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<\/p>\nThe Raging Twenties started with a bang with the targeted assassination of Iran\u2019s General Qasem Soleimani.<\/p>\n
Yet a bigger bang awaits us throughout the decade: the myriad declinations of the New Great Game in Eurasia, which pits the US against Russia, China and Iran, the three major nodes of Eurasia integration.<\/p>\n
Every game-changing act in geopolitics and geoeconomics in the coming decade will have to be analyzed in connection to this epic clash.<\/p>\n
The Deep State and crucial sectors of the US ruling class are absolutely terrified that China is already outpacing the \u201cindispensable nation\u201d economically and that Russia has\u00a0outpaced it militarily<\/a>.\u00a0The Pentagon officially designates the three Eurasian nodes as \u201cthreats.\u201d<\/p>\n Hybrid War techniques \u2013 carrying inbuilt 24\/7 demonization \u2013 will proliferate with the aim of containing China\u2019s \u201cthreat,\u201d Russian \u201caggression\u201d and Iran\u2019s \u201csponsorship of terrorism.\u201d The myth of the \u201cfree market\u201d will continue to drown under the imposition of a barrage of illegal sanctions, euphemistically defined as new trade \u201crules.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet that will be hardly enough to derail the Russia-China strategic partnership. To unlock the deeper meaning of this partnership, we need to understand that Beijing defines it as rolling towards a \u201cnew era.\u201d That implies strategic long-term planning \u2013 with the key date being 2049, the centennial of New China.<\/p>\n The horizon for the multiple projects of the Belt and Road Initiative \u2013 as in the China-driven New Silk Roads \u2013 is indeed the 2040s, when Beijing expects to have fully woven a new, multipolar paradigm of sovereign nations\/partners across Eurasia and beyond, all connected by an interlocking maze of belts and roads.<\/p>\n The Russian project \u2013\u00a0Greater Eurasia<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/strong>somewhat mirrors Belt & Road and will be integrated with it. Belt & Road, the Eurasia Economic Union, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank are all converging towards the same vision.<\/p>\n So this \u201cnew era\u201d, as defined by the Chinese, relies heavily on close Russia-China coordination, in every sector. Made in China 2025 is encompassing a series of techno\/scientific breakthroughs. At the same time, Russia has established itself as an unparalleled technological resource for weapons and systems that the Chinese still cannot match.<\/p>\n At the latest BRICS summit in Brasilia, President Xi Jinping told Vladimir Putin that \u201cthe current international situation with rising instability and uncertainty urge China and Russia to establish closer strategic coordination.\u201d Putin\u2019s response: \u201cUnder the current situation, the two sides should continue to maintain close strategic communication.\u201d<\/p>\n Russia is showing China how the West respects realpolitik power in any form, and Beijing is finally starting to use theirs. The result is that\u00a0after five centuries of Western domination \u2013 which, incidentally, led to the decline of the Ancient Silk Roads \u2013 the Heartland is back, with a bang, asserting its preeminence.<\/p>\n On a personal note, my travels these past two years, from West Asia to Central Asia, and my conversations these past two months with analysts in Nur-Sultan, Moscow and Italy, have allowed me to get deeper into the intricacies of what sharp minds define as the Double Helix. We are all aware of the immense challenges ahead \u2013 while barely managing to track the stunning re-emergence of the Heartland in real-time.<\/p>\n In soft power terms, the sterling role of Russian diplomacy will become even more paramount \u2013 backed up by a Ministry of Defense led by Sergei Shoigu, a Tuvan from Siberia, and an intel arm that is capable of constructive dialogue with everybody: India\/Pakistan, North\/South Korea, Iran\/Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan.<\/p>\n This apparatus does smooth (complex) geopolitical issues over in a manner that still eludes Beijing.<\/p>\n In parallel, virtually the whole Asia-Pacific \u2013 from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean \u2013 now takes into full consideration Russia-China as a counter-force to US naval and financial overreach.<\/p>\n The targeted assassination of Soleimani, for all its long-term fallout, is just one move in the Southwest Asia chessboard. What\u2019s ultimately at stake is a macro geoeconomic prize: a\u00a0land bridge<\/a>\u00a0from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean.<\/p>\n Last summer, an Iran-Iraq-Syria trilateral established that \u201cthe goal of negotiations is to activate the Iranian-Iraqi-Syria load and transport corridor as part of a wider plan for reviving the Silk Road.\u201d<\/p>\n There could not be a more strategic connectivity corridor, capable of simultaneously interlinking with the International North-South Transportation Corridor; the Iran-Central Asia-China connection all the way to the Pacific; and projecting Latakia towards the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.<\/p>\n What\u2019s on the horizon is, in fact, a sub-sect of Belt & Road in Southwest Asia. Iran is a key node of Belt & Road; China will be heavily involved in the rebuilding of Syria; and Beijing-Baghdad signed multiple deals and set up an Iraqi-Chinese Reconstruction Fund (income from 300,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for Chinese credit for Chinese companies rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure).<\/p>\n A quick look at the map reveals the \u201csecret\u201d of the US refusing to pack up and leave Iraq, as demanded by the Iraqi Parliament and Prime Minister: to prevent the emergence of this corridor by any means necessary. Especially when we see that all the roads that China is building across Central Asia \u2013 I navigated many of them in November and December \u2013 ultimately link China with Iran.<\/p>\n The final objective: to unite Shanghai to the Eastern Mediterranean \u2013 overland, across the Heartland.<\/p>\n As much as Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea is an essential node of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and part of China\u2019s multi-pronged \u201cescape from Malacca\u201d strategy, India also courted Iran to match Gwadar via the port of Chabahar in the Gulf of Oman.<\/p>\n So as much as Beijing wants to connect the Arabian Sea with Xinjiang, via the economic corridor, India wants to connect with Afghanistan and Central Asia via Iran.<\/p>\n Yet India\u2019s investments in Chabahar may come to nothing, with New Delhi still mulling whether to become an active part of the US \u201cIndo-Pacific\u201d strategy, which would imply dropping Tehran.<\/p>\n The Russia-China-Iran joint naval exercise in late December, starting exactly from Chabahar, was a timely wake-up for New Delhi. India simply cannot afford to ignore Iran and end up losing its key connectivity node, Chabahar.<\/p>\n The immutable fact: everyone needs and wants Iran connectivity. For obvious reasons, since the Persian empire, this is the privileged hub for all Central Asian trade routes.<\/p>\n On top of it, Iran for China is a matter of national security. China is heavily invested in Iran\u2019s energy industry. All bilateral trade will be settled in yuan or in a basket of currencies bypassing the US dollar.<\/p>\n US neocons, meanwhile, still dream of what the Cheney regime was aiming at in the past decade: regime change in Iran leading to the US dominating the Caspian Sea as a springboard to Central Asia, only one step away from Xinjiang and weaponization of anti-China sentiment. It could be seen as a New Silk Road in reverse to disrupt the Chinese vision.<\/p>\nRealpolitik<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Stakes in Southwest Asia<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Battle of the Ages<\/strong><\/h4>\n