{"id":237338,"date":"2023-06-19T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2023-06-19T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=237338"},"modified":"2023-06-14T04:06:29","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T03:06:29","slug":"the-hegemon-will-go-full-hybrid-war-against-brics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/06\/the-hegemon-will-go-full-hybrid-war-against-brics\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hegemon Will Go Full Hybrid War Against BRICS+"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Hybrid War 2.0 against the Global South has not even started. Swing states, you have all been warned.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

From the Public Domain<\/p><\/div>\n

12 Jun 2023<\/em> – U.S. Think Tank Land hacks are not exactly familiar with Montaigne: \u201cOn the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hubris leads these specimens to presume their flaccid bottoms are placed high above anyone else\u2019s. The result is that a trademark mix of arrogance and ignorance always ends up unmasking the predictability of their forecasts.<\/p>\n

U.S. Think Tank Land \u2013 inebriated by their self-created aura of power \u2013 always telegraphs in advance what they\u2019re up to. That was the case with Project 9\/11 (\u201cWe need a new Pearl Harbor\u201d). That was the case with the RAND report on over-extending and unbalancing Russia<\/a>. And now that\u2019s the case with the incoming<\/p>\n

American War on BRICS<\/em><\/a> as outlined by the chairman of the New York-based Eurasia Group.<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s always painful to suffer through the intellectually shallow Think Thank Land wet dreams masquerading as \u201canalyses\u201d but in this particular case key Global South players need to be firmly aware of what awaits them.<\/p>\n

Predictably, the whole \u201canalysis\u201d revolves around the imminent, devastating humiliation to the Hegemon and its vassals: what happens next in country 404, also known \u2013 for now \u2013 as Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Brazil, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are dismissed as \u201cfour major fence-sitters\u201d when it comes to the U.S.\/NATO proxy war against Russia. It\u2019s the same old \u201cyou\u2019re with us or against us\u201d trope.<\/p>\n

But then we are presented with the six major Global South culprits: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.<\/p>\n

In yet another crude, parochial remix of a catch phrase referring to the American elections, these are qualified as the key swing states the Hegemon will need to seduce, cajole, intimidate and threaten to assure its dominance of the \u201crules-based international order\u201d.<\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia and South Africa are added to a previous report<\/a> focused on the \u201cfour major fence sitters\u201d.<\/p>\n

The swing state manifesto notes that all of them are G-20 members and \u201cactive in both geopolitics and geoeconomics\u201d (Oh really? Now that\u2019s some breaking news). What it does not say is that three of them are BRICS members (Brazil, India, South Africa) and the other three are serious candidates to join BRICS+: deliberations will be turbo-charged in the upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa in August.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s clear what the swing state manifesto is all about: a call to arms for the American war against the BRICS.<\/p>\n

So BRICS packs no punch <\/strong><\/h2>\n

The swing state manifesto harbors wet dreams of near-shoring and friend-shoring moving away from China. Nonsense: enhanced intra-BRICS+ trade will be the order of the day from now on, especially with the expanded practice of trade in national currencies (see Brazil-China or within ASEAN), the first step towards widespread de-dollarization.<\/p>\n

The swing states are characterized as \u201cnot a new incarnation\u201d of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), or \u201cother groupings dominated by the Global South, such as the G-77 and BRICS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk about exponential nonsense. This is all about BRICS+ \u2013 which now has the tools (including the NDB, the BRICS bank) to do what NAM could never accomplish during the Cold War: establish the framework of a new system bypassing Bretton Woods and the interlocking coercion mechanisms of the Hegemon.<\/p>\n

As for stating that BRICS has not \u201cpacked much punch\u201d that only reveals U.S. Think Tank Land\u2019s cosmic ignorance of what BRICS + is all about.<\/p>\n

The position of India is only considered in terms of being a Quad member \u2013 defined as a \u201cU.S.-led effort to balance China\u201d. Correction: contain China.<\/p>\n

As for the \u201cchoice\u201d of swing states of choosing between the U.S. and China on semiconductors, AI, quantum technology, 5G and biotechnology, that\u2019s not about \u201cchoice\u201d, but to what level they are able to sustain Hegemon pressure to demonize Chinese technology.<\/p>\n

Pressure on Brazil, for instance, is much heavier than on Saudi Arabia or Indonesia.<\/p>\n

In the end though, it all comes back to the Straussian neocon obsession: Ukraine. The swing states, in varying degrees, are guilty of opposing and\/or undermining the sanctions dementia. Turkey, for instance, is accused of channeling \u201cdual-use\u201d items to Russia. Not a word on the U.S. financial system viciously forcing Turkish banks to stop accepting Russian MIR payment cards.<\/p>\n

On the wishful thinking front, this pearl stands out among many: \u201cThe Kremlin seems to believe it can make a living by turning its trade south and east.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, Russia is already making excellent living all across Eurasia and a vast expanse of the Global South.<\/p>\n

The economy has re-started (drivers are domestic tourism, machine building and the metals industry); inflation is at only 2.5% (lower than anywhere in the EU); unemployment is at only 3.5%; and head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina said that by 2024 growth will be back to pre-SMO levels.<\/p>\n

U.S. Think Tankland is congenitally incapable of understanding that even if BRICS+ nations may still have some serious trade credit issues to iron out, Moscow has already shown how even an implied hard backing of a currency can turn out to be an instant game changer. Russia is at the same time backing not only the ruble but also the yuan.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Global South de-dollarization caravan moves on relentlessly \u2013 as much as the proxy war hyenas may keep howling in the dark. When the full \u2013 staggering \u2013 scale of NATO\u2019s humiliation in Ukraine unfolds, arguably by mid-summer, the de-dollarization high-speed train will be fully booked, non-stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cOffer you can\u2019t refuse\u201d rides again <\/strong><\/h2>\n

If all of the above was not already silly enough, the swing state manifesto doubles down on the nuclear front, accusing them of \u201cfuture (nuclear) proliferation risks\u201d: especially \u2013 who else \u2013 Iran.<\/p>\n

By the way, Russia is defined as a \u201cmiddle power, but one in decline\u201d. And \u201chyper-revisionist\u201d to boot. Oh dear: with \u201cexperts\u201d like this, the Americans don\u2019t even need enemies.<\/p>\n

And yes, by now you may be excused to roar with laughter: China is accused of attempting to direct and co-opt BRICS. The \u201csuggestion\u201d \u2013 or \u201coffer you can\u2019t refuse\u201d, Mafia-style \u2013 to the swing states is that you cannot join a \u201cChinese-directed, Russian-assisted body actively opposing the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The message is unmistakable: \u201cThe threat of a Sino-Russian co-optation of an expanded BRICS\u2014and through it, of the global south\u2014is real, and it needs to be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

And here are the recipes to address it. Invite most swing states to the G-7 (that was a miserable failure). \u201cMore high-level visits by key U.S. diplomats\u201d (welcome to cookie distributor Vicky Nuland). And last but not least, Mafia tactics, as in a \u201cnimbler trade strategy that begins to crack the nut of access to the U.S. market.\u201d<\/p>\n

The swing state manifesto could not but let the Top Cat out of the bag, predicting, rather praying that \u201cU.S.-China tensions rise dramatically and turn into a Cold War-style confrontation.\u201d That\u2019s already happening \u2013 unleashed by the Hegemon.<\/p>\n

So what would be the follow-up? The much sought after and spun-to-death \u201cdecoupling\u201d, forcing the swing states to \u201calign more closely with one side or the other\u201d. It\u2019s \u201cyou\u2019re with us or against us\u201d all over again.<\/p>\n

So there you go. Raw, in the flesh \u2013 with inbuilt veiled threats. The Hybrid War 2.0 against the Global South has not even started. Swing states, you have all been warned.<\/p>\n

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

\"\"<\/a> Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at <\/em>Asia Times and<\/em> columnist for<\/em> Consortium News and<\/em> Strategic Culture in Moscow. Since the mid-1980s he\u2019s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, and Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. 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. Pepe was contributing editor to <\/em>The Empire and The Crescent and<\/em> Tutto in Vendita in Italy and is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 globalresearch.ca<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hybrid War 2.0 against the Global South has not even started. Swing states, you have all been warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":237339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[239,1126,70],"class_list":["post-237338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics","tag-brics","tag-hegemony","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237338","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=237338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":237340,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237338\/revisions\/237340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}