Your STRATEGIC ALERT 11/30/2022STRATEGIC ALERT Service μέσω sendingservice.net |
| 30 Νοε 2022, 8:01 μ.μ. (πριν από 14 ώρες)
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STRATEGIC ALERT NEWSLETTER
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| | | Competent military strategists know that the ability to wage war ultimately depends on in-depth logistics and industrial capacities. The exact opposite policy – known as the utopian approach – has been taken by NATO and the Anglo-American “military-industrial complex”, that have launched war against Russia using Ukraine as a surrogate. Putting propaganda aside, NATO member countries have collapsed their own energy, manufacturing and infrastructure capabilities, and are in no position to supply Kiev indefinitely, while Ukraine’s own scarce resources are being systematically degraded by Russia’s attacks on the country’s energy and other infrastructure. (Although rarely reported here, those attacks are still very restrained, and limited to military objectives compared to what the Russian armed forces could deploy if they choose to.)
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But it is the weakness of real in-depth war-fighting capability that makes the current situation so dangerous, as it could quickly escalate into nuclear war, whether by intention or miscalculation. The landing of a missile on Polish territory two weeks ago was one such incident. That, in itself, should lead all thinking people to demand an end to the conflict through negotiation. Instead, NATO Secretary Gen. Jens Stoltenberg again stated, at the alliance’s Parliamentary Assembly on Nov. 21, that NATO’s policy is the defeat of Russia, no matter what it costs Europeans or Ukrainians. (In parentheses, he took the occasion to fume against China as well.)
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The British-led approach from the outset has been to launch one provocation after another to keep the conflict going, and more should be expected. Thus, Prime Minister Sunak, in his first major foreign policy address on Nov. 28, stressed the commitment to “stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes”, including by providing new support for air defense, and Brimstone 2 missiles. That was also the line of British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly during his trip to Kiev last week, where he promised to provide “all the critical practical support” needed to get through the difficult winter months, rather than using the expected slowdown in military operations to open talks. And Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the Daily Beast (Nov. 24) that London is urging Ukraine to “keep up the pressure, keep up the momentum” against Russian forces through the winter months, repeating the mantra that the Russians are “demoralized, poorly trained, poorly equipped”.
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But the most outspoken in declaring that “we are at war with Russia” is George Robertson, former U.K. Defense Secretary (1997-1999), NATO Secretary General (1999-2003), and still active policymaker. In The Economist, he urges NATO to “defend our countries as if we were under attack”, which is tantamount to declaring war. In addition to rushing all kinds of advanced weapons to Ukraine, to boycotting Russian energy and even wheat worldwide despite the famine, and to threatening the Global South with destabilization, Robertson wants Western countries to put themselves on a “war footing” in order to “to shorten decision-making” and get around bureaucracies; “on a war footing, a few individuals are empowered to make choices rapidly. We should emulate such a system now.” That also requires difficult sacrifices from “our own people... through the cost of living in particular”, and for that, a “relentless barrage of publicity is necessary.”
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| An appeal for dictatorship would hardly sound different... |
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| | | General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, created an uproar among NATO war hawks after mentioning a possible window for peace talks on Ukraine (cf. SAS 47, 48/22). The Biden Administration made its stance clear by preparing a package of close to $40 billion more in military aid from the United States, while the U.K. weapons aid is about £4 billion. NATO’s line is that if more weapons are provided, Russia can be totally defeated and humiliated.
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That claim, however, is increasingly challenged by actual military experts, as opposed to those military and intelligence officials tied to the "Military-Industrial Complex," for whom war is a business proposition, and to the spokesmen for the collapsing “establishment”.
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One of those experts is retired Col. Douglas MacGregor, who points to the severely damaged energy infrastructure of Ukraine, which has been hit as part of the Russians’ objective of undermining Kiev’s ability to wage war. The attacks on the power grid, railway hubs, fuel depots, bridges and command-and-control centers are accomplishing this. The deployment of fresh forces by Russia, he emphasized in a series of recent interviews, will allow them to cut supply lines from Poland, leaving Ukrainian troops cut-off and vulnerable, subjecting them to capture or being killed.
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Retired Col. Daniel L. Davis, a senior fellow for Defense Priorities, offered a similar assessment. He spoke of the Russian intention to close down the two supply corridors for Ukraine's troops, from Poland in the west, and from Kiev. With these corridors closed, it "would be nearly impossible for Kiev to sustain wartime operations for more than a few weeks." He believes the deployment of an additional 218,000 Russian troops would be able to accomplish that.
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Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter scoffed at the idea that Moscow wants to negotiate due to weakness, saying this is completely false, that the Russians have been willing to negotiate from the beginning. Since President Zelensky, under NATO pressure, is refusing to negotiate, Ritter believes that Russia is prepared to crush Ukraine.
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| If these three experts are right, how will NATO respond? Given that reports in recent days point to the lack of ammunition and military production capabilities of the member countries, there is no viable option short of full-scale involvement of NATO forces -- other than to negotiate with Russia, which NATO has remained unwilling to do since the Maidan coup in Feb. 2014. In fact, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko candidly admitted, in a recent prank call, that his government never took Minsk Agreements seriously, but welcomed the time it gave them to build up the Ukrainian armed forces, together with NATO, so as to be eventually capable of imposing a military “solution” on the Donbass. |
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| | | On Nov. 18 in Bali, U.S. President Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gathered together a few heads of state and government to launch the G7’s anti-Belt and Road scheme, called the Partnership for Global Infrastructure Investment (PGII). The bombastic announcement of a $600 billion plan, however, is really just hot air. The PGII, like its EU predecessor “Global Gateway” or Washington’s “Build Back Better”, is based on the failing assumption that private capital can be mobilized to finance market-oriented infrastructure investments, and that such an initiative could compete with China.
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How attractive the PGII is for developing countries is shown by the fact that India and the host Indonesia were the only developing countries present at the Bali meeting. Among the G7, Italy was absent, perhaps unintentionally.
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“The West has been struggling with the brand-building exercise for years. While China’s plan quickly turned to steel and concrete, the West’s answer to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative remains vague,” commented an article in Politico.
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The European Network for Debt and Development (Eurodad) drafted an analysis of the Global Gateway approach, which shows why the PGII will also not work,. The report, entitled “The Emperor’s New Clothes: What’s New about the EU’s Global Gateway,” insists that “There is no fresh money allocated to the Global Gateway and instead its approach seems to be an attempt to rebrand existing plans, which raises concerns about diverting already scarce development resources.”
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“Policies proposed under the Global Gateway primarily serve private sector interests and they lack a coherent focus on poverty alleviation,” according to the Sept. 2022 report. "The EU’s Global Gateway is based on the assumption that it will mobilize, or leverage, resources from private investors…. The overriding question is what is the EU Global Gateway really about? Is it a bold new strategy focused on the needs of global partners, or will it shape up to be little more than the Emperor’s New Clothes?… The geopolitics of the Global Gateway relies on the promise of financing an initiative that is qualitatively superior to the Chinese-led BRI…. Although the official documents on the Gateway do not explicitly mention competition with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the implications are clear. The Commission has framed the Gateway as a superior initiative, which is rooted in democratic values, an ethical approach to infrastructure financing based on sustainability and good governance.”
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The Global Gateway is based on the Commission’s plan to mobilize up to €300 billion in infrastructure investments. However, this is supposed to be done by mobilizing or leveraging private funds. At the same time, the money allocated comes from previous EU programs and is therefore tantamount to re-packaging development funds.
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| “The Gateway’s targeted mobilization amount of €300 billion is roughly based on a ballpark leverage ratio of 10. This means that, for every €1 of public finance, €10 will be mobilized in private finance. This amount is based on the activities of the EFSD+, which are still in early days, and have been questioned by the European Court of Auditors for being surrounded by ‘lots of hopes and expectations’, but not so much reality." |
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| | | Given the lack in Europe of a serious commitment to diplomatic efforts to resolve the war in Ukraine, which would necessarily involve talking to President Putin, the option of an initiative to be taken by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been mentioned repeatedly in Germany. Two moves in the past week have relaunched the discussion: a lengthy special in the leading weekly Der Spiegel with a focus on Merkel's heritage, and a commentary for the Swiss weekly Weltwoche by Erich Vad, Merkel's national security advisor from 2006 to 2013.
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The former Chancellor (from 2005-2021) had some 50 meetings with Vladimir Putin during her time in office. In the Spiegel story, Merkel tells interviewer Alexander Osang that the Russia-Ukraine war “did not come as a surprise. The Minsk agreement had eroded. In the summer of 2021, after Presidents Biden and Putin had met, I wanted to again establish with Emmanuel Macron in the EU Council a format of independent European talks with Putin. There was opposition to this from some, and I no longer had the strength to assert myself, because everyone knew: she'll be gone in the fall.” Had she run again for Chancellor in the 2021 national election in September, “I would have kept on drilling there,” Mme Merkel adds.
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She also stressed that at the Bucharest NATO summit in 2008, she blocked the candidacies of Georgia and Ukraine, so as not to provoke Russia, an intent that also characterized her diplomatic efforts in 2014 to prevent the breakout of war over Crimea. When asked what she would do if she were to serve as mediator now, she leaves the question open, noting that she has received no such mandate from Kiev, nor from the present German government. But she has been on the phone with Emmanuel Macron repeatedly, she reveals.
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Though not mentioning a Merkel option as such, Gen. Erich Vad (ret.) hints in the same pro-diplomacy direction in the Weltwoche commentary: “We are witnessing a military stalemate. A prolonged war of attrition is looming, on a front line almost 1000 kilometers long. The Ukrainians can make selective gains because they have the reconnaissance and targeting data from Western countries at their disposal. But only spotty, not sustainable. My assessment of the situation is shared by General Mark Milley, the U.S. Chief of Staff. He also believes that this war cannot be decided militarily. That's why we have to see how we can get out of it in another way. With negotiations.”
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| Vad insists on a realistic orientation of such negotiations: “Russia will not and cannot capitulate in view of the vital strategic relevance of Crimea and the Donbass.... It is therefore illusory to want to liberate the Donbass and Crimea with a major Ukrainian offensive.” It would make more sense, in his view, to freeze the conflict with a demarcation line recognized under international law, and ceasefire regulations as quickly as possible. He expressed a certain optimism “because secret diplomacy is underway. The US National Security Adviser was recently in Kiev. There is also a hot line between Moscow and Washington, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are also connected. This shows that there is apparently no willingness to let the conflict degenerate into a third world war. Nobody wants that.” |
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| | | An open letter from the “Editors and Publishers” of five major news publications worldwide -- the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País, calls on the U.S. government to end the unjust prosecution of Julian Assange. After recalling that their outlets had initially published Assange’s leaked documents in 2010, which then led to the attacks on him, they say: “We come together now to express our grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials.” They further assert that “This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press.”
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The letter continues: “Obtaining and disclosing sensitive information when necessary in the public interest is a core part of the daily work of journalists. If that work is criminalized, our public discourse and our democracies are made significantly weaker.” “Publishing is not a crime,” they conclude at the end.
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| We don’t know why these self-righteous “editors and publishers” took so long to intervene publicly on behalf of Julian Assange, who has suffered many long years of psychological and physical torture, but better late than never. |
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| | | The Trilateral Commission, founded in 1973 as a secretive organization of the would-be elites of the United States, Europe and Japan, held a meeting of its Asia Pacific Group on Nov. 19-20. For the first time ever, one news service was invited to attend all the sessions, namely Nikkei Asia.
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The publication’s editor-in-chief, Shigesaburo Okumura, reported Nov. 25, that “Many of the participants seemed sick and tired of the decoupling with China imposed by the U.S. under the name of ‘Democracy vs. Autocracy’ dualism. Some of them worried about the arbitrary and unpredictable nature of trade sanctions and their implementation by the U.S. (...) heir anxiety over the confrontation between the two strongest hegemonic nations is serious...”
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Two reporters from Nikkei quote, in their article (behind a paywall), one Japanese leader of the organization who stated outright: “We feel that the U.S. policy toward Asia, especially toward China, has been narrow-minded and unyielding. We want the people of the U.S. to recognize the various Asian perspectives.” A former Japanese official was rather shocked by the confrontationist attitude of the U.S. ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel, pointing out “If we force countries to choose sides, the Southeast Asian nations will choose China. The key is not to force them to choose.”
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| There were no Chinese in attendance at the event, although some had been invited, according to the organizers. Different members stressed that Chinese participation was indispensable to deal effectively with global issues. A Trilateral member from the Philippines was quoted saying there is no point in discussing Asia without China. He is particularly worried about the division of the world into competing blocs: “When two elephants fight, the ants get trampled. And we’re feeling it. When two elephants fight to the death, we will all be dead. And the question is: ‘What for?’” |
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| | | In the mayoral and city council elections that took place in Taiwan, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was soundly defeated by the opposition party, Kuomintang (KMT). The DPP now controls only 5 out of the 21 local government offices, whereas the KMT won key mayoral races in Taipei, Taoyuan and Keelung. The DPP has aggressively promoted tensions between Beijing and Taipei, as part of the oligarchs’ plans to threaten China with destabilization.
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Once the results were announced Nov. 26, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen resigned as head of the party, but will continue to serve as President until the next elections in 2024, in which she will not run due to term limitations. KMT Chairman Eric Chu stated after the victory that his party will insist on protecting democracy and freedom, and will work hard to keep regional peace.
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On the distinctions between local and national elections, it is worth recalling that the DPP, after winning the 2016 presidency, saw similarly poor results in the 2018 local elections, before securing a major victory in 2020, including Tsai’s re-election to lead the island. Her stance toward mainland China is relatively moderate, compared to Vice President Lai, for example, who is more strongly in favor of independence.
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| It is worth noting that the Taiwan election results were scarcely mentioned in Western mainstream media. But on the same weekend, the news was dominated by overblown reports on the demonstrations held in various Chinese cities against the government’s anti-COVID policy. The number of demonstrators was very small, compared to the total population, which led some trade-unionists and other activists in Europe to comment that they would be delighted if the media would report on the protest movements here in the same proportion. |
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| | | On Nov. 22, the Schiller Institute sponsored its Third Seminar of Political and Social Leaders of the World on the theme: “Stop the Danger of World War Now”, held both online and in person in the Mexican Parliament. Speakers from the United States included Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), Scott Ritter and nuclear war expert Steven Starr. From Europe, peace activists from Germany and two mayors from France reviewed initiatives for peace they are personally involved in. A special focus, however, was on Ibero-America (cf. below).
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In bringing the discussions to a conclusion, Helga Zepp-LaRouche proposed to initiate a broad debate worldwide on the form that the new security and development architecture should take on to successfully stop the danger of a world war and to ensure peace through development. To that end, she outlined ten principles which she considers to be the most essential, and which can serve as the basis for the needed debate and deliberations.
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The first is to build an alliance of “perfectly sovereign nation states”, based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and the UN Charter, and the second is to give absolute priority to “alleviating poverty everywhere on the planet”, which entails, third and fourth, the establishment of “modern health systems” and “universal education”. In addition, Helga Zepp-LaRouche puts forth ideas on the reorganization of the international financial system, and the means to overcome geopolitics. The proposal can be read in full here.
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| The tenth point is the need to bring the political and economic order into cohesion with the lawfulness of the physical universe, to ensure the harmonic development of both. In a subsequent discussion, on Nov. 25, Helga Zepp-LaRouche explained that the defining question in all this is “the image of man”. “If you think that man is a nuisance to nature, and each human being is a burden on nature, then naturally you will not arrive at any solution.” The opposite is true “if you have the idea that every human being has a unique potential of creative ability, of discovering new principles of the physical universe – what is generally called scientific and technological progress – and that that ability is what differentiates human beings completely from all other species.... It is that ability of discovery that enables you to have a higher living standard, longer longevity, more people living a good life.” |
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| | | It is telling that the recent series of three, consecutive Schiller Institute international conferences mobilizing against nuclear war grew out of an initiative of former and current congressmen and women from the region of the world which the Anglo-American powers believed was destined to forever live as “the backyard” of the United States. Under enormous economic and military pressure from the United States and Wall Street/London interests, in recent decades, leaders from Ibero-America and the Caribbean who were committed to developing their countries concentrated on building regional defenses, believing they did not have the power to change the international system.
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No longer. At the end of the first, Oct. 7 seminar, the leaders participating from Mexico, Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana insisted that they had to take responsibility for building an international force against the danger of nuclear war and the financial interests behind it. Then after the second one, held on Oct. 27, sitting Congressman Benjamín Robles Montoya and former Congresswoman María de los Ángeles Huerta, both from Mexico, issued an open letter to legislators from around the world, and to political and social leaders in every country, calling on them to join in organizing a movement of patriots and world citizens to stop the escalating danger.
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By the Nov. 22 seminar, the speakers from Ibero-America included a former President of Guyana, two former cabinet ministers from Argentina and Ecuador known for their key roles in the fight for regional development, five former Congressmen from Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico’s sitting Congressman Robles, and a veteran journalist from Brazil’s fight for sovereign development. The power of the international alternative system coming together around the BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the “Spirit of Bandung” was high on everyone’s agenda.
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The Anglo-American war party, well-aware that the region is turning to the new system, is fomenting civil war in various countries. Under the banner of defending “democracy” and “free trade” against Russia and China, a fascist-led, separatist movement in Santa Cruz has been unleashed in Bolivia, and a similar operation is being built up in Brazil around Bolsonaro supporters who oppose Lula da Silva’s election as President. The U.S. Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC) co-sponsored a confab in Mexico City Nov. 18-19, where leaders from similar movements from across the region joined Steve Bannon and leaders from Spain’s Vox party in mapping out how to unleash a continental “Conservative Revolution”.
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| The anti-imperial spirit of the continent is building, however. On Nov. 27, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called a march in Mexico City in support of his government, and some 1.2 million people came from across the country. The President told the march that Mexico’s foreign policy is that of “non-intervention, self-determination, cooperation for development, and the peaceful solution of disputes; we act on the basis of the ideal of universal brotherhood.” |
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