{"id":187338,"date":"2021-06-21T12:01:52","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T11:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=187338"},"modified":"2024-07-01T08:20:17","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T07:20:17","slug":"the-real-b3w-nato-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/06\/the-real-b3w-nato-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real B3W-NATO Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Build Back Better World aims to derail the Belt and Road Initiative, flex NATO’s muscles and harass China 24\/7.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The West is the best<\/em>
\nThe West is the best<\/em>
\nGet here and we\u2019ll do the rest<\/em>
\n— <\/em>Jim Morrison, The End<\/em><\/div>\n
\n

16 Jun 2021 –<\/em> For those spared the ordeal of sifting through the NATO summit communique, here\u2019s the concise low down: Russia is an \u201cacute threat\u201d and China is a \u201csystemic challenge\u201d.<\/p>\n

NATO, of course, are just a bunch of innocent kids building castles in a sandbox.<\/p>\n

Those were the days when Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay<\/strong>, NATO\u2019s first secretary-general, coined the trans-Atlantic purpose: to \u201ckeep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Raging Twenties remix reads like \u201ckeep the Americans in, the EU down and Russia-China contained\u201d.<\/p>\n

So the North Atlantic<\/em> (italics mine) organization has now relocated all across Eurasia, fighting what it describes as \u201cthreats from the East\u201d. Well, that\u2019s a step beyond Afghanistan \u2013 the intersection of Central and South Asia \u2013 where NATO was unceremoniously humiliated by a bunch of Pashtuns with Kalashnikovs.<\/p>\n

Russia remains the top threat \u2013 mentioned 63 times in the communiqu\u00e9. Current top NATO chihuahua Jens Stoltenberg<\/strong> says NATO won\u2019t simply \u201cmirror\u201d Russia: it will de facto outspend it and surround it with multiple battle formations, as \u201cwe now have implemented the biggest reinforcements of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War\u201d.<\/p>\n

The communiqu\u00e9 is adamant: the only way for military spending is up. Context: the total \u201cdefense\u201d budget of the 30 NATO members will grow by 4.1% in 2021, reaching a staggering $1.049 trillion ($726 billion from the US, $323 billion from assorted allies).<\/p>\n

After all, \u201cthreats from the East\u201d abound. From Russia, there are all those hypersonic weapons that baffle NATO generals; those large-scale exercises near the borders of NATO members; constant airspace violations; military integration with that \u201cdictator\u201d in Belarus.<\/p>\n

As for the threats from China \u2013 South China Sea, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific overall \u2013 it was up to the G7 to come up with a plan.<\/p>\n

Enter \u201cgreen\u201d, \u201cinclusive\u201d Build Back Better World (B3W),<\/strong> billed as the Western \u201calternative\u201d to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). B3W respects \u201cour values\u201d \u2013 which clownish British PM Boris Johnson could not help describing as building infrastructure in a more \u201cgender neutral\u201d or \u201cfeminine\u201d way \u2013 and, further on down the road, will remove goods produced with forced labor (code for Xinjiang) from supply chains.<\/p>\n

The White House has its own B3W spin: that\u2019s a \u201cvalues-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnership\u201d which will be \u201cmobilizing private-sector capital in four areas of focus \u2013 climate, health and health security, digital technology, and gender equality \u2013 with catalytic investments from our respective development institutions\u201d<\/div>\n

The initial \u201ccatalytic investments\u201d for BW3 were estimated at $100 billion. No one knows how these funds will be coming from the \u201cdevelopment institutions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Seasoned Global South observers already bet they will be essentially provided by IMF\/World Bank \u201cgreen\u201d loans tied to private sector investment in selected emerging markets, with an eye on profit.<\/p>\n

The White House is adamant that \u201cB3W will be global in scope, from Latin America and the Caribbean to Africa and the Indo-Pacific\u201d. Note the blatant attempt to match BRI\u2019s reach.<\/p>\n

All these \u201cgreen\u201d resources and new logistic chains financed by what will be a variant of Central Banks showering helicopter money would ultimately benefit G7 members, certainly not China.<\/p>\n

And the \u201cprotector\u201d of these new \u201cgreen\u201d geostrategic corridors will be \u2013 who else? \u2013 NATO. That\u2019s the natural consequence of the \u201cglobal reach\u201d emphasized on the NATO 2030 agenda.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

NATO as investment protector<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cAlternative\u201d infrastructure schemes already proliferate, geared to contain \u201cRussia bullying\u201d and \u201cChinese meddling\u201d off from the EU. That\u2019s the case of the Three Seas Initiative, where 12 EU member-states from Eastern Europe are supposed to better interconnect the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas.<\/p>\n

This initiative is a pale copy of China\u2019s 17+1 mechanism of integrating Eastern Europe as part of BRI \u2013 in this case forcing them to build very expensive infrastructure to receive very expensive American energy imports.<\/p>\n

The offensive against \u201cthreats from the East\u201d is bound to fail. Dmitry Orlov has detailed how \u201cRussia excels at building and operating huge energy, transportation and materials production systems\u201d and, in parallel, how \u201cthe technosphere\u2026has quietly relocated and is now busy telecommuting between Moscow and Beijing.\u201d<\/p>\n

As every geek knows, China is way ahead in 5G and is the world\u2019s top market for chips. And now the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law \u2013 significantly approved right before the G7 in Cornwall \u2013 will \u201csafeguard\u201d Chinese companies from \u201cunilateral and discriminatory measures imposed by foreign countries\u201d and the US \u201clong arm jurisdiction\u201d, thus forcing Atlanticist capital to make a choice.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s China as a rising global power that in fact has proposed an \u201calternative\u201d to the Global South in the first place, a counterpunch to the endless IMF\/World Bank debt trap of the past decades. BRI is a highly complex sustainable development trade\/investment strategy with the potential to integrate vast swathes of the Global South.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a direct connection to Chairman Mao\u2019s famous theory on the division of the Three Worlds ; the emphasis then on the post-colonial Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), of which China was a stalwart, now encompasses the whole Global South. In the end, it\u2019s always about sovereignty against neocolonialism.<\/p>\n

B3W is the Western, essentially American, reaction to BRI: try to scotch as many projects as possible while harassing China 24\/7 in the process.<\/p>\n

Unlike China or Germany, the US hardly manufactures products the Global South wants to buy; manufacturing accounts for only 5% of a US economy essentially propped up by the US dollar as reserve currency and the \u2013 dwindling \u2013 Pentagon\u2019s Empire of Bases.<\/p>\n

China churns out ten top engineers for every US \u201cfinancial expert\u201d. China has perfected what is known among bilingual tech experts as an effective system to make SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) development plans \u2013 and implement them.<\/p>\n

The notion that the Global South will be convinced to privilege B3W \u2013 a hollow PR coup at best \u2013 over BRI is ludicrous. Yet NATO will be regimented to actively protect those investments that follow \u201cour values\u201d. One thing is certain: there will be blood.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Pepe Escobar is a Brazilian independent geopolitical analyst. He is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for <\/em>Asia Times Online. He has been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9\/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of <\/em>Globalistan<\/a> (2007),<\/em> Red Zone Blues<\/a> (2007), <\/em>Obama Does Globalistan<\/a> (2009), <\/em>Empire of Chaos<\/a> (2014) and <\/em>2030<\/a> (2015), all by Nimble Books.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – globalresearch.ca<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

16 Jun 2021 – The NATO summit communiqu\u00e9 concise low down: Russia is an \u201cacute threat\u201d and China is a \u201csystemic challenge\u201d. NATO, of course, are just a bunch of innocent kids building castles in a sandbox. Those were the days when Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, NATO\u2019s first secretary-general, coined the trans-Atlantic purpose: to \u201ckeep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":187340,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[244,101,100,1268,291,1105,91,278,99,292,95,70,118,172],"class_list":["post-187338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-militarism","tag-china","tag-cultural-violence","tag-direct-violence","tag-european-union","tag-military","tag-military-industrial-complex","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-structural-violence","tag-un","tag-us-military","tag-usa","tag-war","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265860,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187338\/revisions\/265860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}