Protests greet Macron on Africa tour, Burkina Faso scraps military pact
Press TV – March 2, 2023
French President Emmanuel Macron has launched a tour of Africa with a message that France is not after meddling, but the visit revived old colonial wounds, sparking protests.
Macron on Thursday said the era of French interference in Africa was “well over” as he began a four-nation tour of the continent to renew frayed ties.
Anti-French sentiment runs high in some former African colonies. Macron said France harbored no desire to return to past policies of interfering in Africa.
“The age of Francafrique is well over,” Macron said in remarks to the French community in Gabon’s capital Libreville, referring to France’s post-colonization strategy of supporting authoritarian leaders to defend its interests.
“Francafrique” refers to the wave of decolonization in 1960 when France began propping up dictators in its former colonies in exchange for access to resources and military bases.
Macron landed in Gabon on Wednesday, the first stop of the tour that will also take the president to Angola, Congo Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“What is Macron doing in Gabon? Is he coming for the forest or to back (President) Ali Bongo?” asked a 39-year-old technician. “If Macron wants to support the Bongo family, we will rise up,” he said. “Gabon is an independent country. It is not France that appoints Gabonese presidents.”
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), angry protesters gathered in front of the French embassy in Kinshasa, spray-painting anti-French graffiti on its wall and chanting “Macron is a killer!”
They unfurled banners reading, “Macron is the godfather of DRC balkanization,” “Congolese say no to French policy,” and “Macron is an unwanted guest in DRC”.
More than 3,000 French soldiers are deployed in Senegal, Ivory Coast, Gabon and Djibouti, according to official figures.
Burkina Faso said it has scrapped a 1961 agreement on military assistance with France, only weeks after it told the French ambassador and troops to quit the country.
The Burkinabe foreign ministry advised the French government that the country was “renouncing the technical military assistance agreement reached in Paris on April 24 1961,” according to the correspondence, dated Tuesday.
The ministry said Burkina was giving one month’s notice for “the final departure of all French military personnel serving in Burkinabe military administrations.”
Burkina also gave France a month to pull out a special forces unit of 400 men that was based near the capital. The French flag was lowered on the base last month.
France withdrew the last of its troops from Mali last year, climaxing a break-up that was triggered by angry protests amid rise in Takfiri terrorism.
Majority in France Opposes French Military Presence in Africa, Poll Reveals
By Gleb Chugunov – Sputnik – 02.03.2023
On February 27, President Emmanuel Macron announced France’s new policy towards Africa, which is planning to reduce its military presense on the continent.
More than half of French respondents that took part in a survey held by the French Institute of Public Opinion (IFOP), came out in favor of shutting down all French military bases on the continent, media report.
According to sociologists, the closure of military bases is supported mostly by residents of rural areas (60% of respondents) as well as by people over 65 years of age (57%).
The number of people who took part in the IFOP’s survey is unknown.
As for the political views of the respondents, supporters of the two main opposition parties, the right-wing “National Rally” and the left-wing “La France Insoumise”, are those who favor the withdrawal of the army the most – 72% and 63% accordingly. Approximately 47% of respondents supporting President Macron’s social-liberal “Renaissance” party, back the idea of closing the bases, as do 54% of polled voters of the center-right “The Republicans”.
The survey regarding France ‘s military presence on the continent was held after President Emmanuel Macron announced a shift in his Africa policy, promising to implement a “noticeable reduction” in the French military contingent there. However, he did not give specific information concerning the cuts.
According to the leader, France has decided to start managing its army bases on the continent together with the military departments of African nations. The new military partnerships involve training programs for host countries personnel, France’s assistance to local military authorities, in particular, in the field of intelligence.
This followed the recent French troop withdrawals from African countries in the Sahel region. French forces left Mali on August 15, 2022, after the local government announced that it was terminating defense agreements with France, while Mali’s top officials, including its Foreign Minister, Abdoulaye Diop, accused the European state of supporting terrorist groups inside the African country.
Subsequently, France officially terminated its military operations in Burkina Faso on February 20, due to a significant deterioration in relations between Paris and Ouagadougou, including Burkina Faso’s request for France to recall its ambassador and to withdraw French troops from the African country.
The American People Must Draw Red Lines Now
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | March 2, 2023
Washington and NATO have rapidly escalated their war with Russia. The White House appears to have blown up the Nord Stream pipelines in a blatant act of war against Russia, not to mention Germany and other European allies.
The CIA is reportedly conducting sabotage attacks on Russian infrastructure and the Pentagon has tacitly endorsed Kiev’s drone strikes hundreds of miles deep inside the Russian mainland.
Along with an assortment of NATO commandos, U.S. troops, CIA, and Special Operations forces are on the ground in Ukraine as well. The White House has greenlit the transfer of Bradley armored fighting vehicles, longer range rockets, and M1 Abrams battle tanks to the battlefield.
Kiev is demanding hundreds of tanks. Concurrently, multiple European NATO members are sending their own main battle tanks to Ukraine, and a U.S. backed assault on Crimea is expected soon.
While Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky goads London, Berlin, and Paris into handing over fighter jets, his country has already suffered more than 100,000 casualties, hundreds of Ukrainian troops are dying every day just over a battle for the eastern Donetsk city of Bakhmut.
In recent months, officials in Kiev have explicitly stated that Ukraine—a “de facto” NATO member—is “shedding blood” for a “NATO mission.” The goal is eliminating Moscow as a “threat” to the alliance by weakening, destabilizing, and disintegrating Russia.
In the process, Ukraine, the human battering ram, is being destroyed. But in the words of Madeline Albright, from the Empire’s perspective, “the price is worth it.”
Russia must be crippled before the Pentagon launches its impending war against China, “the big one,” which top military commanders and four star generals now warn will take place in only a few years.
In the meantime, experts and analysts continue to point out—along with even The New York Times—that we are systematically pushing “the United States and its NATO allies closer to direct conflict with Russia.”
What is the justification for this seemingly perpetual escalation? The U.S. war machine reasons that since Russian President Vladimir Putin has not yet ordered strikes on NATO territory or pushed the nuclear button, Washington and its NATO vassals can freely provide Kiev with increasingly advanced weapons and even support assaults against the Crimean Peninsula as well as the Russian homeland itself.
The aforementioned tanks will likely be used for the potential attacks on Crimea (read: Russian territory) currently being considered by the White House. Such an escalation could swiftly lead to World War III and a nuclear exchange.
Incidentally, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists warns nuclear war is now a more likely possibility than at any time during the Cold War. In making their case for turning the clock to 90 seconds to midnight—for the first time—the group partly refers to the refusal of the United States, Ukraine, and its allies to come to the negotiating table.
BAS president and CEO Rachel Bronson said in a statement following the decision that the “U.S. government, its NATO allies and Ukraine have a multitude of channels for dialogue; we urge leaders to explore all of them to their fullest ability to turn back the clock.”
Last fall, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was advocating a negotiated settlement between Kiev and Moscow. However, he was all but vetoed by the so-called diplomats in Antony Blinken’s State Department.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett recently discussed how he attempted to mediate a peace deal with Russia and Ukraine in early March 2022. According to Bennett, both sides made major concessions and “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire.” He has now revealed the effort was overruled and ultimately “blocked” by President Joe Biden and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
According to current and former U.S. officials, that same month, Turkish brokered talks in Istanbul between the warring sides also established a workable foundation for a future settlement. The whole enterprise was squashed again by Johnson, acting on behalf of the “collective West.”
Even when U.S. military leadership expresses uneasiness about the war’s trajectory, the provision of heavy western-made tanks, or the sheer inability of Ukrainian forces to regain all the territory Russia has captured, the escalations continue anyway.
The hawkish Secretary General of NATO himself has said “I fear that the war in Ukraine will get out of control, and spread into a major war between NATO and Russia.”
Likewise, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned “I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. I fear it is doing so with its eyes wide open.”
The American people must draw red lines now and stop their out of control ruling class waging wars against nuclear armed powers. As Roger Waters says, this is not a drill.
Our fellow countrymen have become dangerously desensitized to the thought of direct conflict with both Russia and China.
Tragically, our people have been numb for a long time. They have yet to truly reckon with our government’s mass murder marathon of the last 20 years including one million dead Iraqis, half a million dead Syrians, as well as the hundreds of thousands killed in Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen.
Designedly, our enemies in Washington need us to be numb to the inevitable results of their reckless, murderous policies.
The hawks will next try the same proxy war strategy in Taiwan, we will not get another chance to draw red lines.
We must demand all military aid be terminated, and that the White House and the State Department be forced to support or at least not interfere with negotiations.
We must demand an immediate end to this war now.
Connor Freeman is the assistant editor and a writer at the Libertarian Institute, primarily covering foreign policy. He is a co-host on Conflicts of Interest.
Bryansk Terror Attack Deliberate Plot by Ukraine to Stoke Escalation: Scott Ritter
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 02.03.2023
One person was killed and a 10-year-old child was injured after Ukrainian saboteurs opened fire on a civilian vehicle in a border village in Russia’s Bryansk Region. Retired US Marine and former weapons inspector Scott Ritter suspects the attack was not a random act of terror, but a deliberate plot to provoke Moscow.
“It’s clear there were no military objectives. This was a deliberately provocative attack, and it was an attack that was designed to anger Russia by intent. You don’t target women, children, you don’t target a civilian, a village, unless your goal is to anger Russia and provoke Russia into perhaps overreacting. I think that’s the objective,” Ritter told Sputnik after being asked to comment on Thursday’s incident in the village of Lyubechane, in Russia’s Bryansk Region.
“It’s the only thing that can explain it other than simply stating that the people involved are the criminal elements with zero redeeming qualities, purely animalistic. And I’m not going down that route. What I believe is that these people were selected to do a mission that was designed to provoke Russia into an overreaction that could then be used by the Zelensky government as justification for requesting even more military assistance,” Ritter stressed.
The observer warned that Moscow could react to the attack in a variety of ways, for example by lifting its self-proscribed restrictions on targeting decision-making centers in Kiev, or even Ukraine’s president.
“Zelensky would say ‘this war has expanded and I now need the West to step up and deliver more equipment, F-16 fighters,’ things of that nature, because right now Zelensky has hit a brick wall. He’s not getting what he believes he needs to survive. And if he doesn’t get this, he will be facing the inevitability of the strategic defeat of Ukraine. And so I think you’re going to see more and more acts of desperation like this in an effort to push Russia into overreacting so that Zelensky could use a Russian overreaction as justification for demanding even more assistance from the West,” Ritter said.
Commenting on the incident earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the “terrorist act” near the border was “committed by the neo-Nazis and their masters,” and predicted that the West would ignore the crime, just as it had done with others like it. The Russian leader emphasized that those responsible “would not succeed” in their violent and criminal behavior, and that Russia would ultimately “crush them.”
Bryansk’s authorities said that along with the deadly attack on a vehicle in Lyubechane, a residential building in the nearby village of Sushany caught fire after being hit by a bomb dropped from a Ukrainian drone.
On Wednesday, Putin had instructed Russia’s Federal Security Service to step up its work along the Russian-Ukrainian border, citing the dangers to critical infrastructure posed by Western-backed radicals and extremists.
West demands South Korea to supply weapons to Ukraine
By Ahmed Adel | March 2, 2023
A South Korean supply of weapons to Ukraine could lead to Russia and China increasing their cooperation with North Korea. It is for this reason that Seoul is in no hurry to make a decision to support Ukraine, even if Washington and NATO continue to pile on pressure.
In February, it was reported that the US asked to purchase more artillery ammunition from South Korea. According to government sources cited by JoongAng Ilbo, Washington requested Seoul for artillery ammunition and is currently deliberating the matter.
It is recalled that the US bought 100,000 rounds of 155-millimetre howitzer artillery shells from South Korea to send to Ukraine in November. South Korea’s Defence Ministry said at the time that the ammunition purchase was with “the premise that the United States is the end user” so that they could replenish their depleted stockpiles.
The US wants South Korea to maintain distance from Russia and China. However, Russia and China are South Korea’s neighbours, not an ocean length away like the continental USA. This obviously factors into Seoul’s strategic thinking and will impact its decision on whether to support Ukraine, particularly as both countries could use any provocation as a pretext to boost cooperation with North Korea.
Although it might seemingly appear that Beijing has little interest in South Korea’s position relating to a far-off conflict, Seoul’s decision will signal just how easily it will capitulate to US interests. China and Russia will certainly be observing how Seoul responds to pressure from the US and from there make a decision on whether to boost their ties with North Korea.
Regarding the latest US request, a South Korean official, in speaking with Joong Ang Ilbo, said: “there is no change to our stance of not supplying lethal military aid to Ukraine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hopes for South Korean military support when responding to a question from a JTBC reporter at a press conference in Kiev on February 24, the one-year anniversary of the Russian military operation.
“We view weapons supplies to us positively,” Zelensky said, adding that he hopes South Korea “will find an opportunity to help Ukraine.”
It is recalled that Zelensky addressed South Korea’s National Assembly via video livestream in April 2022 and begged for anti-aircraft weapons. There was an evident lack of interest in Zelensky’s speech as only about 60 of the 299 sitting lawmakers were present during the address.
With South Korean lawmakers evidently not interested in sending weapons to Ukraine, a position that has been maintained by the government, pressure has been sustained by the US so that this policy can change.
Adding to this squeeze, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on South Korea to “step up” its military support to Ukraine during his January visit to the Asian country. There, Stoltenberg had the audacity to cite the example of several NATO member states that have revised their policies against exporting weapons to Ukraine. Stoltenberg evidently forgot that South Korea is not a NATO member, or perhaps even the very fact that South Korea is a Pacific country, and not an Atlantic one.
For now, Seoul’s support to Ukraine is not what NATO and the US are expecting. South Korea has only provided humanitarian aid, which, while helpful for citizens, does nothing to alleviate Ukraine’s lack of weapons and ammunition.
President Yoon Suk Yeol has set out to make South Korea a “global pivotal state,” and it is for this reason that the West is piling pressure on South Korea to make a firm stance on the Russia-Ukraine war. Due to South Korea’s rapid economic development and ambitions to grow its prominence on the international stage, the West wants Seoul to make more substantial contributions to global issues, but obviously in accordance to Western interests.
Although there is a likelihood that South Korea’s leaders would like to conform to Western demands, reality dictates that it must consider the consequences its actions can have, particularly in relation to North Korea, China, and Russia. It cannot be overlooked that all three countries are armed with nuclear weapons, with the North Korean nuclear issue being the overriding concern, at least from Seoul’s perspective.
This suggests that although South Korea wants to be a “global pivotal state” and “step up” as a foreign policy actor, as Yoon said, it will be difficult to achieve so long as most of its attention and resources are dedicated to the unresolved war in Korea. Given that the Korean War has not reached a peaceful resolution as only an Armistice Agreement was signed in 1953, South Korea must seriously consider how its actions against Russia could lead to closer ties between Moscow and Pyongyang, and how it could be perceived by China.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
False hopes and broken promises litter the ground behind the UN Statement on Palestine
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | February 28, 2023
Rarely does the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN make an official comment expressing happiness over any official proceedings concerning the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Ambassador Riyad Mansour, though, is “very happy that there was a very strong united message from the Security Council against the illegal, unilateral measure” undertaken by the Israeli government.
The “measure” in question is a decision, on 12 February, by the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to construct 10,000 new housing units in nine illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. Predictably, Netanyahu was angered by the supposedly “very strong united message” from an institution that is hardly known for its meaningful action regarding international conflicts, especially in occupied Palestine.
Mansour’s happiness may be justified from some perspectives, especially as we seldom witness a strongly-worded position by the Security Council that is both critical of Israel and embraced by the US. The latter has used its veto in the council 53 times since 1972 — according to the UN itself — to block draft Security Council resolutions that are critical of the occupation state.
However, a close examination of the context of the latest UN statement on Israel and Palestine shows that there is little reason for Mansour’s excitement. The statement in question is just that; a statement, with no tangible value and no legal repercussions. It could have been meaningful if the language had been unchanged from its original draft. Not of the statement itself, but of a binding UN resolution that was introduced on 15 February by the UAE ambassador.
Reuters revealed that the draft resolution would have demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” That resolution — and its strong language — was scrapped under pressure from the US and was replaced by a mere statement that “reiterates” the Security Council’s position that “continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-state solution based on the 1967 lines.” It also expressed “deep concern”, actually, “dismay” with Israel’s 12 February announcement.
Netanyahu’s angry response was mostly intended for public consumption in Israel, and to keep his far-right government allies in check; after all, the conversion of the resolution into a statement, and the watering down of the language were all carried out with the prior agreement of the US, Israel and the PA. The Aqaba conference held two days ago is confirmation that such an agreement is indeed in place. Hence, the statement could not have come as a surprise to the Israeli prime minister.
Moreover, US media spoke openly about a deal, which was mediated by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The reason behind it, initially, was to avert a “potential crisis” which would have resulted if the US had vetoed the resolution. According to the Associated Press, such a veto “would have angered Palestinian supporters at a time that the US and its western allies are trying to gain international support against Russia.”
However, there is another reason behind Washington’s apparent sense of urgency. In December 2016, the then US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice refrained from vetoing a similar UN Security Council resolution that strongly condemned Israel’s illegal settlement activities. This happened less than a month before the end of Barack Obama’s second term in the White House. For Palestinians, the resolution was too little, too late. For Israel, it was an unforgivable betrayal. To appease Tel Aviv, the Trump Administration gave the UN post to Nikki Haley, an ardent supporter of Israel.
Although another US veto would have raised a few eyebrows, it would have presented a major opportunity for the strong pro-Palestine camp at the UN to challenge US hegemony over the matter of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. It would also have deferred the issue to the UN General Assembly and other UN-related organisations.
Even more interesting, according to the Blinken-mediated agreement — reported by AP, Reuters, Axios and others — Palestinians and Israelis would have to refrain from unilateral actions. Israel would freeze all settlement activities until August, and Palestinians would not “pursue action against Israel at the UN and other international bodies such as the World Court, the International Criminal Court and the UN Human Rights Council.” This was the gist of the agreement at the US-sponsored Aqaba meeting as well. While the PA is likely to abide by this understanding — since it continues to seek US financial handouts and political validation — Israel will most likely refuse; in fact, practically-speaking, it already has.
Although the agreement reportedly stipulated that Israel would not stage major attacks on Palestinian cities, only two days later, on 22 February, Israel raided the West Bank city of Nablus. It killed 11 Palestinians and wounded 102 others, including two elderly men and a child.
Moreover, a settlement freeze is almost impossible. Netanyahu’s extremist coalition government is held together in large part by the common understanding that settlements must expand constantly. Any change to this understanding would almost certainly mean the collapse of one of Israel’s most stable governments in years.
Why, then, is Mansour “very happy”? The answer stems from the fact that the PA’s credibility among Palestinians is at an all-time low. Mistrust, if not outright disdain, of Mahmoud Abbas and his authority is one of the main reasons behind the brewing armed rebellion against the Israeli occupation. Decades of promises that justice will eventually arrive through US-mediated talks have culminated in nothing, so Palestinians are developing their own alternative resistance strategies.
The UN statement was marketed by PA-controlled media in Palestine as a victory for Palestinian diplomacy. Hence, Mansour’s happiness. But this euphoria was short lived.
The Israeli massacre in Nablus left no doubt that Netanyahu will not even respect a promise he made to his own benefactors in Washington. This takes us back to square one: back to where Israel refuses to respect international law, the US refuses to allow the international community to hold Israel to account, and the PA claims another false victory in its supposed quest for the liberation of Palestine. Practically, this means that Palestinians are left with no other option but to carry on with their resistance, indifferent — justifiably so — to the UN and its “watered-down” statements.
Early “Spring Exacerbation”
By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – 01.03.2023
Those who closely follow the events on the Korean peninsula know that military exercises of the United States and the Republic of Korea take place every spring. The DPRK traditionally perceives them as a rehearsal for an invasion and responds with demonstration of force. Each side declares however that in response to the provocations of the other, it has the right to strengthen its defense capability thus getting trapped in a vicious circle. But although the actions of Washington and Seoul aggravate the situation no less, they do not make the front pages, unlike the news about launches or statements by the North, and this creates a picture in the public mind that Pyongyang is the culprit of tension.
On February 17, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea announced that in March South Korea and the United States would hold a joint 11-day Freedom Shield exercise. In response, the DPRK Foreign Ministry issued a statement, in which it threatened to take “unprecedented tough and decisive measures” for “disturbing military demonstrations that seriously violate the security interests of the DPRK.”
On February 18, North Korea resumed missile launches. An ICBM was launched towards the East Sea (Sea of Japan).
The reaction of Washington and Seoul was quite acute: if you recalculate the missile trajectory from a high-altitude to a more typical one, its range turns out to be 14,000 km. So it can reach the continental territory of the United States by a wide margin.
South Korean experts also noted that the launch had been managed by the Main Missile Directorate, and it was carried out by the same unit as the Hwasong-17 launch on November 18, and it took almost nine and a half hours to prepare the liquid-fuel ICBM for being started. In addition, they traditionally doubted that the missile had successfully entered the atmosphere: allegedly, a video of a descending missile filmed by a Japanese fighter shows that its warhead had been broken into pieces and disappeared from view after it caught fire. After the previous failure in November on September 3, North Korea released an improved Hwasong-15 ICBM with a lighter warhead. But this time the missile seems to have failed again to re-enter the atmosphere.
On February 19, the deputy department head of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), Kim Yo-jong published a press statement in which she castigated Washington’s desire to turn the UN Security Council into an tool for implementing a hostile policy against the DPRK. And although Kim Jong-un’s sister noted that “our ICBMs will never take aim at Seoul,” this phrase is not identical to “DPRK missiles are not aimed at Seoul” – the DPRK has enough other types of missiles and barrel artillery capable of reaching the capital of the Republic of Korea.
On the same day, February 19, South Korea and the United States conducted joint air exercises with the participation of American B-1B strategic bombers. For understanding: taking off from Guam, the B-1B can reach Pyongyang in two hours.
February 20 became an eventful day. First, Kim Yo-jong responded to critical statements about the February 18 launch in the style of “your experts are idiots.” In particular, the fighter did not film the disintegration of the warhead, but the separation of the so-called hypersonic glider from the missile head. The “first sister” summed up by saying that “in case of any direct and indirect alarm,” we will take appropriate response measures and “the frequency of using the Pacific Ocean as our training ground depends on the nature of the actions of American troops“.
Second, at about 7 a.m., the North launched eastwards two medium-range ballistic missiles from Sukchon, South Pyongan Province. It is noteworthy that the North Korean media covered the launch a mere hour after the fact.
In the context of the above, the experts of the Republic of Korea believe that the DPRK military might have simulated strikes on the Cheongju and Osan air bases (North Chuncheon Province) and Gunsan (North Jeolla Province), which are located at a 340 and 390 km distance from the missile launch site. It was from them that the planes of the US and South Korean Air Forces took off for joint exercises the day before.
Third, the ROK has imposed new unilateral sanctions against the DPRK. More precisely, in relation to four individuals and five organizations for their assistance to the nuclear and missile development of the North, as well as for evading the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions. This measure is being applied for the fourth time in the reign of Yoon Suk-yeol: new sanctions were introduced just ten days after the decision had been made to restrict Pyongyang’s illegal activities in cyberspace. Previously, these same individuals and organizations had been included in the US sanctions lists, so the step was purely formal.
Fourth, the “Korean” meeting of the UN Security Council eventually took place. In 2022, the UN Security Council held 10 meetings specifically devoted to discussing North Korea’s missile threats, but all of them ended without any results due to the opposition of China and Russia, who are permanent members of the Security Council with veto power.
In 2023, the scenario was resumed. The United States has called on the UN Security Council to hold North Korea accountable “for its recent missile provocations.” Nevertheless, China once again opposed taking any action against Pyongyang, accusing the United States of escalating tensions and provoking North Korea. Its representative reminded the world that the United States had announced joint military exercises at a higher level and on a larger scale, as well as the timely deployment of strategic assets on the Korean peninsula. Russia’s permanent representative to the UN also accused the United States of provoking North Korea. According to the Russian diplomat, the DPRK is simply responding with missile tests to unprecedented US military maneuvers, which are clearly anti-Pyongyang in nature.
On February 22, the military of South Korea, the United States and Japan conducted joint missile defense exercises in the waters of the Sea of Japan. It involved destroyers equipped with the system, which worked out actions for the exchange of information about ballistic missiles, procedures for their detection, tracking and interception. On the same day, a meeting of the Naval commanders of the three countries took place in Yokosuka.
On the same day, on February 22, the 8th U.S-ROK Deterrence Strategy Committee Table-Top Exercise (DSC TTX) was held at the Pentagon. The parties were represented by Heo Tae-keun, ROK Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy (DEPMIN), Siddharth Mohandas, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia, and Richard Johnson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy (N-CWMD). The military reviewed measures to strengthen combat readiness in case of the real use of nuclear weapons by the North, and they studied a variety of possible scenarios.
Also on February 22, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK for International Organizations Kim Song Kyung criticized the “unfair and unbalanced” policy of the UN Secretary General, who “from year to year repeats illogical and deplorable nonsense, no different from the chatter of US State Department officials.” And if, because of this stance, “an undesirable situation arises”, he “will not get rid of the heavy responsibility for it.”
At dawn on February 23, North Korea responded to previous day’s exercise by conducting a launch of Hwasal-4 “strategic cruise missiles” capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
In an interview with the Korea Times, senior researcher at the Korean Defense and Security Forum, Shin Jung-woo said that the range of the missiles was 200 kilometers longer than those tested on January 25, 2022. However, in general, the description of the launch was assessed skeptically. According to a representative of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on February 24, the data obtained by ROK and US observation means do not correspond to the information voiced by the North and may be exaggerated. The military did not provide other details, referring to the fact that this could reveal the capabilities of the allies in the field of surveillance.
On February 24, the head of the DPRK Foreign Ministry Department for US Affairs, Kwon Jong-geun, chastised the UN Security Council meeting, at which, according to the North Korean diplomat, the United States “again found fault with our use of the right to self-defense.” But in addition to the customary rhetoric, there was something new. “The United States should bear in mind that the further continuation of their hostile and provocative acts against the DPRK, despite our repeated protests and warnings, can be considered a declaration of war against our Republic.” This is quite serious, given the new regulations for the use of North Korean nuclear weapons. In response, the US warned that North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons would lead to the end of the DPRK regime, and announced that it would continue to deploy specialized nuclear forces.
What will happen next? In February, the ROK and US military intend to conduct an additional Air Force exercise, and then in March the large-scale Freedom Shield exercise will take place, which will last 11 days, including its field component. The main trigger of the “spring exacerbation”. Moreover, negotiations are underway on the arrival at the port of Busan of an American nuclear aircraft carrier (presumably the Nimitz), which will take part in the exercise. Similarly, in 2022, the United States sent the Ronald Reagan to the peninsula. The Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Korea, however, refused to confirm this fact but stated that “the deployment of key US military assets took place in close consultation between South Korea and the United States“.
So, both sides do not intend to retreat, and it is highly likely that 2023 will equal 2022 in terms of the number of missile launches from the North, and even surpass it. However, seasonal exacerbation is seasonal for a reason: it happens within certain limits. And although non-core experts react to this saber rattling every time as if a war were on the threshold, one should rather be afraid of the probability of an irrational factor when, against the background of tension, someone may lose their nerves.
Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies of the Institute of China and Modern Asia at the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Russian airlines surviving sanctions – Bloomberg
RT | March 1, 2023
Sanctions against Russian aviation have led to mixed results but have failed to cause the significant pain to the sector that was expected by Western countries, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing industry analysts.
The Ukraine-related sanctions forced two of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, Boeing and Airbus, to stop doing business in Russia. Meanwhile, over 40% of the aircraft operating in Russia were owned by foreign lessors that demanded their property back shortly after the restrictions were introduced.
However, Russian air carriers are still operating 467 Airbus and Boeing jets versus the 544 a year ago, according to data from researcher Cirium, as cited by the news agency.
The country’s airlines reportedly keep flying the jets without software updates and other forms of support from Boeing and Airbus. Both manufacturers told the agency that they had stopped providing parts, maintenance or technical support to airlines or maintenance companies in Russia.
In February, Russian Federal Air Transport Agency head Alexander Neradko said that Boeing and Airbus planes operated by Russian airlines will be able to fly safely until 2030 if properly maintained.
In an attempt to isolate Russia, the US, EU, and a number of other countries closed their airspace to Russian airlines. However, despite losing many destinations, Russian carriers have reportedly increased the number of flights to Thailand, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
According to Cirium estimates, Russian airports are now served by some 270 international flights daily compared to 300 a year ago.
At the same time, Russia’s retaliatory measures forced EU and US carriers to make long and expensive detours on flights to Asia. Russian airspace is still open to airlines from nations that opted not to support the sanctions, such as the UAE, which has ramped up service.
“Clearly the sanctions didn’t work as the West thought they would, and the global aviation industry is a lot leakier than anyone thought,” industry consultant Richard Aboulafia told Bloomberg. “Yes, safety will deteriorate the longer these sanctions go on, but it’s clearly not going to bring connectivity within Russia and from Russia to a grinding halt.”
Turkish FM speaks out on sanctioning Russia over Ukraine
RT | March 1, 2023
Türkiye will not be joining unilateral sanctions imposed on Russia by the West over the conflict in Ukraine, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday.
Cavusoglu was asked how long Ankara would be able to resist pressure from the US and its allies to put restrictions on Moscow ahead of talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers Meeting in India’s capital New Delhi.
“We don’t need to resist anyone, we make our own decisions as a sovereign state. We don’t join any unilateral sanctions. We support only those [restrictions that are] introduced with the backing of the UN,” the foreign minister replied, as cited by the media.
“It’s not just about Russia, but we also don’t support sanctions against Iran or any other country,” Cavusoglu pointed out, adding that “no one can put pressure” on Türkiye.
India, which chairs the G20 this year, is hosting the summit of foreign ministers on Wednesday and Thursday.
An Indian foreign ministry official told Reuters on Wednesday that New Delhi didn’t want the conflict in Ukraine to dominate the discussions at the event, but acknowledged that it would likely be among the top issues on the agenda. The host nation’s “intention [is] to continue playing the voice of the Global South [Latin America, Africa, Asia and Oceania] and raising issues pertinent to the region,” the official said.
High-ranking Indian diplomat Vinay Kwatra told reporters that “questions relating to food, energy and fertilizer security, [and] the impact that the conflict has on these economic challenges that we face” will be among those to receive “due focus” in New Delhi.
However, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who is a stalwart supporter of Kiev, insisted that India should use the G20 gathering to “make Russia understand that this war has to finish.” According to Borrell, the “success” of the whole meeting “will be measured in respect to what we will be able to do on that.”
An EU source said separately the EU delegation in New Delhi won’t support the final statement as a result of the summit if it doesn’t include condemnation of Russia’s conduct in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
Korybko: There’s No Reason For India To Decouple Itself From Russia
By Andrew Korybko | March 1, 2023
As an economic expert, Renuka Sane’s heart might presumably be in the right place, but her suggestion to decouple from Russia is counterproductive from the perspective of India’s grand strategic interests. By following her well-intended advice, India would be abandoning its masterful balancing act between key players in the New Cold War that’s responsible for its rapid rise as a globally significant Great Power over the past year. It would also be voluntarily submitting itself to vassal status vis-à-vis the US-led West’s Golden Billion.
The Print, a popular Indian online media outlet, published an op-ed by Renuka Sane on Wednesday urging her country to decouple from Russia in order to please its Western partners. Titled “India must detach from Russia. Exports, IT, or education, its interests lie with the West”, the research director at Trustbridge, which works on improving the rule of law for better economic outcomes for India, shared plenty of details about Indian-Western economic, financial, and tech ties in order to make her case.
There’s no disputing the fact that these abovementioned relationships are incredibly important for India and far outweigh related ties with Russia. The problem, however, is the innuendo that pervades her text whereby she appears to regularly hint that her country’s Western partners might employ “state coercion” against it in response to Delhi’s defiance of their demand to distance itself from Moscow. The first such example of this is present in the second paragraph of her piece.
Sane writes that “State coercion limits engagement between individuals in two countries. Governments make such decisions based on a balance of economic interests and foreign policy. One arena where this plays out is visa diplomacy. Denial of visas is a lever of international relations and often used as a tool to influence actions by another State.” She then adds near the end of that paragraph that “Trade agreements may sometimes be driven primarily by geopolitical and strategic reasons.”
Sane continues this trend into the third paragraph where she opines that “The energy, support, and prioritisation for all these [Indian-US tech initiatives] on the part of the two governments are shaped by their security environment.” This part can be interpreted as her hinting that the US’ displeasure with the Russian dimension of India’s foreign policy could have consequences for bilateral cooperation, especially in the tech sphere.
Reinforcing this point, the fourth paragraph includes the following insight: “Information Technology is now India’s biggest industry, and the future of the Indian economy is tied to success in this sector. For further doubling of services exports, support and cooperation from Western governments is important.” Sane then adds at the end of the sixth paragraph that “India’s approach to the Ukraine war will shape the extent to which Western governments choose to support India’s services exports growth targets.”
The last two paragraphs more directly convey the implied purpose behind her latest op-ed. This is evidenced by her warning that “If global firms want to exit China on the grounds that it is an authoritarian country hostile to the West, then it is in India’s interest to look ‘un-China’ in the eyes of the world. Our equation and policies vis-a-vis Russia may shape the attitude of these global corporate players.”
Sane then ends her piece on the following ominous note: “India’s economic interests lie with the West, and the latter is extremely worried about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” Putting everything together and keeping in mind the excerpts that were shared, there’s little doubt that she’s concerned that the West – particularly the US – might punish India for its independent foreign policy towards Russia through economic, financial, and/or tech means, ergo her innuendo that it should ditch Moscow.
As an economic expert, her heart might presumably be in the right place, but her suggestion is counterproductive from the perspective of India’s grand strategic interests. By following her well-intended advice, India would be abandoning its masterful balancing act between key players in the New Cold War that’s responsible for its rapid rise as a globally significant Great Power over the past year. It would also be voluntarily submitting itself to vassal status vis-à-vis the US-led West’s Golden Billion.
India’s hard-earned strategic autonomy would be surrendered in exchange for literally nothing at all since it’s highly unlikely that her implied scenario of that de facto New Cold War bloc punishing her country through the related means that she warned about will ever come to pass. This South Asian Great Power is simply much too important to the Golden Billion for the latter to unilaterally decouple itself from the former for five reasons that will now be summarized.
First, India’s labor and market potentials are too large for the West to ignore, which directly segues into the second point of them envisaging that country functioning as a reliable re-shoring location for gradually reducing their presently disproportionate dependence on Chinese-based supply chains. Third, their support for India’s continued economic growth enhances its comprehensive capabilities to manage China’s rise, which aligns with their de facto New Cold War bloc’s geostrategic interests.
Fourth, no other country has anywhere near the previously mentioned characteristics that India has, meaning that there’s no viable alternative for the West with respect to those related opportunities in the event that they decide to decouple themselves from it as punishment for its foreign policy. And finally, the worst-case scenario that they want to avoid at all costs is pushing India into considering the “Chindia” scenario of combining its potential with China and jointly challenging the West.
That last-mentioned scenario is only foreseeable in the event that the West’s liberal–globalist elite succeed in punishing India for its foreign policy through economic and other means of the sort that Color Revolution mastermind George Soros implied last month are credibly in the cards. His de facto declaration of Hybrid War against India during the Munich Security Conference was alarming, but his more pragmatic and non-ideological peers might still rein him in and prevent this from materializing.
If they can’t, then they risk pushing India into seriously considering synergizing its economic, financial, and tech potential with China, which would deal a deathblow to Western dominance. In any case, this is a choice for the West itself to make and India shouldn’t voluntarily subjugate itself to the Golden Billion’s foreign policy demands out of desperation to avert the scenario of it being punished by them like Sane appears to be strongly suggesting throughout her piece.
Rather, India should maintain its multi-alignment between all key players, but never shy away from signaling to everyone that it always has backup plans in the event that any of them unilaterally decides to worsen their relations for purely zero-sum political reasons. There’s no indication that the West as a whole is seriously considering punishing India for its ties with Russia, Soros’ de facto declaration of Hybrid War against it notwithstanding, but they should still know what would happen if they do.
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