Category Archives: Foreign Policy

A Rift in the Lute? By Batiushka

Posted on January 11, 2023 | 1 comment

Unlike Europeans, Americans don’t have to encounter people from other countries on a regular basis. Living in this bubble has not been to the U.S.’s benefit. From Batiushka at thesaker.is:

A U.S. 51-star flag has already been created just in case there ever is a 51st state

Foreword

Joke of the Decade from the quisling Stoltenberg: ‘NATO is united’. (Amazing what a few million dollars deposited into their bank accounts will do to some people’s sense of truth-telling. Ask the President of the Ukraine, if you do not believe me). Apparently, Stoltenberg has not heard of Greece and Türkiye (whose President the NATO US tried to assassinate). Or Romania and Hungary. Or try Germany and Poland. Many Non-Norwegians, for example all Germans and Poles, are aware that Germany and Poland are not on good terms. The current Polish government wants even more money back from Germany in war reparations – yes, for that war which ended 78 years ago.

Meanwhile the Germans continue to use the expression ‘polnische Wirtschaft’, literally ‘Polish economy’, meaning total chaos. And then there are Germans who would like Silesia back, those cities like Breslau and after all, why not Danzig? As for the provincial Polish obsession with recovering their ‘greatness’, a Polish Empire from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, by taking over and perhaps ethnically cleansing the western Ukraine (remember Akcija Visla in 1947; the parents of some of my best friends lived through it), Germans shake their heads in despair. However, there is also another international ‘rift in the lute’, or crack in the violin creating disharmony. It could be fatal. Read on.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Imperialism

Tagged

What would it take? by The Saker

Posted on January 11, 2023 | Leave a comment

Few Americans realize how much the American government is loathed throughout the world. From The Saker at saker.is:

How NATO “celebrated” the Orthodox Nativity

NATO did “celebrate” the Orthodox Nativity, but in its own way. First, a few headlines:

Remember the truce offered by Russia?  It was rejected.  Instead we got this:

And, just to clarify, NATO uses Serbia as a defenseless victim to show Russia what it can do to its allies, the message being, as Stoble Talbott said, “after Serbia, you are next”, so the link here is strong.

NATO did not stop at that, it also continued its policy of persecutions, see these headlines:

Speaking of issues of freedom of religion, NATO is planning to completely ban the parishes which used to have an autonomous status under the Moscow Patriarchate, which then turned against Moscow and condemned the SMO.  But that was not enough, so, just like in NATO occupied Kosovo, the persecution of Orthodox clergy and faithful is both a “feel good” operation for Orthodoxy-haters and a “message” to Moscow.

NATO did not stop at that, it also announced yet another military aid package for Banderastan: (no translation needed I suppose)

None of that will be enough to make a difference, but there are many more such “aid” programs being discussed, so NATO wants to continue to draw out this war for as long as possible and fight the Russians down to the last Ukrainian.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Imperialism

Tagged ,

Tanks for the Memories!.. German and NATO Tanks to Roll in Ukraine, by Finian Cunningham

Posted on January 10, 2023 | 1 comment

Western governments are sending tanks to Ukraine. This should end well. From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.org:

German, American and French tanks are supporting a regime that openly glorifies its Nazi collaborators. They say history never repeats exactly. It certainly rhymes though.

German tanks rolling into Ukraine to fight Russian troops would have seemed an unbelievable scenario given the dreadful history of World War Two. Yet that scenario is where the NATO proxy war against Moscow is headed. The development has the disturbing echo of Operation Barbarossa when the Nazi Wehrmacht launched its offensive on the Soviet Union in 1941.

Instead of Panzer Tiger tanks, we will see German Marder “fighting vehicles” trundling across Ukraine. These weapons are called “light tanks” but the bigger push is for Leopard 2 main battle tanks to be supplied to Ukrainian NeoNazi forces against Russian lines.

Just two days before the Orthodox Christmas on January 7, U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a deal in which they would supply Bradley and Marder armored infantry carriers to Ukraine, as well as another battery of U.S.-made Patriot missiles.

That announcement followed French President Emmanuel Macron declaring that France was going to supply AMX-10 RC light tanks to Ukraine. Macron’s tone was notably bellicose, saying that France would back the Kiev regime until victory is achieved.

Scholz and Macron are showing themselves to be completely unreliable and politically weak. Previously, the French leader has suggested his willingness for finding a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Ukraine with Russia. He had incurred the wrath of Washington, as well as the anti-Russian NATO members Poland and the Baltic states for being “too soft” and undermining transatlantic unity.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, War

Tagged

Biden’s existential angst in Ukraine, by M. K. Bhadrakumar

Posted on January 10, 2023 | 1 comment

The Beltway consensus is moving slowly to acknowledge that Russia is winning its war with Ukraine. From M. K. Bhadrakumar at indianpunchline.com:

President Vladimir Putin attending Christmas Mass, Annunciation Cathedral, Kremlin, Moscow, January 7, 2023

The bipartisan consensus in the Beltway on the United States being    the ‘indispensable’ world power is usually attributed to the neocons who have been the driving force of the US foreign and security policy in successive administrations since the 1970s.

The op-end in the Washington Post on Saturday titled Time is not on Ukraine’s side, coauthored by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in George W. Bush presidency and Defence Secretary Robert Gates (who served under both Bush and Barack Obama), highlights this paradigm.

Rice and Gates are robust cold warriors who are enthusiastic about NATO’s war against Russia. But their grouse is that President Biden should ‘dramatically’ step up in Ukraine.

The op-ed harks back to the two world wars that marked the US’ ascendance as world power and warns that the US-led ‘rules-based order’ since 1990 — code word for US global hegemony — is in peril if Biden fails in Ukraine.

Rice and Gates indirectly acknowledge that Russia is on a winning streak, contrary to the western triumphalist narrative so far. Evidently, the expected Russian offensive ahead is rattling their nerves.

Continue reading→

1 Comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, War

Tagged

Predictions 1: War, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on January 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Will Poland be the next proxy in the U.S.’s proxy war with Russia? From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

I don’t really like to do predictions, not without tea leaves and crystal balls, but I do have one. My prediction is that NATO will -try to- expand/widen/deepen the Ukraine conflict in 2023, and not just a little. They have to, because Ukraine as a theater is failing, no matter how much additional weaponry they import into it. And because Ukraine is running out of -under 65- boots on the ground.

Next step will be to actively involve the NATO members who despise Russia most. Ergo: the Baltic States. Problem with that is there’s not a lot of people there. But it’s just a hop across the border from Lithuania to Poland. And Poland is a whole different story. And, like the Baltics, but unlike Ukraine, a NATO member.

Here’s NATO’s own numbers: Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014-2022)

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, War

Tagged ,

When Federal Interest Payments Come To Exceed the Military Budget: Time To Stop Defending the Rest of the World, by Doug Bandow

Posted on January 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Empires don’t generally live within their means, which eventually means the end of the empire. The U.S. is no exception. From Doug Bandow at antiwar.com:

Originally appeared at the American Institute for Economic Research.

A new year dawns bright, with the US hurtling over the fiscal cliff. The lame duck Congress voted for a pork-packed $1.7 trillion budget bill. As the saying goes, it’s only money!

At a time of enormous domestic need, Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell pushed an extra $45 billion for Ukraine, declaring that Washington’s “number one priority” was supporting that nation. Kentuckians might wonder if their Senator had moved to Odesa, Kharkiv, or Lviv over the holidays.

Alas, this appropriation was small change compared to the overall “defense” (in fact, mostly for offensive operations) budget. Congress hiked military outlays to record levels, topping off the already-bloated Biden spending program at $858 billion. American taxpayers remain stuck subsidizing prosperous, populous Europeans, superfluous Middle Eastern monarchs, and cheap-riding Asian defense dependents.

Unwilling to raise taxes as it also shovels ever-more cash into social programs old and new, Congress simply borrows additional money as if loans need not be repaid. The publicly held national debt hit 100 percent of GDP and is heading toward the record of 106 percent set in 1946, at the conclusion of the worst war in human history. Within a decade the US faces trillion-dollar deficits for as far as government analysts can budget. By mid-century the Congressional Budget Office expects the debt/GDP ratio to run around 185 percent. And that assumes policymakers don’t do anything stupid, like approve massive new spending programs without paying for them. Which, unfortunately, is as certain as the rising of the sun.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Debt, Economics, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, War

Tagged ,

US Alarmed As Erdogan Hints At Assad Meeting Amid Moscow Reconciliation Talks, From The Cradle

Posted on January 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Syria hasn’t been able to kick the U.S. military out of the country, but if it teams up with Turkey and Russia, it probably can. That thought terrifies U.S. policymakers. From The Cradle via zerohedge.com:

During a speech in Ankara last Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hinted that a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad may soon take place, “as part of efforts for peace.” He added that a tripartite meeting between the foreign ministers of Turkiye, Russia and Syria is scheduled to be held in the near future for the first time since 2011.

Erdogan said, “As Russia-Turkey-Syria, we have launched a process through the meeting of our intelligence chiefs and defense ministers in Moscow. Then, God willing, we will bring our foreign ministers together trilaterally. Then, depending on the developments, we will come together as leaders.”

Via Reuters

The upcoming meeting aims to enhance communication after Russian-sponsored talks between the Turkish and Syrian defense ministers were held in Moscow on 28 December. The meeting was the highest-level of official meetings between Ankara and Damascus since the start of the Syrian war.

In a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 5 January, Erdogan called on the Syrian government to ‘take the steps to achieve a tangible solution concerning the case of Syria.”

The US sis seeking to establish a middle ground between Ankara and the SDF in order to prevent Turkish-Syrian reconciliation.

The Syrian-Turkish rapprochement via declared Russian mediation was paralleled by Emirati-Syrian rapprochement – the latest of which was a “brotherly” meeting aimed at strengthening cooperation and restoring historical relations between Assad and Foreign Minister of the UAE Abdallah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, according to SANA.

Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that the UAE seeks “to join Russia in sponsoring Syrian-Turkish relations at a high level,” noting that the Emirati foreign minister’s visit to Damascus sought to arrange Turkiye’s participation in the tripartite meeting of Syrian-Turkish-Russian foreign ministers, making it a quadripartite meeting.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Military, Politics

Tagged , ,

U.S. Strategic Aim: Break and Dismember Russia; Or Maintain U.S. Dollar Hegemony? Or a Muddled ‘Both’? By Alastair Crooke

Posted on January 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

Do U.S. foreign policymakers have a clear cut idea of what they want, other than for the U.S. to be the perpetual king of the hill? From Alastair Crooke at strategic-culture.org:

The West cannot relinquish the sense of itself at the centre of the Universe, albeit no longer in a racial sense, Alastair Crooke writes.

A strategic aim would require a unitary purpose that could be succinctly outlined. It would require additionally a compelling clarity about the means by which the aim would be achieved and a coherent vision about what a successful outcome would actually look like.

Winston Churchill described the aim of WW2 as the destruction of Germany. But this was ‘platitude’, and no strategy. Why was Germany to be destroyed? What interest did destroying such a major trading partner achieve? Was it to save the imperial trading system? The latter failed (after ‘Suez’) and Germany went into a deep recession. So, what was the end result intended to be? At one point, a completely de-industrialised, pastoralised Germany was postulated as the (improbable) endgame.

Churchill opted for rhetoric and ambiguity.

Is the English-speaking world today any clearer about its strategic aims with its war on Russia than then? Is its strategy really that of destroying and dismembering Russia? If so, to what precise end (as ‘the jump-off’ to war on China?). And how is Russia’s destruction – a major land-power – to be accomplished by states whose strengths are primarily naval and air power? And what would follow? A Babel Tower of clashing Asian statelets?

The destruction of Germany (an ancient dominant cultural power) was a Churchillian rhetorical flourish (good for morale), but not strategy. In the end, it was Russia that made the decisive intervention in the Second War. And Britain ended the war financially bust (with huge debts) – a dependency, and hostage to Washington.

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, Imperialism

Tagged ,

China Cements its Position in the Middle East, by Judith Bergman

Posted on January 10, 2023 | Leave a comment

It’s real simple. Most nations prefer mutually beneficial exchange (offered by China) over bullets, bombs, bribery, and bombast (offered by the U.S.). From Judith Bergman at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • Saudi Arabia is now not only one of China’s most important suppliers of energy, but the kingdom is also an important link in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — a gigantic global development project to enhance China’s global influence from East Asia to Europe by making countries worldwide increasingly dependent on China. Under the BRI, China has signed cooperation agreements with 20 Arab countries.
  • China is also Saudi Arabia’s largest trading partner — an arrangement that extends to military cooperation….
  • Biden took a longstanding ally, Saudi Arabia, and, by repeating that he would make the kingdom a “pariah nation,” created an adversary. “For an American president to be silent on the issue of human rights is inconsistent with who we are and who I am,” Biden said. The same concern for human rights has not seemed to bother him, however, when it comes to China or Iran, whose record on human rights is at least as bad as Saudi Arabia’s, if not worse.
  • China jumped in to fill the vacuum.
  • Xi Jinping has made no secret of his wishes to “replace America as the global superpower” economically, militarily, diplomatically and technologically by 2049. The United States might be “well poised to lead,” but is it leading?

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Business, Eurasian Axis, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Military, War

Tagged ,

What foreign policy elites really think about you, by Kelley Beaucar Vlacos

Posted on January 9, 2023 | Leave a comment

They think you’re supposed to shut up and let them run things. From Kelley Beaucar Vlacos at responsiblestatecraft.org:

If public opinion doesn’t match up with the Washington program then it must be wrong, misunderstood, or worse, irrelevant

Continue reading→

Leave a comment

Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Media, Politics

Tagged ,