Biden Regime Pushing for War on Russia?
By Stephen Lendman | April 8, 2021
What interventionist Blinken calls “reckless…adversarial actions” by Russia is how the US operates at home and abroad, not Moscow.
What his spokesman Price calls “profound (Biden regime) disagreements with the Russian Federation” were made-in-the-USA, not at the Kremlin.
No “Russian attempts to destabilize the West” exist, no military threat against any country.
Hostile Biden regime actions against Russia risks turning escalated Cold War hot.
More illegal US sanctions on Russia are coming for invented/illegitimate reasons.
According to unnamed Biden regime officials, Russian diplomats in Washington may be expelled, others close to Vladimir Putin sanctioned.
Biden regime hardliners falsely accused Moscow of US election meddling (sic), offering the Taliban bounties to kill Pentagon troops in Afghanistan (sic), cyber-attacking SolarWinds (sic), poisoning Navalny (sic), and likely more illegitimate accusations to come.
Illegal Biden regime sanctions on Russia in March were prelude for likely stiffer unlawful ones in the works.
When Biden — or his impersonator — called Putin a “killer,” warning that he’ll “pay a price,” US Cold War on Russia escalated a step closer to possibly turning hot by accident or design.
On Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Psaki said Biden regime hardliners intend “hold(ing) Russia to account for its reckless and adversarial actions (sic).”
It’s how the US operates, notably when undemocratic Dems control things in Washington like now.
Russia under Vladimir Putin operates by higher standards — notably by waging peace, not war, respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other nations, and observing international law — polar opposite US war on humanity at home and abroad.
US-orchestrated war by Kiev on Donbass along Russia’s border has its forces mobilized to respond defensively if necessary.
Earlier this week, Russia’s Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev said Moscow has no intention of intervening cross-border, adding:
“(W)e are closely watching the situation. Concrete measures will be taken depending on how it develops” — to protect Russian Federation security.
Separately, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “Russia’s armed forces are (in its own) territory in places it considers necessary and appropriate.”
“(T)hey will stay there for as long as our military leadership and supreme commander consider it appropriate.”
Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) leader (in Donbass) Denis Pushilin said the following in response to escalated Kiev aggression:
“The situation on the line of contact remains, alas, extremely unpeaceful.”
“The situation is escalating and changing for the worse. The amount of (preemptive) shelling (by Kiev forces) is increasing.”
Military spokesman for the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) in Donbass Yakov Osadchy said the following:
“Throughout the past day, militants of (Kiev’s) 59th brigade have been shelling Logvinovo from the direction of Luganskoye by order of the military criminal Gennady Shapovalov, with the use of a 120mm mortar (rounds) banned by the Minsk agreements.”
At the same time, US-controlled Ukraine abandoned Minsk peace talks — agreements its ruling regimes never observed.
According to Peskov, US-installed puppet Zelensky never advanced peace along the Contact Line between Ukraine and Donbass “one iota” — in deference to his imperial master in Washington.
The 2014 Minsk Protocol peace deal — agreed to by Kiev, Moscow, the OSCE, the DPR and LPR — is “dead,” Peskov explained — because US hardliners want endless war along Russia’s borders.
“(R)eaching new agreements (with US-controlled Kiev) is impossible, because how can one resolve a conflict if one side (won’t) communicate with the other” and rejects peace, Peskov added.
On Tuesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said his government held emergency talks with Biden regime officials in an attempt to prevent full-scale war by Kiev on Donbass, adding:
US-dominated Western rhetoric is “increasingly belligerent.”
Hardliners in “Washington should be concerned about the consequences of this coordinated policy” for escalated war along Russia’s borders.
Defying reality, the Biden regime “call(ed) on Russia to refrain from escalatory actions (sic)” — engaged in by the US and puppet regime in Kiev, not Moscow.
Days earlier, Ukrainian official Aleksey Arestovich said ongoing large-scale (US-controlled) DefenderEurope 2021 military exercises in European Baltic states are all-about preparing for possible war with Russia, adding:
Drills focus on areas “from the waters of the Baltic to the Black Sea, to put it bluntly, armed confrontation with Russia.”
Cognitively and physically impaired figurehead Biden is uninvolved and perhaps unaware of reckless actions by his regime’s hardline/interventionist geopolitical team.
In short order after replacing Trump — illegitimately by brazen election rigging — escalated US Cold War it’s waging on Russia risks turning things hot.
Alex Salmond declines to blame Russia for Salisbury incident
Press TV – April 7, 2021
The leader of the pro-independence Alba Party, Alex Salmond, has steadfastly refused to toe the British government’s line on the alleged poisoning of a Russian double agent in England in 2018.
Former Russian military intelligence officer, Segei Skripal, who betrayed his country by working for the UK’s MI6, was allegedly poisoned, alongside his daughter Yulia, with what the British government says was the Novichok nerve agent.
The alleged attack took place in the medieval cathedral city of Salisbury on March 04, 2018. Both Skripal and his daughter survived the alleged attack.
Speaking to BBC Good Morning Scotland on April 07, Salmond refused no less than four times to blame Russia for the alleged attack.
Faced by Salmond’s defiance, the show’s presenter, Gary Robertson, tried to undermine the former First Minister’s position by pointing out that he produces a show for the Russian TV network RT.
But Salmond hit back by saying: “I produce, along with Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, a program for Slainte Media which is then broadcast on the RT platform, as they’re perfectly entitled to do”.
“I can tell you from personal experience – I don’t know what your experience at the BBC is – not a single word of editorial instruction or even suggestion has been made to me from anyone at RT and the program stands on its own merits”, the former leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) added.
Salmond and fellow Alba Party candidate Ahmed -Sheikh (who is a former SNP MP), host “The Alex Salmond Show” each week on RT.
On another subject, Salmond suggested that evidence of Russian interference in recent US elections was “very slight”.
Salmond’s position on these sensitive issues will alarm the British establishment which has identified Russia as an “active threat” to UK national security in its newly-released Integrated Review of Security, Defense, Development and Foreign Policy.
Both the Alba Party and the SNP are committed to closing down the headquarters of the Royal Navy in Scotland.
The Faslane naval base, formally called Her Majesty’s Naval Base, Clyde, hosts the UK’s nuclear weapons capability.
For What Should We Fight Russia or China?
By Patrick Buchanon | Unz Review | April 6, 2021
Last Monday, in a single six-hour period, NATO launched 10 air intercepts to shadow six separate groups of Russian bombers and fighters over the Arctic, North Atlantic, North Sea, Black Sea and Baltic Sea.
Last week also brought reports that Moscow is increasing its troop presence in Crimea and along its borders with Ukraine.
Joe Biden responded. In his first conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden assured him of our “unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbass and Crimea.”
Though Ukraine is not a member of NATO, and we have no treaty obligation to fight in its defense, this comes close to a war guarantee. Biden seems to be saying that if it comes to a shooting war between Moscow and Kiev, we will be there on the side of Kiev.
Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov answered that if the U.S. sends troops to Ukraine, Russia will respond.
Again, is Biden saying that in the event of a military clash between Ukrainians and Russians in Crimea, Donetsk or Luhansk, the U.S. will intervene militarily on the side of Ukraine?
Such a pledge could put us at war with a nuclear-armed Russia in a region where we have never had vital interests, and without the approval of the only institution authorized to declare war — Congress.
Meanwhile, off Whitsun Reef in the South China Sea, which Beijing occupies but Manila claims, China has amassed 220 maritime militia ships.
This huge Chinese flotilla arrived after Secretary of State Anthony Blinken put Beijing on notice that any attack on Philippine planes or ships challenging Beijing’s claim to rocks and reefs of the South China Sea that are in Manila’s exclusive economic zone will be backed by the U.S.
Our 70-year-old mutual security treaty with Manila covers these islets and reefs, said Blinken, though some are already occupied and fortified by China.
Apparently, if Manila uses force to assert its claims and expel the Chinese, then we will fight beside our Philippine allies. This amounts to a war guarantee of the kind that forced the British to declare war on Germany in 1939 over the invasion of Poland.
Two weeks ago, 20 Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone in the largest incursion yet by Beijing over the waters between Taiwan and Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands. As national security correspondent Bill Gertz writes in today’s Washington Times:
“China is stepping up provocative activities targeting regional American allies in Asia … with an escalating number of military flights around Taiwan and the massing of more than 200 fishing ships near a disputed Philippines reef.
“China also raised tensions with Japan, announcing last week that Tokyo must drop all claims to the disputed Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited island chain that Japan has administered for decades but that Beijing recently claimed as its territory.
“The most serious provocation took place March 29. An exercise by the People’s Liberation Army air force that included 10 warplanes flew into Taiwan’s air defense zone is what analysts say appeared to be a simulated attack on the island. It came just three days after an earlier mass warplane incursion.”
While China appears clear about its aims and claims to virtually all of the islands in the South China Sea and East China Sea as well as Taiwan — it is less clear about its intentions as to when to validate those claims.
As for the U.S., does the present foggy ambiguity as to what we may or may not do as China goes about asserting its claims serve our vital interests in avoiding war with the greatest power on the largest continent on earth?
If red lines are to be laid down, they ought to be laid down by the one constitutional body with the authority to authorize or declare war — Congress. And questions need to be answered to avoid the kinds of miscalculations that led to horrific world wars in the 20th century.
Are the reefs and rocks the Philippines claim in the South China Sea, claims contradicted by China, covered by the U.S. mutual security treaty of 1951? Are we honor-bound to fight China on behalf of the Philippines, if Manila attempts to reclaim islets China occupies?
What is our obligation if China moves to take the Senkakus? Would the United States join Japan in military action to hold or retrieve them?
What, exactly, is our commitment to Taiwan if China attempts to blockade, invade or seize Taiwan’s offshore islands?
John F. Kennedy in the second debate with Richard Nixon in 1960 wrote off Quemoy and Matsu in the Taiwan Strait as indefensible and not worth war with Mao’s China.
With its warnings and threats, China is forcing America to address questions we have been avoiding for about as long as we can.
China is saying that it is not bluffing: These islands are ours!
Time to show our cards.
Copyright 2021 Creators.com
Luhansk Military Says Civilian Wounded in Ukraine’s Drone Attack
Sputnik – 04.04.2021
LUHANSK – A civilian man has been hospitalized with multiple shrapnel wounds after an explosive device dropped from a drone by Ukrainian forces detonated in the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), the LPR forces said on Sunday.
The report comes amid the rise in ceasefire violations in Ukraine’s breakaway region of Donbass. On Saturday, Donetsk People’s Republic reported that a pre-school child was killed and a woman was injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Oleksandrivske on Saturday. After the tragedy, Russian lower house speaker Viacheslav Volodin suggested that it is time to expel Ukraine from the Council of Europe.
According to the Luhansk forces, the fresh attack took place on a bank of the Siverskyi Donets River near the village of Mykolaivka. The explosive-laden unmanned aerial vehicle is said to have been launched by servicemen of the 80th brigade of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The wounded man was taken to a hospital.
The militia specified that since additional ceasefire measures took effect in Donbas in late July, it has registered six cases of Ukraine’s combat drone launches into the breakaway region. As a result, two members of the people’s militia were injured.
The militia went on to call on international observers and the global community to “pay close attention to the terrorist actions of the Ukrainian side, which amount to a violation of the Geneva convention.”
Moscow warns of ‘measures’ against any Western troop deployment in Ukraine, as Kiev cites guarantees of US support
A house on Stratonautov Street in the village of Veseloye, Donetsk region, which was damaged during the fighting in the DPR. © RIA
RT | April 2, 2021
Russia has warned that it would regard any deployment of Western troops in Ukraine as a serious provocation, after Kiev asked NATO to step up its local combat readiness and claimed the US would come to its aid in any future war.
On Friday, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry issued a statement saying that it had received guarantees of American support after a telephone call with Washington’s top military official, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austen. “The US Secretary of Defense stressed that in the event of an escalation of Russian aggression, the United States will not leave Ukraine alone,” the Ministry said.
Asked about the prospects of a standoff in the region, Peskov warned that this could begin a potentially dangerous chain of events. The Kremlin official said that “undoubtedly, such a developing scenario would lead to a further increase in tensions near Russia’s borders. Of course, this will require additional measures from the Russian side to ensure its security.”
When pressed on what those measures might be, the official said only that the country would do “everything that is needed.”
The public spat comes amid rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine, after a series of reported clashes in the east of the country between Kiev’s forces and militias, who receive support from Moscow. Peskov called the escalations “quite frightening.”
His comments came as US President Joe Biden expressed Washington’s “unwavering support” for Kiev in the face of what he called “Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbass and Crimea.” In his Friday phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, he also said his administration is committed to revitalizing the “strategic partnership” between the two nations.
Zelensky responded by saying that Kiev and Washington “stand shoulder to shoulder when it comes to preservation of our democracies” and called partnership with the US “crucial for Ukrainians.”
Ukraine has appealed to the US-led military bloc to increase its presence in the region. A call transcript published on Friday showed that Roman Mashovets, Deputy Head of the Office of the President, said that it’s been requested that the bloc consider “joint activities, including military exercises of Ukraine and NATO.” These activities, the transcript said, “should include land, naval and air components. In addition, it is advisable to increase the level of combat readiness of troops in NATO countries bordering Ukraine.”
In February, the country’s Ministry of Infrastructure invited warplanes operated by the US-led bloc to fly missions near Crimea, which it claims as part of its sovereign territory. Officials proposed that the skies be “used for NATO air operations in the airspace… which includes airspace over the sovereign territory of Ukraine and over open waters, such as the Black Sea, where the responsibility for air traffic services is delegated to Ukraine by international treaties.” Russia regards the region as its own after it was reabsorbed in 2014.
Moscow has previously described Ukraine’s membership of NATO and the deployment of troops there as a red line for the country. The situation has echoes of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when Soviet weaponry was deployed on the Caribbean island off the Atlantic coast of America, sparking a crisis that led the two superpowers close to nuclear war.
Kremlin calls Donbass situation ‘frightening’ as Ukraine asks NATO & US for support in event of conflict with Russia
A window broken in recent shelling in the village of Vesyoloye in the Donetsk Region, self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Eastern Ukraine. © Sputnik
RT | April 2, 2021
Moscow has warned that fighting is escalating in eastern Ukraine, insisting that the region must avoid a full-scale conflict, as Kiev asks NATO to step up its local combat readiness and says the US would come to its aid in a war.
Speaking to journalists on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a series of military clashes in the Donbass region was a cause for concern. “Unfortunately for us,” he said, “the reality on the line of contact is quite frightening, and not just one, but many, provocations by the Ukrainian Armed Forces are taking place.”
Kiev insists that Russia is building up troops near the shared border and blames separatists, who have previously received support from Moscow, for breaking a ceasefire. “Russia’s current escalation is systemic, [the] largest in recent years,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dimitry Kuleba said in a statement issued earlier this week. Kiev officials last week said that four of its soldiers had been killed by shelling during clashes with rebels in the east of the country.
Andrey Rudenko, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, denied that Moscow had anything to gain from an increase in tensions. “I am sure that all the talk about some upcoming conflict between Ukraine and Russia is an example of another fake spread primarily by the Ukrainian authorities,” he said. “Russia is not interested in any conflict with Ukraine, let alone a military one.”
In a statement released on Friday, it was confirmed that an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had proposed that NATO should increase its presence in the country. As part of a call with representatives from two of the US-led military bloc’s member states, Roman Mashovets, deputy head of the Office of the President, said that “such actions of the Russian Federation pose a challenge to the security of Ukraine and NATO, which must be balanced by joint efforts.”
The missive revealed that one option Mashovets put forward was “joint activities, including military exercises of Ukraine and NATO.” These activities, it added “should include land, naval and air components. In addition, it is advisable to increase the level of combat readiness of troops in NATO countries bordering Ukraine.”
Warships & submarines entering zone of Nord Stream 2 pipeline in ‘planned & prepared provocations’ to obstruct work
By Jonny Tickle | RT | April 1, 2021
With the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline nearing completion and US sanctions against contractors failing to stop its construction, its operator has reported an increased “provocative” activity of warships in the area.
According to Moscow news agency TASS, Nord Stream 2 AG’s branch director, Andrey Minin, claimed that the last three months have seen a growth in military presence in the area.
“After the resumption of Nord Stream 2 offshore construction in January 2021, there has been an increase in activity of military ships, planes, and helicopters, as well as civilian ships of foreign countries, whose actions are often provocative in nature,” Minin said, noting that the presence of these vessels could damage the pipeline.
According to Minin, there is a 1.5-mile (2.4-km) safety zone around the site that boats not involved in the construction should not enter.
Nevertheless, foreign military ships are regularly seen nearby. He also noted that a Polish anti-submarine aircraft regularly circles the area at a low altitude.
Minin listed several incidents that occurred in the last few days, including an unidentified submarine passing just a mile away from the anchor of ‘Fortuna’, the pipe-laying ship. Recent weeks have also seen fishing vessels enter the work protection zone.
“We are talking about clearly planned and prepared provocations, both with the use of fishing vessels and warships, submarines and aircraft in order to obstruct the economic project,” he said. “This is perhaps the first and unprecedented case of its kind in history.”
Nord Stream 2 will connect Germany directly to Russia via the Baltic Sea. It aims to protect Berlin’s energy security and make it less reliant on third countries to transit gas, also lowering prices. Much of the European Union’s energy comes from Russia via Ukraine, and Kiev receives hefty fees for pipeline usage.
The project has been constantly opposed by Washington, which claims it is a threat to the energy security of Europe. In an attempt to stop its completion, the White House has imposed sanctions on companies involved in its construction. Thus far, 95% of the pipeline has been built.
MILITARY INDUSTRIAL BOONDOGGLE
By Paul Robinson | IRRUSSIANALITY | March 29, 2021
Today in my defence policy course my students and I shall be spending some time discussing defence procurement. As luck would have it, as I was munching on my morning bread and marmalade, a highly relevant article swam into view in the op-ed page of my local rag, The Ottawa Citizen, after which I then discovered a new US report on a similar topic.
The Citizen article concerns Canada’s shockingly badly managed naval shipbuilding program. Written by a former Assistant Deputy Minister of Defence, Alan Williams, the article declares that ‘Canada’s Warship Program is Sinking Fast.’ In this Williams reports that Canada’s plan to build 15 new surface combatants originally had
an estimated cost of $26 billion, with deliveries to begin in the early 2020s. Today, the forecasted costs to build these ships is far beyond that. Deliveries are to start in the early 2030s, a decade later than scheduled … [The Parliamentary Budget Office] estimates that it will cost $77.3 billion … to maintain these ships over their expected total life-cycle would amount to an additional $208 billion, for a total life-cycle cost of $286 billion. In comparison, the funds available in DND’s [Department of National Defence] budget over the next 30 years to acquire and maintain its capital goods for the army, navy and air force combined is only $240 billion. This program alone would bankrupt the department’s capital and maintenance accounts for the next 30 years.
Despite this, DND insists that, ‘It will neither entertain a new design nor undertake a new procurement process.’ Williams adds that the United States is building very similar ships for about one-third of the price of the Canadian ones, and also that DND rejected an offer by the Italian company Fincantieri to build the ships in Canada ‘at a fixed cost of $30 billion’, less than half what DND is now paying. ‘As currently planned, these ships will likely never be built. They are simply unaffordable,’ concludes Williams.
But could the government cancel such a project after throwing so much money at it? That’s where the US report comes in. Published by the American Enterprise Institute, and entitled The 2020s Tri-Service Modernization Crunch, the report mentions how the shift in priorities during the War on Terror led the USA to cancel a whole series of projects originally designed for fighting wars of a different type. You can see the details in this chart, showing cancelled projects from 2002 to 2012 alone.
The ‘Sunk Cost’ column shows how much the US government had already spent on the project by the time it was cancelled. For instance, the Future Combat System, designed to revolutionize the US army by equipping it with networked vehicles, cost a staggering $22 billion before it was scrubbed. In total, in just one decade 2002-2012, projects were cancelled that had cost $81 billion. That’s $81 billion of taxpayers’ money that produced absolutely nothing! Nadda. Think about that for a second.
Waste on this scale is quite staggering. You’d think people would be outraged. But for whatever reason, it seems like nobody cares very much. It’s as if it’s just assumed that this is the cost of doing business.
Meanwhile, some people are doing very well out of it, namely defence industries. They, no doubt, would tell us all that the money isn’t wasted, because it all helps to stimulate the economy. ‘Money spent on defence boosts growth’ they tell us. But does it? I decide to check, and discovered this little table that summarizes economists’ research into the multiplier effect of defence spending.
For those of you without economics training, the multiplier effect is a measurement of how much the economy grows as a result of expenditure. The idea is that if the state spends some money on x, then that produces spending on y, which in turn produces spending on z, so that for every buck you spend, you stimulate the economy as a whole by several bucks. So what’s the multiplier of defence spending? The table tells us.
As you can see, research on the matter suggests strongly that for every dollar spend on defence, you get less than a dollar’s growth in the economy, with most studies showing a multiplier of around 0.6.
So, defence spending isn’t so great for the economy after all. I can’t say that I’m surprised. Yet somehow, we allow huge sums of money to be squandered on unnecessary and grotesquely overpriced military projects. I don’t know about you, but it suggests to me that there’s something seriously wrong with our democracy.
PS. An article published yesterday in Sputnik News tells us that the Russian Navy is planning to test its new Zircon hypersonic missile at the start of the summer. Coming on top of the deployment of Russia’s Avangard intercontinental hypersonic glide missile, this puts Russia well ahead of the rest of the world in the realm of hypersonic technology. Russia’s defence spending is about three times that of Canada in raw dollar terms (about $65 v. $22 billion). Yet, it’s in a completely different league. We can’t build a few ships. They can develop hypersonic missiles. All of which makes me think that raw numbers of defence spending don’t tell us everything. Just as important is how effectively the money is spent. From that perspective, we don’t seem to be doing so well.
Stoltenberg Comes Clean on China ‘Opportunity’ for NATO
By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | March 28, 2021
In an unguarded moment, NATO’s secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg let the cat out of the bag when he described the rise of China as both a challenge and “an opportunity”. What he was admitting unintentionally is that a confrontational policy toward China gives the military alliance some badly needed new purpose.
Stoltenberg was giving an exclusive interview to Deutsche Welle to mark the first ministerial NATO summit attended by the Biden administration. The two-day summit held on March 23-24 at NATO headquarters in Brussels involved in-person participation of U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken as well as other foreign ministers of the 30-nation military alliance.
The NATO meeting comes as the United States and its European allies are ramping up a coordinated policy of sanctions against China and Russia over alleged human rights issues. This week saw an unprecedented coordination by the U.S., Canada, Britain and the European Union in implementing new sanctions against Beijing and Moscow. It is no coincidence that this provocative development comes after high-profile international meetings, both in-person and via videoconferencing, by the Biden administration calling for allies to adopt a more adversarial and unified position toward China and Russia.
The Biden administration has changed tack from the predecessor Trump “America First” policy to vigorously advocate for a “revitalized” transatlantic relationship. Washington views a more unified U.S.-Europe axis as a more effective strategic way to challenge China and Russia. And NATO is providing a renewed coordinating vehicle.
But in seeking unity, the Biden administration is by necessity having to push a much more aggressive policy toward China and Russia, portraying them as greater threats. This means the American military alliance takes on greater responsibility for spearheading Washington’s policy. A NATO joint statement this week affirmed the alliance’s unity in the face of Russian “aggression”. Moscow slammed the statement, saying that Russia threatened no nation, and that NATO was trying to justify its existence.
Senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said that NATO’s claims about being a defensive alliance are a “blatant lie”, pointing to wars and interventions it has launched in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
America’s top diplomat Antony Blinken this week claimed that China’s rise and Russia’s attempts to destabilize the West were “threats” that required NATO to come together. Blinken added disingenuously that the U.S. won’t force its allies into making an “us or them choice” with China. That’s exactly what the U.S. is doing.
Jens Stoltenberg and other European leaders have been swooning over the “new chapter” in transatlantic relations under the Biden administration. After four years of dealing with vulgar-mouth Donald Trump and his relentless hectoring over military budgets, some European leaders are sighing with relief at Biden’s seemingly dulcet assurances that “America is back”.
Of course people like Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister who has been the civilian head of NATO since 2014, are reliant on pushing a stronger alliance for their comfy livelihoods and no doubt for future sinecures at corporate-funded think-tanks. Stoltenberg is constantly striving to find a new vision and mission for NATO, an organization founded over 70 years ago at the start of the Cold War, and which has been expanding ever since despite the official end of the Cold War three decades ago. The buzz phrase he uses is to make the alliance “future-proof” – that is to find a permanent pretext for the U.S.-led military organization to continue its existence regardless of real-world security needs.
In his interview with Deutsche Welle this week, Stoltenberg commented on the rise of China. He said, inferring something menacing: “China is coming closer to us, investing in our critical infrastructure.”
Well maybe that’s because China is the world’s biggest trading partner with the European Union and a major foreign direct investor in European nations which have become bankrupt from decades of neoliberal capitalism and austerity.
Stoltenberg went on: “There’s no way we can avoid addressing the security consequences for our regional alliance of the rise of China and the shift in the global balance of power.”
And then the usually cautious, wooden Stoltenberg let it slip: China, he said, provided “a unique opportunity to open a new chapter in the relationship between North America — the United States — and Europe.”
Voila! So the real strategic value of China being presented as a “threat” or an “adversary” is to give a new purpose to the U.S.-led NATO bloc which subordinates Europe to Washington’s geopolitical objective of hegemony. The emphasis here is on China “being presented as a threat” and not what the real relationship actually is, that is, one of a vital economic partner. (Same for Russia and its vast energy partnership with Europe.)
The United States in pursuit of global dominance by its corporations and its capitalist order must, by definition, thwart a multipolar global political economy which the rise of China and Russia embody.
The fiendish political problem, however, is that Washington and its European surrogates cannot justify such a stance based on the normal and natural relations that exist. For in doing that, they would be seen as obnoxious, unwarranted aggressors. It is imperative therefore to conflate China and Russia as “security threats” to the presumed Western “rules-based order”.
Never mind that the Western “rules-based order” has seen NATO powers trashing rules and order by invading countries all around the world, waging criminal wars and subversions, killing millions of people and unleashing terrorism and other security threats stemming from collapsing nations and mass migration.
Forget about China, or Russia, being an alleged threat. They are in actual fact an “opportunity” for NATO and U.S. imperialism, which the alliance ultimately serves, to find an excuse for their criminal existence and conduct. Just ask the secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg (who, as the jokes goes, is more secretary than he is general).
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From the Archives
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
A while ago, I received an email from a friend who asked:
How can many, many respected, competitive, independent science folks be so wrong about [global warming] (if your [skeptical] premise is correct). I don’t think it could be a conspiracy, or incompetence. … Has there ever been another case when so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?
The answer to the second part of my friend’s question—“Has there ever been another case where so many ‘leading’ scientific minds got it so wrong?”—is easy. Yes, there are many such cases, both within and outside climate science. In fact, the graveyard of science is littered with the bones of theories that were once thought “certain” (e.g., that the continents can’t “drift,” that Newton’s laws were immutable, and hundreds if not thousands of others).
Science progresses by the overturning of theories once thought “certain.” … continue
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