The militarisation of Scandinavia will drastically undermine the security of the region and invite new conflicts as Russia will be compelled to respond to what could become an existential threat. Norway has decided to host at least 12 US military bases on its soil, while Finland and Sweden follow suit by transferring sovereign control over parts of their territory after they recently became NATO members. Infrastructure will be built to bring US troops faster to Russian borders, while the Baltic Sea and the Arctic will be converted into NATO seas.
Scandinavia as a Key Region for Russian Security
Ever since Kievan Rus disintegrated in the 13th century and the Russians lost their presence on the Dnieper River, a key security challenge for Russia has been its lack of reliable access to the world seas. Furthermore, economic development is also dependent on reliable access to the seas as they are the arteries of international trade. Similarly, hegemonic powers have always been required to dominate the seas, while Russia can be contained, weakened and defeated by restricting its access.
Sweden was initially such a great power. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Sweden sought to restrict the access of Russia in the Baltic Sea, while also attempting to encroach upon its Arctic port in Arkhangelsk. During the “The Time of Trouble” that involved the Swedish occupation of Russia, approximately 1/3 of Russia’s entire population died. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Stolbova in 1617, which involved territorial concessions that cut off Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea. This lasted until the time of Peter the Great, who eventually defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War in 1721. The war ended Sweden’s era as a great power, while Russia became a great power due to its access to the Baltic Sea.
The dominant maritime powers, Britain and then the US, pursued similar attempts to limit Russia’s access to the world’s oceans for the next three centuries. During the Crimean War (1853-56), European diplomats had been explicit that the objective had been to push Russia back into Asia and exclude it from European affairs.[1] This explains Russia’s fierce response to the Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 as Russia responded by seizing Crimea in fear of losing its strategic Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol to NATO. The US sabotage of the Minsk agreement (2015-2022) and the Istanbul peace agreement (2022) was similarly motivated by the goal of arming Ukraine to take back Crimea and make Sevastopol a NATO naval base.
The militarisation and vassalisation of Scandinavia are important to challenge Russia’s access to the two other seas on Russia’s Western borders – the Baltic Sea and the Arctic. Former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen optimistically announced that NATO expansion in Scandinavia would enable NATO to block Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea in a conflict: “After the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, the Baltic Sea will now be a NATO sea… if we wish, we can block all entry and exit to Russia through St. Petersburg”.[2] Poland and the Baltic States have also begun to casually refer to the Baltic Sea as a “NATO sea”. The Financial Times argues that “Denmark could block Russian oil tankers from reaching markets” as part of sanctions.[3] A NATO Colonel also argued that the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad would come under much greater pressure and become a “problem” for Russia: “The ascension of Finland and the upcoming ascension of Sweden will totally change the setup in the Baltic Sea region. Russia will experience Kaliningrad being surrounded”.[4]
Sweden’s NATO membership now threatens to reverse the outcome of the Great Northern War in 1721, which by implication would diminish the basic foundations of Russian security. The Battle of Poltova is recognised to have been the largest and most decisive battle of the Great Northern War that resulted in Sweden’s defeat. The videos emerging of Swedish casualties in the recent Russian missile strike on Poltova is very symbolic of the militarisation of Scandinavia.
America’s attack on Nord Stream demonstrated how control over the Baltic Sea is important to cut Russian-German economic connectivity. The US has attempted to blame the Ukrainians for the attack, suggesting that “the CIA warned Zelensky’s office to stop the operation”.[5] The admission of knowing about the attack before it happened is nonetheless interesting as the US and NATO blamed Russia for the attack and used it as a reason to intensify the naval control over the Baltic Sea and escalate the Ukraine War. This is an admission that the US lied to their own public and the world, and used the lie to escalate their wider war on Russia. The attack also demonstrates that the Americans will treat the Europeans as proxies just like they used the Ukrainians, while the Europeans would not stand up for their interests but silently accept an ally destroying their own vital energy infrastructure. The revelation also demonstrated that the people we generously refer to as journalists will not ask any critical questions or discuss objective reality if it challenges the war narrative.
Finland was perhaps the greatest success story of neutrality, yet it was converted into NATO’s longest frontline against Russia. There was no threat to Finland, yet expansion was framed as being a blow to Putin as an objective on its own. Foreign military deployments will predictably soon emerge in the north of Finland to threaten Russia’s Northern Fleet in Arkhangelsk. The pretext will most likely be the concern that Russia will want to seize part of Lapland in the north of Finland. It will make no sense whatsoever, but obedient media will drum up the required fear.
The militarisation of Norway has followed a gradual incrementalism. Initially, US troops were stationed in Norway on a rotating basis, which enabled the government to claim they were not permanently deployed. In 2021, Norway and the US agreed on a few military bases but called them “dedicated areas” as Norway officially does not allow foreign bases on its soil. The US has full control and jurisdiction over these territories and the US media refers to them as military bases that will enable the US to confront Russia in the Arctic, but the Norwegian political-media elites must still refer to them as “dedicated areas” and dismiss that they have any offensive purposes. The frog is slowly boiling, believing it has identical interests to its masters in Washington.
Ignoring the Security Competition when Interpreting the Ukraine War
As Scandinavia is converted from a region of peace to a US frontline, one would expect more debate about this historical shift. Yet, the political-media elites have already reached the consensus that expanding NATO enhances our security due to greater military force and deterrence. More weapons rarely result in more peace, although this is the logic of hegemonic peace that this generation of politicians has committed themselves to.
The point of departure in security politics is the security competition. If increasing the security of country A decreases the security of country B, then country B will likely be compelled to enhance its security in a manner that reduces security for country A. The security competition can be mitigated by deterring the adversary without provoking a response, which is ideally organised through an inclusive security architecture.
Scandinavia’s ability to be a region of peace relied on mastering the deterrence/reassurance balance. Finland and Sweden were neutral states and were an important part of the belt of neutral states from the north to the south of Europe during the Cold War, which contributed to reducing tensions. Norway was a NATO member but imposed restrictions on itself by not hosting foreign military bases on its soil and limiting the military activities of allies in the Arctic region. It was common sense that security derived from deterring the Soviets without provoking them, this common sense is now long gone.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is cited as the main reason why Finland and Sweden had to abandon their neutrality and join NATO. This logic makes sense when ignoring security competition as Russia’s actions then occur in a vacuum. Acceptable discussions about the Ukraine War are limited by the premise that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked”, and any efforts to widen the debate by addressing NATO’s role can be shut down with accusations of “legitimising” Russia’s invasion.
NATO expansion caused the Ukraine War, and the response to this war was NATO expansion to Finland and Sweden. This twisted logic prevails as the narrative of an “unprovoked” invasion has become immune to facts. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, explained that she had opposed offering Ukraine the Membership Action Plan to join NATO in 2008 as it would have been interpreted by Moscow as “a declaration of war”.[6] Wikileaks also revealed that Germans believed that pushing NATO expansionism could “break up the country”.[7] William Burns, the US Ambassador to Moscow and now the current Director of the CIA, warned that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite”.[8] Burns warned of the consequences:
“Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests… Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.[9]
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO’s Secretary General in 2008, recognised that NATO should have respected Russia’s red lines and should therefore not have pledged membership to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008.[10] Former US Secretary of Defence and CIA Director Robert Gates also acknowledged the mistake as “Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching”.[11] Even the support for bringing Ukraine into NATO had dubious intensions. In late March 2008, one week before the NATO Summit in Bucharest where Ukraine was promised future membership, Tony Blair told American political leaders how they should manage Russia. Blair argued the strategy “should be to make Russia a ‘little desperate’ with our activities in areas bordering on what Russia considers its sphere of interest and along its actual borders. Russia had to be shown firmness and sown with seeds of confusion”.[12]
In September 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gleefully argued that Russia’s actions to prevent NATO expansion would now result in more NATO expansion.
“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And [it] was a pre-condition for not invading Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that. The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO… We rejected that. So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member”.[13]
Stoltenberg did not specify why he thought more NATO expansion would increase security if NATO expansion was the cause of the war. However, NATO also insists that Ukraine must become part of NATO as Russia would not dare to attack a NATO country, while NATO also argues that Russia must be stopped in Ukraine as Russia will thereafter attack NATO countries. Much like the recognition of security competition, the logic is also absent.
Blinded by Ideological Fundamentalism
Scandinavia’s recognition of security competition has suffered from what is referred to in the literature as “ideological fundamentalism”. Actors are seen as either good or bad based on political identities that have been assigned by ideology. Ideological fundamentalism reduces the ability to recognise that one’s own policies and actions may constitute a threat to others, because one’s own political identity is held to be indisputably positive and dissociated from any threatening behaviour. There is a lack of understanding for why Russia would feel threatened by NATO expansion even after Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the proxy war in Ukraine. NATO is merely a “defensive alliance”, even as it bombs countries that never threatened it. Ideological fundamentalism can best be explained by President Reagan’s reaction to how Able Archer, a NATO military exercise in 1983 that almost triggered a nuclear war. Convinced that the US was a force for good that was fighting an evil empire, he was bewildered that the Soviets did not see it the same way:
“Three years had taught me something surprising about the Russians: Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans… I’d always felt that from our deeds it must be clear to anyone that Americans were a moral people who starting at the birth of our nation had always used our power only as a force of good in the world”.[14]
Trapped in the tribal mindset of “us” versus “them”, the Scandinavians exaggerate what “we” have in common, and dismiss any commonality with “them”. It is assumed that the US shares the interests of Scandinavia, and is primarily building a military presence there to provide security. The US has a security strategy based on hegemony, which is dependent on weakening all emerging rivals. The US Security Strategy of 2002 explicitly linked national security to global dominance as the objective to “dissuade future military competition” should be achieved by advancing “the unparalleled strength of the United States armed forces, and their forward presence”.[15] While Scandinavia has an interest in maintaining peaceful borders with Russia, the US has defined its interests in destabilising Russian borders.[16] Peacetime alliances are reliant on perpetuating conflicts rather than solving them as conflict ensures loyalty from the protectorate and the containment of the adversary. In his famous work on how to advance and perpetuate US global hegemony, Brzezinski wrote the US must “prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together”.[17]
A Lack of Political Imagination to Move Beyond Bloc Politics
The Scandinavians recognise that their security has been reliant on the US since the end of the Second World War, and they simply do not have the political imagination for other security arrangements. If it worked then, why should it not work now? As security competition is no longer a consideration, the Scandinavians conveniently neglect that NATO was a status quo actor during the Cold War, while after the Cold War it became a revisionist actor by expanding and attacking other countries in what NATO refers to as “out-of-area” operations.
The lack of alternatives to NATO enables the US to simply demand “alliance solidarity” as a code word for bloc discipline. Case in point, in the 2000s Norway was criticising the US missile defence system that threatened the nuclear balance as it could enable a US first strike. Wikileaks revealed that the US Ambassador reported that the US was pressuring the Norwegian government, political figures, journalists, and think tank researchers to overcome Norway’s firm opposition to missile defence, or at least “to a minimum counter Russian misstatements and distinguish Norway’s position from Russia’s to avoid damaging alliance solidarity”.[18] It was argued that “thanks to our high-level visitors”, Norway had begun to “quietly continue work in NATO on missile defence and to publicly criticise Russia for provocative statements” (Wikileaks, 2007b).[19] In the words of US Ambassador Whitney, Norway had to “adjust to current realities” since it would have a “hard time defending its position if the issue shifts to one of alliance solidarity”.[20] Following the Norwegian U-turn on missile defence, it was declared in the Norwegian Parliament that “it is important for the political cohesion of the alliance not to let the opposition, perhaps especially from Russia, hinder progress and feasible solutions”.[21]
The world is yet again undergoing dramatic change as it changes from a unipolar to a multipolar world order. The US will increasingly shift its focus and resources to Asia, which will change the trans-Atlantic relationship. The US will be able to offer less to the Europeans, but it will demand more loyalty in terms of economics and security. The Europeans will have to sever their economic ties to American rivals which will result in less prosperity and more dependence. The US will also expect the Europeans to militarise the economic competition with China, and NATO has already become the most obvious vehicle for this purpose. Instead of adjusting to multipolarity by diversifying their ties and pursuing opportunities from the rise of Asia, the Europeans are doing the opposite by subordinating themselves further to the US in the hope that it will increase the value of NATO.
Scandinavia was a region of peace as it attempted to mitigate the security competition. As Scandinavia surrenders its sovereignty to the US for protection against an imaginary threat, the region will be converted into a frontline that will unavoidably trigger new conflicts. The only certainty is that when Russia reacts to these provocations, we will all chant “unprovoked” in unison and make some obscure reference to democracy.
[1] J.W. Kipp and W.B. Lincoln, ‘Autocracy and Reform Bureaucratic Absolutism and Political Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Russia’, Russian History, vol.6, no.1, 1979, p.4.
[2] Lrt, ‘Putin’s plan includes Baltics, says former NATO chief’, Lrt, 19 July 2022.
[3] H. Foy, R. Milne and D. Sheppard, Denmark could block Russian oil tankers from reaching markets, Financial Times, 15 November 2023.
[4] E. Zubriūtė, Kaliningrad is no longer our problem, but Russia’s’ – interview with NATO colonel, LRT, 13 November 2023.
[5] B. Pancevski, A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, The Wall Street Jounral, 14 August 2024.
[6] A. Walsh, ‘Angela Merkel opens up on Ukraine, Putin and her legacy’, Deutsche Welle, 7 June 2022.
[7] Wikileaks, ‘Germany/Russia: Chancellery views on MAP for Ukraine and Georgia’, Wikileaks, 6 June 2008.
[8] W.J. Burns, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, New York, Random House, 2019, p.233.
[9] W.J. Burns, ‘Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines’, Wikileaks, 1 February 2008.
[10] G.J. Dennekamp, De Hoop Scheffer: Poetin werd radicaler door NAVO’ [De Hoop Scheffer: Putin became more radical because of NATO], NOS, 7 January 2018.
[11] R.M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, New York, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.
[12] Telegraph, ‘Tony Blair and John McCain talk about Israel/Palestine and Russia handling’, The Telegraph, 27 March 2008.
[13] J. Stoltenberg, ‘Opening remarks’, NATO, 7 September 2023.
[14] Reagan, R., 1990. An American Life: The Autobiography. Simon and Schuster, New York, p.74.
[15] NSS, ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’, The White House, June 2002.
[16] RAND, ‘Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground’, RAND Corporation, 24 April 2019.
[17] Z. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geopolitical Imperatives, New York, Basic Books, 1997, p.40.
[18] Wikileaks, 2007. Norway: Missile defense public diplomacy and outreach, OSLO 000248, US Embassy, Oslo, 13 March
[19] Wikileaks, 2007. Positive movements in the missile defence debate in Norway but no breakthrough, OSLO 000614, US Embassy, Oslo, 8 June
[20] Wikileaks, 2008. Norway standing alone against missile defense, OSLO 000072, US Embassy, Oslo, 12 February.
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia – Global demand for gas is set to increase by at least 10–12% over the next 20 years, with the possibility for even higher growth, Russian First Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin has said.
“The demand for gas is increasing globally. It will grow by at least 10-12% over the next 20 years, up to 4.5-4.6 trillion cubic meters of gas per year. However, the potential is even greater,” Sorokin said on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF).
At the same time, global demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) is expected to rise to 580–600 million tonnes over the next six to seven years, up from the current 400 million tonnes. Over the next 20 years, demand could reach up to 700 million tonnes, which would allow LNG to surpass pipeline gas in terms of trade, Sorokin added.
The Eastern Economic Forum began on Tuesday and will run through Friday. It is being hosted by the Far Eastern Federal University in Russia’s Pacific coast city of Vladivostok. Sputnik is the general information partner of the EEF 2024.
Russia is not behind the emerging global trend towards dropping the US dollar in trade, President Vladimir Putin told the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday.
The event is being attended by members of the BRICS economic bloc, including India and China – both of which are actively using national currencies to settle transactions with Russia.
However, Moscow is not pursuing a “policy of de-dollarization,” Putin said during a plenary session at the forum.
He said the US dollar had become the dominant currency after World War II, when Washington successfully capitalized on the outcome of the conflict. Today, however, the ill-conceived and unprofessional actions of the US government are pushing countries to abandon the reserve currency, he added.
”Russia did not refuse to settle transactions in dollars, rather it was refused this option,” said Putin.
After the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the US cut off Russia’s central bank from dollar transactions and later banned the export of dollar banknotes to the country as part of an unprecedented sanctions campaign against Moscow.
As a result, Russia and its BRICS partners are now using national currencies in 65% of mutual trade settlements, Putin said.
The BRICS economic bloc was founded in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2011. Russia currently holds the chairmanship of the bloc. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates joined the group at the start of this year. Earlier this week, Türkiye formally applied to become a member.
The United States has been widely accused of using the dollar as a weapon against its rivals by imposing sanctions and freezing assets. Foreign Affairs magazine wrote in June that the sanctions on Russia “undoubtedly left other central banks wondering whether their own dollar-denominated rainy-day funds would be locked up should their governments run afoul of Washington.”
I was interviewed by the China Academy regarding the strategic partnership between Russia and China. The strategic partnership was formed by two profound historical changes in the international system that occurred around the same time: Russia’s decoupling from the West and the rise of China as the soon-to-be world’s leading economy.
The first historical shift is the end of Russia looking to the West for modernisation and development. Russia has pursued a Western-centric foreign policy for the past 300-years, and after the Cold War pursued the overarching objective of creating an inclusive European security architecture based on the vision of Gorbachev’s Common European Home. The project of Greater Europe died in February 2014 with the Western-backed coup in Ukraine, which ended all hopes of a gradual integration with the West. Over the past 300 years, there have been several attempts in the West to push Russia back into Asia – although this time the East is no longer an economic backwater. Russia subsequently replaced “Greater Europe” with the “Greater Eurasia Initiative” as it began reorganising its economy toward a more accommodating and economically vibrant East.
The second historical shift is the rise of China, which has outgrown the US-administered international economic system. The Global Financial Crisis of 2008-9 was a wake-up call as the US demonstrated it would not restore fiscal discipline, which implied that the stability of the system would continue to erode. China demonstrated both the intention and ability to challenge US geoeconomic leadership by pursuing ambitious industrial policies to assert technological and industrial leadership, investing trillions of dollars into physical connectivity with the Belt and Road Initiative, and new financial architecture with development banks, payment systems and de-dollarisation.
The West assumed the partnership of China and Russia was a “marriage of convenience” as the common interests of opposing US hegemony was superficial and they would likely clash over the dominance of Central Asia. This prediction failed to recognise that both China and Russia need each other to develop a new international economic architecture, and as neither side pursues hegemony they have the ability to accommodate each other’s strategic interests. The efforts by the US to break both Russia and the China at the same time has pushed these two giants together in what can only be described as Kissinger’s worst nightmare. The strategic partnership has also laid the foundation for a new international economic architecture that pulls in other centres of power.
US microchip giant Intel faces what’s been characterized as the most difficult moment in its 56-year history, hiring banksters to advise the company on whether to trim, slash or sell off its manufacturing business. That’s bad news for Washington, which greenlit $280 billion in funding in 2022 toward boosting domestic semiconductor manufacturing.
Intel’s stock has had a rough year-to-date, plummeting nearly 60% since January and falling off a cliff in early August as investors led by billionaire Warren Buffett began a massive selloff which led leading tech stocks to shed nearly $3 trillion in value amid a perfect storm of recession fears, concerns over rising AI-related capital expenditure, and inflation.
The shock stock drop shed more light on the difficult situation at Intel, with a flurry of reports beginning late last week citing informed sources revealing that the company is in the “most difficult period in its 56-year history,” looking for strategic advice from the likes of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, and considering selling off its chip manufacturing capacity.
The news carries grave significance for Washington, with Axiospointing out in a report last Friday that Intel isn’t just one of America’s oldest US chipmakers, but “a key national security asset,” signaling the US’s ability (or as it happens, inability) to compete with Taiwan, South Korea, China and other chip-making power players in an increasingly demanding world market for microchips.
All eyes are now on Intel’s mid-September board of directors meeting, at which company CEO Pat Gelsinger is expected to present the company’s recovery plan, from cost cuts achieved by shedding “unnecessary businesses,” possibly including US-based programmable chip manufacturing, and even the potential sale of its foundry business to a foreign buyer like TSMC.
Intel currently has more than two dozen fab and post-fab sites, most of them in Oregon, Arizona, California, New Mexico, Colorado and Ohio, but also Ireland and Israel. The potential slash in investment threatens to jeopardize the company’s ambitious expansion plans, both domestically and in Germany and Poland, with capital expenditures expected to drop by $10 billion, to $21.5 billion, in 2025. Among the casualties is a reported move to freeze construction of a $32.8 billion factory complex in Magdeburg, Germany.
Intel’s troubles are also bad news for the Biden administration specifically, which pumped $8.5 billion into the company’s coffers in March from the 2022 $280 billion CHIPS & Science Act, which includes $39 billion in subsidies for US chip manufacturing, $13 billion for semiconductor research and workforce training, and major tax incentives. Intel also enjoys up to $11 billion in Chips Act loans for modernization and new production.
The current administration has made subsidies to microchip manufacturing a key plank of its economic agenda. In addition to a broad array of civilian uses, from computers to vehicles, companies like Intel produce chips for use in military and space applications.
The company’s multi-year $100 billion+ US expansion plans fell to the wayside after its stagnant second-quarter earnings ($12.8 billion), sparking massive layoffs of over 15% of its workforce in August. The same month, veteran exec Lip-Bu Tan resigned from Intel’s board, reportedly over differences about the future of the company, and its failure to listen to proposals to make Intel’s contract manufacturing more customer-centric.
“Simply put, we must align our cost structure with our new operating model and fundamentally change the way we operate,” Intel chief Pat Gelsinger wrote in a memo in early August while announcing the cuts and firings.
A pioneer in microchip manufacturing and the developer of the Intel 4004 – the world’s first commercial microprocessor, in the 1970s, Intel produced the most popular chip of the 80s – the Intel 8088, which ended up powering the IBM PC. Fast forward to the 1990s, and Intel’s engineers developed the revolutionary 32 bit Pentium x86 processors – which were heavily improved upon by former Soviet supercomputer designer Vladimir Pentkovski. In the late 2008, Intel introduced the Intel Core lineup of multicore processers, assuring it superiority over competitors for over a decade before being surpassed by AMD in 2022. A few short years on, Intel has dropped out of the top ten largest global microchip manufacturers entirely by market capitalization.
Analyses by the New York Fed and the Center for Strategic and International Studies confirm that US semiconductor companies are losing tens of billions of dollars per year in sales. In an 18-month period immediately following strict sanctions against US chip exports to China, US companies lost an average of $770 million in market capitalization, with $130 billion in lost market cap industry wide.
In company-specific examples, Micron has lost half of its revenues as a result of China export restrictions. In 2024 alone, Qualcomm will forego $10 billion in lost sales of 7-nanometer chips which are now manufactured by SMIC, a Chinese semiconductor firm.
The United States now faces strong challenges from companies in allied countries, who are resisting calls to further decouple from China’s semiconductor market, the world’s largest.
Commerce Department Implements New Export Controls on Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Items to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/doc…
US calls for Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, Japan to tighten chip curbs on China, drawing resistance from allies https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-war/ar…
The Russia-China New Land Grain Corridor enables Russia to replace the US and Europe in the Chinese grain market.
BRICS enables the decoupling from US agriculture with the development of a new post-American International economic system. This includes a grain exchange, new logistic centres, transportation infrastructure, development banks, native technologies and digital platforms, de-dollarisation, and the abandonment of the SWIFT transaction system. The benefits for Russia, China and other partners include greater food security, cheaper exchanges, less reliance on an inflated and weaponised US dollar.
Without US surveillance of global trade through the dollar, SWIFT and commodity exchanges, the US and its farmers cannot even see the world markets in terms of global demand and supplies. The problem is exacerbated by Western sanctions and economic coercion, as Russia and China have further incentives to not share market information with the US and its farmers. Thus, US farmers and investors do not get the information required to plan what to grow and how much. China has been cancelling huge contracts with the US, and the US cannot even be sure who is replacing its agricultural supplies.
The US weaponisation of trade will continue to encourage the rest of the world to reduce their dependence on the US and find more reliable economic partners.
Hungary cannot survive without Russian oil, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has warned, stressing that Ukraine’s decision to suspend transit poses a serious challenge for Budapest.
Kiev halted the transit of crude supplied by Russian energy giant Lukoil via the Druzhba pipeline in June, citing sanctions. The measure has directly hit landlocked Hungary and Slovakia, depriving them of oil previously exported by Lukoil through Ukrainian territory.
In an interview with Russian business daily RBK on Monday, Szijjarto said Hungary will be completely deprived of oil without supplies from Russia.
“We will not be able to feed the country in a broad sense. We simply will not be able to meet the demand for fuel… because we do not have sufficient alternative infrastructure,” the diplomat said.
“You just have to look at the numbers… We do not want to take such risks,” Szijjarto added. “Therefore, the fact that Ukraine has made such a decision is a very serious challenge for us. It affects about a third of our imports from Russia. In Slovakia, the situation is even worse, these supplies account for about 40% there,” he stressed.
Kiev imposed sanctions on Lukoil in 2018, having banned the company from divesting its business in the country, as well as prohibiting trade operations and participation in the privatization or leasing of state property. Lukoil still sent crude via the southern arm of the Druzhba pipeline as EU sanctions did not target these flows.
The EU prohibited transport of Russian crude oil by sea in December 2022 as part of far-reaching sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict. Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have been granted exemptions by Brussels as they source alternative supplies.
Slovakia and Hungary are the only EU member states that have rejected the bloc’s policies on supplying Kiev with military aid amid the conflict with Moscow. Both states have repeatedly called for the crisis to be solved through diplomacy.
Last week, Politico reported that Budapest had proposed a solution for the restoration of halted Russian oil flows by rebranding Lukoil products. That way, the crude shipped via Ukraine could be officially sold to Hungarian energy giant MOL before it crosses the border. The arrangement could reportedly mean paying an additional $1.50 per barrel to secure transit outside of previous agreements.
Szijjarto told RBK that a temporary solution to the crisis situation could be found, stressing that “in the long term, we need to look for another, legally significant solution.”
The Hungarian diplomat traveled to Russia last week to discuss energy security issues. Budapest is “satisfied with Russian energy cooperation, which is one of the guarantees of the country’s food security,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook after meeting with the head of Russian energy giant Gazprom, Aleksey Miller.
Russia has overtaken the US to once again become the second-largest supplier of natural gas to the EU, Die Welt reported on Sunday, citing analysis. The German newspaper added that the symbolism of the development is “huge.”
Brussels declared the elimination of its reliance on Russian energy as one of its key priorities after hostilities in the Ukraine conflict broke out in February 2022. Expensive US liquified natural gas (LNG) filled up a large portion of the market, exacerbating economic crises throughout the EU.
In the second quarter of 2024, Russian gas accounted for roughly 17% of all EU imports, just ahead of supplies from the US, Welt noted, citing the Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel. According to its figures, European customers received 12.27 billion cubic meters of US LNG over that period or time, while Russia delivered 12.73 billion cubic meters to the bloc.
The Russian supplies include both LNG and pipeline gas, which flows to the EU via Belarus and Ukraine and through the TurkStream undersea gas pipeline. Kiev, which receives transit fees for fuel delivered through its territory, has threatened to suspend operations after the current contract expires at the end of 2024. However, it has indicated that it is open to third nations, such as Azerbaijan, stepping up their use of Soviet-built infrastructure.
Dmitry Birichevsky, head of the economic cooperation department at the Russian Foreign Ministry, has described the gas import dynamics as a testament to the failure of EU sanctions policy.
“While it’s true that the indicators are significantly lower than before 2022, the facts speak for themselves,” he told RIA Novosti on Monday. “Greece alone has ramped up the purchase of Russian gas fourfold over 2023.”
The US has sought to replace Russia as an energy supplier to Europe since before the Ukraine conflict. The administration of President Donald Trump infamously branded American LNG “molecules of freedom”, when it pressured the EU nations to select it over Russian gas. Norway has historically been the top supplier of gas to the market.
Moscow now considers the EU an unreliable customer, which has shown that it is willing to let US political goals trump its economic needs.
“Under the circumstances of the de facto economic war declared on us, our plans to redirect foreign trade to the nations of the Global South and East remain a priority,” Birichevsky said.
The Eurosceptic party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), won a regional ballot for the first time, surpassing Scholz’s ruling coalition.
AfD secured 32.8% in Thuringia, leading the race, followed by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) with 23.6%, according to exit polls.
In Saxony, the Eurosceptic party garnered 30.6%, losing to the CDU by a narrow margin.
The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) claimed third place in both races, with 15.8% in Thuringia and 11.8% in Saxony.
Scholz’s “traffic-light” coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the Free Democrats (FDP) performed poorly. The FDP failed to reach the 5% threshold required to enter either regional legislature, and the Greens did not make it into the parliament in Thuringia.
SPD received 6.1% and 7.3% in Thuringia and Saxony, respectively.
“We are ready to take on government responsibility,” AfD leader in Thuringia, Bjorn Hocke, declared, celebrating what he called a “historic victory.”
Omid Nouripour, co-leader of the Greens, lamented the outcome and described it as “a profound turning point” in German history.
The AfD’s victory sparked a heated debate, with mainstream Western media warning that Germany’s political center is “crumbling” ahead of the next federal election in September 2025. Some outlets noted that Scholz have been “humbled” by the German right-wing party.
Others highlighted the rise of anti-establishment parties in Germany, acknowledging that both AfD and BSW, which advocate halting arms supplies to Ukraine, and imposing immigration controls, have performed notably well.
Suddenly, the fact that food is making us sick, really sick, has gained a lot of attention.
When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced he would suspend his presidential campaign and campaign for President Trump on August 23, both he and Trump spoke about the need to improve the food supply to regain America’s health.
The same week, Tucker Carlson interviewed the sister-brother team of Casey and Calley Means, coauthors of the #1 New York Times bestseller Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless HealthTheir thesis, borne out by thousands of medical research studies, is that food can make us very healthy or very sick. The grocery store choices many Americans have made have led us to unprecedented levels of diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic and neurologic diseases that prematurely weaken and age us, our organs, and our arteries.
There is a whole lot wrong with our available food.
Chemical fertilizers have led to abusing the soil, and consequently, soils became depleted of micronutrients. Unsurprisingly, foods grown in them are now lacking those nutrients.
Pesticides and herbicides harm humans, as well as bugs and weeds.
Some experts say we need to take supplements now because we can’t get what we need from our foods anymore.
Subsidies for wheat, corn, and soybean exceed $5 billion annually in cash plus many other forms of support, exceeding $100 billion since 1995, resulting in vast overproduction and centralization.
We are practically living on overprocessed junk made of sugar, salt, wheat, and seed oils.
And that is just the start. The problem could have been predicted. Food companies grew bigger and bigger, until they achieved virtual monopolies. In order to compete, they had to use the cheapest ingredients. When the few companies left standing banded together, we got industry capture of the agencies that regulated their businesses, turning regulation on its head.
Consolidation in the Meat Industry
Then the regulators issued rules that advantaged the big guys, and disadvantaged the small guys. But it was the small guys who were producing the highest quality food, in most cases. Most of them had to sell out and find something else to do. It simply became uneconomic to be a farmer.
The farmers and ranchers that were left often became the equivalent of serfs on their own land.
Did you know:
“Ninety-seven percent of the chicken Americans eat is produced by a farmer under contract with a big chicken company. These chicken farmers are the last independent link in an otherwise completely vertically integrated, company-owned supply chain.”
“Corporate consolidation is at the root of many of the structural ills of our food system. When corporations have the ability to dictate terms to farmers, farmers lose. Corporations place the burden of financial liability on farmers, dictate details of far.”
“Corporations also consolidate ownership of the other steps of the supply chain that farmers depend on — inputs, processing, distribution, and marketing — leaving farmers few options but to deal with an entity against which they have effectively no voice or bargaining power.”
When profitability alone, whether assisted by policy or not, determines which companies succeed and which fail, cutting corners is a necessity for American businesses — unless you have a niche food business, or are able to sell directly to consumers. This simple fact inevitably led to a race to the bottom for quality.
Look at the world’s ten largest food companies. Their sales are enormous, but should we really be consuming their products?
Perhaps the regulators could have avoided the debasement of the food supply. But they didn’t.
If it seems like the US, blessed with abundant natural resources, could never suffer a food shortage, think again. Did you know that while the US is the world’s largest food exporter, in 2023 the US imported more food than we exported?
Cows are under attack, allegedly because their belching methane contributes to climate change. Holland has said it must get rid of 30-50% of its cows. Ireland and Canada are also preparing to reduce the number of their cows, using the same justification.
In the US, the number of cows being raised has gradually lessened, so that now we have the same number of cows that were being raised in 1951 — but the population has increased by 125% since then. We have more than double the people, but the same number of cows. What!? Much of our beef comes from Brazil.
Pigs and chickens are now mostly raised indoors. Their industries are already consolidated to the max. But cows and other ungulates graze for most of their life, and so the beef industry has been unable to be consolidated in the same way.
But consolidation is happening instead in the slaughterhouses because you cannot process beef without a USDA inspector in a USDA-approved facility — and the number of these facilities has been dropping, as have the number of cows they can handle. Four companies now process over 80% of US beef. And that is how the ranchers are being squeezed.
Meanwhile, efforts are afoot to reduce available farmland for both planting crops and grazing animals. Bill Gates is now the #1 owner of US farmland, much of which lies fallow.Solar farms are covering land that used to grow crops — a practice recently outlawed in Italy. Plans are afoot to impose new restrictions on how land that is under conservation easements can be used.
Brave New Food
That isn’t all. The World Economic Forum, along with many governments and multinational agencies, wants to redesign our food supply. So-called plant-based meats, lab-grown meats, “synbio” products, insect protein, and other totally new foods are to replace much of the real meat people enjoy — potentially leading to even greater consolidation of food production. This would allow “rewilding” of grazing areas, allowing them to return to their natural state and, it is claimed, this would be kinder to the planet. But would it?
Much of the land used for grazing is unsuitable for growing crops or for other purposes. The manure of the animals grazing on it replenishes soil nutrients and contributes to the soil microbiome and plant growth. “Rewilding” may in fact lead to the loss of what topsoil is there and desertification of many grazing areas.
Of course, transitioning the food supply to mostly foods coming from factories is a crazy idea, because how can you make a major change in what people eat and expect it to be good for them? What micronutrients are you missing? What will the new chemicals, or newly designed proteins, or even computer-designed DNA (that will inevitably be present in these novel foods) do to us over time? What will companies be feeding the insects they farm, when food production is governed by ever cheaper inputs?
It gets worse. Real food production, by gardeners and small farmers or homesteaders, is decentralized. It cannot be controlled. Until the last 150 years, almost everyone fed themselves from food they caught, gathered, or grew.
But if food comes mainly from factories, access can be cut off. Supply chains can break down. You can be priced out of buying it. Or it could make you sick, and it might take years or generations before the source of the problem is identified. How long has it taken us to figure out that overprocessed foods are a slow poison?
There are some very big problems brewing in the food realm. Whether we like it or not, powerful forces are moving us into the Great Reset, threatening our diet in new ways, ways that most of us never dreamed of.
Identifying the Problems and Solutions
But we can get on top of what is happening, learn what we need to, and we can resist. That’s why Door to Freedom and Children’s Health Defense have unpacked all of these problems and identified possible solutions.
During a jam-packed two-day online symposium, you will learn about all facets of the attack on food, and how to resist. This is an entirely free event, with a fantastic lineup of speakers and topics. Grab a pad and pencil, because you will definitely want to take notes!
The Attack on Food and Farmers, and How to Fight Back premieres on September 6 and 7. It will remain on our channels for later viewing and sharing as well. By the end of Day 2, you will know what actions to take, both in your own backyard, and in the halls of your legislatures to create a healthier, tastier, safer, and more secure food supply.
See below for a summary and for the complete program.
Most Europeans know the United States provoked the conflict in Ukraine, profits from banning Russian oil and gas, and remain uneasy about the mysterious destruction of the Nordstream pipelines. The American government promoted a mindless NATO expansion strategy that caused a disastrous war and weakened NATO nations, who were pressured to donate billions of dollars and much of their military equipment to Ukraine, even though it isn’t a member of the NATO alliance.
Eastern European states were excited to join NATO and the European Union economic block, called the EU, but were soon pressured to boost military spending to buy American weaponry, accept foreign migrants, host foreign troops, and donate money and arms to a lost cause in Ukraine. Profitable trade and tourism with Russia sharply declined while energy costs soared, causing economic decline.
The people of some European nations have already decided that joining NATO and the EU was a bad idea. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban openly states his dislike of EU mandates to allow mass immigration and continued trade sanctions on Russia. EU leaders denounce Orban and threaten sanctions because they can abuse Hungary since it is landlocked and surrounded by Ukraine and EU members.
But if Russian troops reach Ukraine’s western border, Hungary may defect. Conquered Ukraine would become a close Russian ally and allow access to energy pipelines to import cheap Russian oil and gas, and permit rail and road access to Russia and all of Asia. There are several neighboring nations who may also defect from the American empire. This explains why NATO is considering sending forces to secure western Ukraine to keep its vassal states captive.
“Kyiv Will Face Retaliation”; EU nation Slovakia has issued an open threat to Ukraine amid war with Russia. Slovakia said it would take retaliatory measures against Ukraine if Kyiv continues to stop Russian oil transiting via the Druzhba pipeline.; “Times of India”; July 25, 2024; • ‘Kyiv Will Face Retaliation…’: NATO…
“MEPs call to strip Hungary’s EU voting rights amid Orbán’s ‘peace missions’”; Steb Starcevic; Politico; July 16, 2024; https://www.politico.eu/article/lette…
In December 1945 and January 1946, the British Mandate authorities carried out an extensive survey of Palestine, in support of the work of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine. The results were published in the Survey of Palestine, which has been scanned and made available online by Palestine Remembered; all 1300 pages can be read here.
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