{"id":269188,"date":"2024-07-15T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=269188"},"modified":"2024-07-12T05:09:52","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T04:09:52","slug":"peace-shuttle-the-big-picture-behind-viktor-the-mediator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/07\/peace-shuttle-the-big-picture-behind-viktor-the-mediator\/","title":{"rendered":"Peace Shuttle: The Big Picture Behind \u2018Viktor the Mediator\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban<\/p><\/div>\n

The Big Picture remains: the future of the \u201crules-based international order\u201d is being decided in the black soil of Novorossiya.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

9 Jul 2024 <\/em>– Viktor Orban is on a roll.<\/p>\n

And that has set out a riotous roller coaster.<\/p>\n

Everyone has been gripped by the extraordinary spectacle of pre-historic specimens wallowing in the Western geopolitical swamp reaching the depths of Hysteriastan at the sight of the Hungarian Prime Minister\u2019s peace shuttle moving from Ukraine and Russia to China.<\/p>\n

And to do that on the eve of the 75th<\/sup> anniversary of warmongering Global Robocop NATO has got to be the ultimate affront.<\/p>\n

The 3-hour long Putin-Viktor The Mediator meeting in Moscow\u00a0<\/a>was quite something. These are arguably Putin\u2019s three main points:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Kiev cannot allow the idea of a ceasefire because that would remove the pretext for extending martial law.<\/li>\n
  2. If Kiev ends martial law, it will need to hold presidential elections. The chances of the current Ukrainian authorities winning are close to zero.<\/li>\n
  3. There should not be a truce for additional Kiev weaponizing: Moscow wants a complete and final endgame.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    By comparison, these are arguably Orban\u2019s three main points:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. The positions of Russia and Ukraine are very far from each other, much needs to be done.<\/li>\n
    2. The war in Ukraine has begun to have an impact on the European economy and its competitiveness (as much as the EU \u201cleadership\u201d may deny it).<\/li>\n
    3. \u201cI heard what Putin thinks about the existing peace initiatives, the ceasefire and negotiations, and the vision of Europe after the war.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Orban also made a point of emphasizing the airtight pre-meeting secrecy, as \u201cmeans of communication are under total surveillance by the Big Boys\u201d.<\/p>\n

      He described the search for a solution in Ukraine as his \u201cChristian duty\u201d. And he said he asked three direct questions to Putin: whether peace talks are possible; whether a ceasefire before they begin is realistic; and what Europe\u2019s security architecture could look like.<\/p>\n

      Putin, said Orban, answered all three.<\/p>\n

      The clincher \u2013 not for the warmongers, but for the Global Majority \u2013 was Orban\u2019s description of Putin:<\/p>\n

      \u201cAll negotiations with him, he is always in a good mood \u2013 this is the first thing. Secondly, he is more than 100% rational. When he negotiates, when he begins to explain, when he makes an offer, saying yes or no, he is super, super rational. How else can you say it in Hungarian? Cool headed, reserved, careful and punctual. He has discipline. So it is a real challenge to negotiate with him and be prepared to match his intellectual and political level.\u201d<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/a>

      \u201cVladimir Putin\u201d by Presidential Executive Office of Russia is licensed under CC BY 4.0.<\/p><\/div>\n

      That new Eurasia security system <\/strong><\/p>\n

      All of the above ties up with the concept of a new Eurasia security system proposed last month by Putin \u2013 and a key theme of discussion at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Astana<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

      Putin has emphasized the central role of the SCO in the process, stating that a \u201cdecision was made to turn the SCO regional anti-terrorist structure into a universal center tasked with responding to the entire range of security threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

      In a nutshell: the SCO will be arguably the key node in the new Eurasia-wide indivisibility of security arrangement. This is as huge as it gets.<\/p>\n

      It all started with the concept of Greater Eurasian Partnership, proposed by Putin in 2015 and conceptualized by Sergey Karaganov in 2018. Putin took it to another level in his meeting with key Russian diplomats in June; it\u2019s time to set up serious bilateral and multilateral guarantees for collective Eurasian security.<\/p>\n

      That should be a security architecture, according to Putin, open to<\/p>\n

      \u201call Eurasian countries that wish to participate,\u201d including \u201cEuropean and NATO countries.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

      And it should lead to \u201cgradually phasing out\u201d the military presence of \u201cexternal powers in Eurasia\u201d, side by side with \u201cestablishing alternatives to Western-controlled economic mechanisms, expanding the use of national currencies in settlements, and establishing independent payment systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

      In a nutshell: a complete geopolitical and technical-military revamp, as well as geoeconomic (the importance of developing alternative international transport corridors such as the INSTC).<\/p>\n

      The Charg\u00e9 d\u2019Affaires of the Russian Mission to the EU, Kirill Logvinov, tried to brief the Europeans last week, under the rubric \u201cNew Security Architecture for the Eurasian Continent\u201d.<\/p>\n

      Logvinov explained how \u201cthe Euro-Atlantic concept of security has collapsed. Based on U.S. and NATO dominance, the European regional security framework has failed to ensure the practical implementation of the \u2018indivisible security for all\u2019 principle.\u201d<\/p>\n

      A future system of security and cooperation in Eurasia will then form the \u201cfoundation of the global security architecture in a multipolar world based on the UN Charter principles and the rule of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

      And the Greater Eurasian Partnership will form the economic and social basis of this new Eurasian security system.<\/p>\n

      Hell will freeze over before the EU\/NATO accept the new reality. But the fact is the already emerging mutual security space within the SCO should make Eurasia \u2013 minus its Western Europe peninsula, at least for the foreseeable future \u2013 more solid in terms of Big Power strategic stability.<\/p>\n

      Eventually, it will be up to Europe \u2013 rather Far Western Eurasia: either you remain as lowly vassals under the declining Hegemon, or you Look East for a sovereign, dynamic future.<\/p>\n

      The Russian plan v. all other plans <\/strong><\/p>\n

      It\u2019s under this Big Picture that Putin\u2019s peace plan for Ukraine \u2013 announced on June 14 in front of the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me of Russian diplomats \u2013 should be understood. Orban certainly got it.<\/p>\n

      Any other plans \u2013 with the exception of the revised Chinese offer, and that\u2019s why Orban went to Beijing \u2013 are irrelevant, from Moscow\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

      Of course Team Trump had to come up with their own NATO-centered plan. That\u2019s not exactly a gift to clueless Europeans.<\/p>\n

      Under Trump, NATO\u2019s role will shift: it will become an \u201cauxiliary\u201d force in Europe. Washington of course will keep its nodes in the Empire of Bases \u2013 in Germany, UK, Turkey \u2013 but ground forces, armored vehicles, artillery, logistics, everything, high costs included, will be fully paid by wobbling European economies.<\/p>\n

      Under the coordination of Trump\u2019s national defense strategy adviser, Elbridge Colby, the new administration would promise to give Putin commitments \u201cnot to expand NATO to the east.\u201d Moreover, Trump seems to be ready to \u201cconsider territorial concessions\u201d to Russia.<\/p>\n

      As if Moscow would be praying in unison to get \u201cconcessions\u201d from a notoriously unreliable American president.<\/p>\n

      The whole point of this plan is that under Trump 2.0 the main \u201cthreat\u201d to the U.S. will be China, not Russia.<\/p>\n

      With only four months before the U.S. presidential election, and with the cadaver in the White House at the point of being thrown \u2013 especially by powerful donors \u2013 under the (retirement home) bus, it finally dawned even on the zombie crowd that the dream of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia is over.<\/p>\n

      Still, the Dems in D.C. and their discombobulated NATO vassals are desperate to impose a Korean scenario: a sham ceasefire and a freeze along the current frontlines.<\/p>\n

      In this case hell will freeze over before Moscow accepts a \u201cpeace plan\u201d that preserves the possibility of a somewhat rump Ukraine entering NATO and the EU in the near future, plus preserving a re-weaponized Ukrainian army on Russia\u2019s western front.<\/p>\n

      A freeze of the war now translates as a new war in two or three years with a hugely re-weaponized Kiev. That\u2019s not gonna happen \u2013 as Moscow\u2019s absolute imperative is a neutral Ukraine, fully de-militarized, plus the end of the official de-Russification juggernaut.<\/p>\n

      Orban arguably is not playing the NATO game of trying to \u201cpersuade\u201d Russia \u2013 and China \u2013 to a truce, with Beijing putting pressure on Moscow. Unlike his clueless EU partners, Orban may have learned a thing or two about the Russia-China strategic partnership.<\/p>\n

      The next four months will be frantic, both on the negotiation and the crypto-negotiation fronts. The war likely will not end in 2024. And the scenario of a long, dreadful multi-year war may \u2013 and the operative word is \u201cmay\u201d \u2013 only be dispelled with Trump 2.0: and that, over the Deep State\u2019s collective dead bodies.<\/p>\n

      The Big Picture remains: the future of the \u201crules-based international order\u201d is being decided in the black soil of Novorossiya. It\u2019s Unipolar Order vs. Multipolar, Multi-Nodal<\/em> Order.<\/p>\n

      NATOstan is not in the position to dictate any pathetic mumbo jumbo to Russia. Putin\u2019s offer has been the last one. Won\u2019t take it? The war will go on all the way \u2013 until total surrender.<\/p>\n

      There are no illusions whatsoever in Moscow that the collective West may accept Putin\u2019s offer. Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the SVR, has been blunt: the conditions will only get worse. Putin announced just the \u201clowest level\u201d of Moscow\u2019s conditions.<\/p>\n

      Orban may have understood that in real conditions for a peace settlement, the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions will come to Russia along their original administrative borders; Ukraine will be neutral, nuclear-free and non-aligned; all collective West sanctions will be lifted; and Russia\u2019s frozen funds will be returned.<\/p>\n

      Before any of that happens \u2013 such a long shot \u2013 Russia has plenty of time. The priority now is a successful BRICS summit next October in Kazan. New presidential aides Nikolai Patrushev and A. Dyumin, along with the new Defense Minister Belousov, are honing the Big Picture strategy.<\/p>\n

      Meanwhile, there\u2019s always the NATO show<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 as a side show. So peaceful, so benign, so democratic. Such cool production values. Join the fun!<\/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 strategic-culture.su<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      9 Jul 2024 – The Big Picture remains: the future of the \u201crules-based international order\u201d is being decided in the black soil of Novorossiya. It\u2019s Unipolar Order vs. Multipolar, Multi-Nodal Order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":193880,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195],"tags":[2628,1268,1562,91,278,961],"class_list":["post-269188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflict-resolution-mediation","tag-conflict-mediation","tag-european-union","tag-hungary","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269188","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=269188"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269192,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269188\/revisions\/269192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}