Let\u2019s start with comic relief: the \u201cleader of the free world\u201d has pledged to prevent China from becoming the \u201cleading\u201d nation on the planet.<\/strong>\u00a0And to fulfill such an exceptional mission, his \u201cexpectation\u201d is to run again for president in 2024. Not as a hologram. And fielding the same running mate.<\/p>\n Now that the \u201cfree world\u201d has breathed a sigh of relief, let\u2019s return to serious matters \u2013 as in the contours of the\u00a0Shocked and Awed 21st Century Geopolitics.<\/a><\/p>\n What happened in the past few days between Anchorage and Guilin continues to reverberate.\u00a0<\/strong>As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed that Brussels \u201cdestroyed\u201d the relationship between Russia and the EU, he focused on how the Russia-China comprehensive strategic partnership is getting stronger and stronger.<\/p>\n Not so casual synchronicity revealed that as Lavrov was being properly hosted by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Guilin \u2013 scenic lunch in the Li river included -, US Secretary of State Tony Blinken was visiting NATO\u2019s James-Bondish HQ outside Brussels.<\/p>\n Lavrov made it quite clear that the core of Russia-China revolves around establishing an economic and financial axis to counterpunch the Bretton Woods arrangement. That implies doing everything to protect Moscow and Beijing from \u201cthreats of sanctions by other states\u201d; progressive de-dollarization; and advances in crypto-currency.<\/p>\n This \u201ctriple threat\u201d is what is unleashing the Hegemon\u2019s unbounded fury.<\/strong><\/p>\n On a broader spectrum, the Russia-China strategy also implies that the progressive interaction between the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) will keep apace across Central Asia, Southeast Asia, parts of South Asia, and Southwest Asia \u2013 necessary steps towards an ultimately unified Eurasian market under a sort of strategic Sino-Russo management.<\/p>\n In Alaska, the Blinken-Sullivan team learned, at their expense, that you don\u2019t mess with a Yoda such as Yang Jiechi with impunity. Now they\u2019re about to learn what it means to mess with Nikolai Patrushev, head of the Russian Security Council.<\/strong><\/p>\n Patrushev, as much a Yoda as Yang Jiechi, and a master of understatement, delivered a not so cryptic\u00a0message<\/a>: if the US created \u201cthough days\u201d for Russia, as they \u201care planning that, they can implement that\u201d, Washington \u201cwould be responsible for the steps that they would take\u201d.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in Brussels, Blinken was enacting a\u00a0Perfect Couple \u00a0<\/a>routine with spectacularly inefficient head of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen. The script went something like this.\u00a0\u201cNord Stream 2 is really bad for you. A trade\/investment deal with China is really bad for you. Now sit. Good girl.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Then came NATO, which put on quite a show, complete with an all-Foreign Minister tough guy pose in front of the HQ. That was part of a summit \u2013 which predictably did not \u201ccelebrate\u201d the 10th anniversary of NATO\u2019s destruction of Libya or the major ass-kicking NATO \u201cendured\u201d in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n In June 2020, NATO\u2019s cardboard secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg \u2013 actually his US military handlers \u2013 laid out what is now known as the\u00a0NATO 2030\u00a0<\/a>strategy, which boils down to a Global Robocop politico-military mandate. The Global South has (not) been warned.<\/p>\n In Afghanistan, according to a Stoltenberg impervious to irony, NATO supports infusing \u201cfresh energy into the peace process\u201d. At the summit, NATO ministers also discussed Middle East and Northern Africa and \u2013 with a straight face \u2013 looked into \u201cwhat more NATO could do to build stability in the region\u201d. Syrians, Iraqis, Lebanese, Libyans, Malians would love to learn something about that.<\/p>\n Post-summit, Stoltenberg delivered a\u00a0proverbially somnolent<\/a>\u00a0press conference where the main focus was \u2013 what else \u2013 Russia, and its \u201cpattern for repressive behavior at home, aggressive behavior abroad\u201d.<\/p>\n All the rhetoric about NATO \u201cbuilding stability\u201d vanishes when one examines what\u2019s really behind NATO 2030, via a meaty \u201crecommendation\u201d report\u00a0written by a bunch of \u201cexperts\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Here we learn the three essentials:<\/strong><\/p>\n 1. \u201cThe Alliance must respond to Russian threats and hostile actions (\u2026) without a return to \u2018business as usual\u2019 barring alterations in Russia\u2019s aggressive behavior and its return to full compliance with international law.\u201d<\/p>\n 2. China is depicted as a tsunami of \u201csecurity challenges\u201d: \u201cThe Alliance should infuse the China challenge throughout existing structures and consider establishing a consultative body to discuss all aspects of Allies\u2019 security interests vis-a\u0300-vis China\u201d. The emphasis is to \u201cdefend against any Chinese activities that could impact collective defense, military readiness or resilience in the Supreme Allied Commander Europe\u2019s (SACEUR) Area of Responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n 3. \u201cNATO should outline a\u00a0global blueprint<\/em>\u00a0(italics mine) for better utilizing its partnerships to advance NATO strategic interests. It should shift from the current demand-driven approach to an\u00a0interest-driven approach\u00a0<\/em>(italics mine) and consider providing more stable and predictable resource streams for partnership activities. NATO\u2019s Open Door Policy should be upheld and reinvigorated. NATO should expand and strengthen partnerships with Ukraine and Georgia.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here\u2019s to The Triple Threat. Yet the Top of the Pops \u2013 as in fat, juicy industrial-military complex contracts \u2013 is really here:<\/strong><\/p>\n The most profound geopolitical challenge is posed by Russia. While Russia is by economic and social measures a declining power, it has proven itself capable of territorial aggression and is likely to remain a chief threat facing NATO over the coming decade.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n NATO may be redacting, but the master script comes straight from the Deep State \u2013 complete with Russia \u201cseeking hegemony\u201d; expanding Hybrid War (the concept was actually invented by the Deep State); and manipulating \u201ccyber, state-sanctioned assassinations, and poisonings \u2013 using chemical weapons, political coercion, and other methods to violate the sovereignty of Allies.\u201d<\/p>\n Beijing for its part is using \u201cforce against its neighbors, as well as economic coercion and intimidatory diplomacy well beyond the Indo-Pacific region. Over the coming decade, China will likely also challenge NATO\u2019s ability to build collective resilience.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n The Global South should be very much aware of NATO\u2019s pledge to save the \u201cfree world\u201d from these autocratic evils.<\/p>\n The NATO interpretation of \u201cSouth\u201d encompasses North Africa and the Middle East, in fact everywhere from sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan. Any similarity with the presumably defunct \u201cGreater Middle East\u201d concept of the Dubya era is not an accident.<\/p>\n NATO insists this vast expanse is characterized by \u201cfragility, instability, and insecurity\u201d \u2013 of course refusing to disclose its own role as serial instability perpetrator in Libya, Iraq, parts of Syria and Afghanistan.<\/strong><\/p>\n Because ultimately\u2026it\u2019s all Russia\u2019s fault: \u201cTo the South, the challenge includes the presence of Russia and to a lesser extent China, exploiting regional fragilities. Russia has reinserted itself in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2015, it intervened in the Syrian Civil War and remains there. Russia\u2019s Middle East policy is likely to exacerbate tensions and political strife across the region as it extends an increasing amount of political, financial, operational, and logistical assets to its partners. China\u2019s influence across the Middle East is also growing. It signed a strategic partnership with Iran, is the largest importer of crude oil from Iraq, wedged itself into the Afghanistan peace process, and is the biggest foreign investor in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n Here, in a nutshell, and not exactly in code, is the NATO road map all the way to 2030 to harass and try to dismantle every relevant nook and cranny of Eurasia integration, especially those directly linked to New Silk Roads infrastructure\/connectivity projects (investment in Iran, reconstruction of Syria, reconstruction of Iraq, reconstruction of Afghanistan).<\/strong><\/p>\n The spin is on a \u201c360-degree approach to security\u201d that will \u201cbecome an imperative\u201d. Translation: NATO is coming for large swathes of the Global South, big time, under the pretense of \u201caddressing both the traditional threats emanating from this region like terrorism and new risks, including the growing presence of Russia, and to a lesser extent China.\u201d<\/p>\n And to think that in a not so distant past there used to be some flashes of lucidity emanating from the US establishment.<\/p>\n Very few will remember that in 1993 James Baker, former Secretary of State under Daddy Bush, advanced the idea of expanding NATO to Russia,\u00a0<\/strong>which at the time, under Yeltsin and a gang of Milton Friedmanesque free marketeers, was devastated, but ruled by \u201cdemocracy\u201d. Yet Bill Clinton was already in power, and the idea was duly discarded.<\/p>\n Six years later, no less than George Kennan \u2013 who invented the containment of the USSR in the first place \u2013 determined that the NATO annexation of former Soviet satellites was \u201cthe beginning of a new Cold War\u201d and \u201ca tragic mistake\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s immensely enlightening to relieve and re-study the whole decade between the fall of the USSR and the election of Putin to the presidency through the venerable Yevgeny Primakov\u2019s book\u00a0Russian Crossroads: Toward the New Millenium,\u00a0<\/a>published in the US by Yale University Press.<\/p>\n Primakov, the ultimate intel insider who started as a\u00a0Pravda<\/em>\u00a0correspondent in the Middle East, former Foreign Minister and also Prime Minister, looked closely into Putin\u2019s soul, repeatedly, and liked what he saw: a man of integrity and a consummate professional. Primakov was a multilateralist\u00a0avant la lettre<\/em>, the conceptual instigator of RIC (Russia-India-China) which in the next decade evolved towards BRICS.<\/p>\n Those were the days \u2013 exactly 22 years ago \u2013 when Primakov was on a plane to Washington when he picked up a call by then Vice-President Al Gore: the US was about to start bombing Yugoslavia, a slav-orthodox Russian ally, and there was nothing the former superpower could do about it. Primakov ordered the pilot to turn around and fly back to Moscow.<\/p>\n Now Russia is powerful enough to advance its own Greater Eurasia concept, which moving forward should be balancing \u2013 and complementing \u2013 China\u2019s New Silk Roads. It\u2019s the power of this Double Helix \u2013 which is bound to inevitably attract key sectors of Western Europe \u2013 that is driving the Hegemon\u2019s ruling class dazed and confused.<\/strong><\/p>\n Glenn Diesen, author of\u00a0Russian Conservatism: Managing Change Under Permanent Revolution<\/em>, which I analyzed in\u00a0Why Russia is Driving the West Crazy\u00a0<\/a>, and one of the best global analysts of Eurasia integration,\u00a0summed it all up<\/a>: \u201cThe US has had great difficulties in terms of converting the security dependence of the allies into geoeconomic loyalty, as evident by the Europeans still buying Chinese technologies and Russian energy.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/US-Flag-War.jpg?itok=Vbn7Wwma\")
<\/picture><\/a><\/p>\nWhat NATO is really up to<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n
Hybrid war on two fronts<\/strong><\/u><\/h3>\n