minority wasn’t even asking for.
And the military is about smashing things, killing people and holding territory, not some social justice Petri Dish.
Error-Mixed up the Trabant with the Zil! DOH!
Zil for the apparatchiks, Trabant for the comrades.
But, but, but, we live in a classless society?
Riiight.
Infrastructure is a racist construct of the white male patriarchy and stick something up your butt is way says esteemed CPUSA (D) party member comrade kommissar Petey Butt.
This just in from Al Jarreau:
Theme from Moonlighting.
Russia possesses the world’s only nuclear icebreaker fleet designed to meet maritime transportation objectives in the Arctic based on the application of advanced nuclear technology. Currently Rosatomflot (a Rosatom company) operates 2 nuclear icebreakers with twin-reactor nuclear power plants of 75 thousand h.f. design capacity (the ‘Yamal’, and the ‘50 Let Pobedy’), and two icebreakers with single-reactor nuclear facilities of approximately 50 thousand h.f. (the ‘Taymyr’, and the ‘Vaygach’).
Those ports saved the former CCCP in WWII as the Norway based Luftwaffe FW-200 Condors and U-Boats couldn’t stop them all, not a place where you want to be on a sinking ship either.
Vintage legacy USA and UK supplied the goods and those photos of Shermans and Jeeps with Soviet markings look pretty wild.
The sloped armor version Gaz-67 (CCCP Jeep) is actually pretty cool and the enclosed commander’s version.
Brandon better fire up those lazers (historic!) and melt the ice.
(H/T-Rosatom-Centralasia)