{"id":78756,"date":"2016-09-05T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2016-09-05T11:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=78756"},"modified":"2016-09-02T15:00:43","modified_gmt":"2016-09-02T14:00:43","slug":"the-whole-game-is-about-containing-russia-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/09\/the-whole-game-is-about-containing-russia-china\/","title":{"rendered":"The Whole Game Is About Containing Russia-China"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"pepeescobar\"<\/a>29 Aug 2016 – <\/em>The next BRICS summit, in Goa, is less than two months away. Compared to only two years ago, the geopolitical tectonic plates have moved with astonishing speed. Most BRICS nations are mired in deep crisis; Brazil\u2019s endless political\/economic\/institutional debacle may yield the Kafkaesque impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.<\/p>\n

BRICS is in a coma. What\u2019s surviving is RC: the Russia\/China strategic partnership. Yet even the partnership seems to be in trouble \u2013 with Russia still attacked by myriad metastases of Hybrid War. The \u2013 Exceptionalist \u2013 Hegemon remains powerful, and the opposition is dazed and confused.<\/p>\n

Or is it?<\/p>\n

Slowly but surely \u2013 see for instance the possibility of an https:\/\/www.rt.com\/op-edge\/357205-turkey-erdogan-russia-iran-isis\/<\/a><\/p>\n

ATM (Ankara-Tehran-Moscow) coalition in the making \u2013 global power continues to insist on shifting East. That goes beyond Russia\u2019s pivoting to Asia; Germany\u2019s industrialists are just waiting for the right political conjunction, before the end of the decade, to also pivot to Asia, conforming a BMB (Berlin-Moscow-Beijing) coalition.<\/p>\n

Germany already rules over Europe. The only way for a global trade power to solidify its reach is to go East. NATO member Germany, with a GDP that outstrips the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is not even allowed to share information with the \u201cFive Eyes\u201d secret cabal.<\/p>\n

President Putin, years ago, was keen on a Lisbon-to-Vladivostok emporium. He may eventually be rewarded \u2013 delayed gratification? \u2013 by BMB, a trade\/economic union that, combined with the Chinese-driven One Belt, One Road (OBOR), will eventually dwarf and effectively replace the dwindling post-WWII Anglo-Saxon crafted\/controlled international order.<\/p>\n

This inexorable movement East underscores all the interconnections \u2013 and evolving connectivity \u2013 related to the New Silk Roads, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS\u2019s New Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Eurasia Economic Union (EEU). The crux of RC, the Russia-China strategic partnership, is to make the multipolar, post-Atlantic world happen. Or, updating Ezra Pound, to Make It New.<\/p>\n

Containing RC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s pivot to Asia is of course only part of the story. The core of Russia\u2019s industries, infrastructure, population is in the west of the country, closer to Europe. BMB would allow a double pivot \u2013 simultaneously to Europe and Asia; or Russia exploiting to the max its Eurasian character. Not accidently this is absolute anathema for Washington. Thus the predictable, ongoing no holds barred exceptionalist strategy of preventing by all means necessary closer Russia-Germany cooperation.<\/p>\n

In parallel, pivoting to Asia is also essential because that\u2019s where the<\/p>\n

overwhelming majority of Russia\u2019s future customers \u2013 energy and otherwise \u2013 are located. It will be a long, winding process to educate Russian public opinion about the incalculable value for the nation of Siberia and the Russian Far East. Yet that has already started. And it will be in full fruition by the middle of the next decade, when all the interpolated New Silk Roads will be online.<\/p>\n

\u201cContainment\u201d of RC will continue to be the name of the exceptionalist game \u2013 whatever happens on November 8. As far as the industrial-military-security-surveillance-corporate media complex is concerned, there will be<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/in-theory\/wp\/2016\/08\/18\/there-will-be-no-reset-with-russia\/?utm_term=.26da5ea9afc5<\/a> no reset. Proxies will be used \u2013 from failed state Ukraine to Japan in the East China Sea, as well as any volunteering Southeast Asian faction in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n

Still the Hegemon will be in trouble to contain both sides of RC simultaneously. NATO does not help; its trade arm, TPP, may even collapse in the high seas before arriving on shore. No TPP \u2013 a certainty in case Donald Trump is elected in November \u2013 means the end of US economic hegemony over Asia. Hillary Clinton knows it; and it\u2019s no accident President Obama is desperate to have TPP approved during a short window of opportunity, the lame-duck session of Congress from November 9 to January 3.<\/p>\n

Against China, the Hegemon alliance in fact hinges on Australia, India and Japan. Forget about instrumentalizing BRICS member India \u2013 which will never fall into the trap of a war against China (not to mention Russia, with which India traditionally enjoys very good relations.)<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s imperial instincts were reawakened by Shinzo Abe. Yet hopeless economic stagnation persists. Moreover, Tokyo has been prohibited by the US Treasury Dept. to continue unleashing quantitative easing. Moscow sees as a long-term objective to progressively draw Japan away from the US orbit and into Eurasia integration.<\/p>\n

Dr. Zbig does Desolation Row<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pentagon is terrified that RC is now a military partnership as well.<\/p>\n

Compared to Russia\u2019s superior high-tech weaponry, NATO is a kindergarten mess; not to mention that soon Russian territory will be inviolable to any Star Wars-derived scheme. China will soon have all the submarines and \u201ccarrier-killer\u201d missiles necessary to make life for the US Navy hell in case the Pentagon harbors funny ideas. And then there are the regional details \u2013 from Russia\u2019s permanent air base in Syria to military cooperation with Iran and, eventually, disgruntled NATO member Turkey.<\/p>\n

No wonder such exceptionalist luminary ideologues as Dr. Zbig \u201cGrand Chessboard\u201d Brzezinski \u2013 foreign policy mentor to President Obama \u2013 are supremely dejected: Toward a Global Realignment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When Brzezinski looks at progressive Eurasia integration, he simply cannot fail to detect how those \u201cthree grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy\u201d he outlined in https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives\/dp\/B005OSFX0A\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472277027&sr=1-1&keywords=the+grand+chessboard<\/a><\/p>\n

The Grand Chessboard<\/em> are simply dissolving; \u201cto prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those GCC vassals \u2013 starting with the House of Saud \u2013 are now terrified about their own security; same with the hysteric Baltics. Tributaries are not pliant anymore \u2013 and that includes an array of Europeans. The \u201cbarbarians\u201d coming together are in fact old civilizations \u2013 China, Persia, Russia \u2013 fed up with upstart-controlled unipolarity.<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, to \u201ccontain\u201d RC, defined as \u201cpotentially threatening\u201d (the Pentagon considers the threats are existential) Brzezinski suggests \u2013 what else \u2013 Divide and Rule<\/strong>; as in \u201ccontaining the least predictable but potentially the most likely to overreach.\u201d Still he doesn\u2019t know which is which; \u201cCurrently, the more likely to overreach is Russia, but in the longer run it could be China.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hillary \u201cQueen of War\u201d Clinton of course does not subscribe to Brzezinski\u2019s \u201ccould be\u201d school. After all she\u2019s the official, Robert Kagan-endorsed, neocon presidential candidate. She\u2019s more in tune with https:\/\/pjmedia.com\/michaelledeen\/2016\/08\/24\/the-war-intensifies\/?singlepage=true<\/a> this sort of wacky \u201canalysis\u201d.<\/p>\n

So one should definitely expect Hillary\u2019s \u201cproject\u201d to be all-out hegemony expansion all across Eurasia. Syria and Iran will be targets. Even another war on the Korean Peninsula could be on the cards. But against North Korea, a nuclear power? Exceptionalistan only attacks those who can\u2019t defend themselves. Besides, RC could easily prevent war by offering some strategic carrots to the Kim family.<\/p>\n

In many aspects, not much has changed from 24 years ago when, only three months after the dissolution of the USSR, the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Planning Guidance proclaimed:<\/p>\n

\u201cOur first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival\u2026This requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union and southwest Asia.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Talk about a prescient road map of what\u2019s happening right now; the \u201crival\u201d, \u201chostile\u201d power is actually two powers involved in a strategic partnership: RC.<\/p>\n

Compounding this Pentagon nightmare, the endgame keeps drawing near; the next manifestations and reverberations of the never-ending 2008 financial crisis may eventually torpedo the fundamentals of the global \u201corder\u201d \u2013 as in the petrodollar racket\/tributary scam.<\/p>\n

There will be blood. Hillary Clinton smells it already \u2013 from Syria to Iran to the South China Sea. The question is whether she \u2013 and virtually the whole Beltway establishment behind her \u2013 will be mad enough to provoke RC and buy a one-way ticket to post-MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) territory.<\/p>\n

______________________________________<\/p>\n

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 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 \u201cGlobalistan<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cRed Zone Blues<\/a>\u201d (2007), \u201cObama does Globalistan<\/a>\u201d (2009) and \u201cEmpire of Chaos<\/a>\u201d (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is \u201c2030<\/a>\u201c, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

29 Aug 2016 – The next BRICS summit, in Goa, is less than two months away. Compared to only two years ago, the geopolitical tectonic plates have moved with astonishing speed. Most BRICS nations are mired in deep crisis; Brazil\u2019s endless political\/economic\/institutional debacle may yield the Kafkaesque impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. BRICS is in a coma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78756","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=78756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}