STRATEGIC ALERT NEWSLETTER
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| | | Despite all the military equipment, advisers and money pumped into NATO’s war against Russia for the past two years, Ukraine has no chance of winning. A reality acknowledged by virtually all Western observers, even if most leaders won’t admit it publicly. Instead, they escalate the rhetoric against Russia, and President Putin in particular. While American aid to Kyiv has been significantly reduced, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Secretary Lloyd Austin told the House Armed Services Committee on Feb. 29 that, “quite frankly, if Ukraine falls, I really believe that NATO will be in a fight with Russia”.
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French President Emmanuel Macron created an uproar Feb. 26 at a conference with high-level representatives of 20 EU nations called to increase support for Ukraine, when he stated that “sending troops on the ground cannot be excluded”, since “we must do everything necessary to prevent Russia from winning”. Although virtually all other leaders immediately rejected the proposal, Macron doubled down on Feb. 29, telling journalists his meant what he said. Even his Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné disagrees, telling France Inter that “we will not send troops”. (Presumably, other countries are supposed to supply the soldiers who will die on the battlefield.) As Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico pointed out after that conference, “not a single word was said about any peace plan”.
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Then on March 1 came the leaked recording of a phone conversation among top German military leaders discussing the potential use of German Taurus cruise missiles to carry out an attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland, as well as other targets on Russian territory, including arms depots. The German Defense Ministry confirmed the authenticity of the recording. The generals incidentally reveal that American, British and French personnel are already on the ground in Ukraine training nationals to use the shorter-range missiles provided. However, Chancellor Scholz unambiguously declared that no Taurus missiles would be delivered to Kyiv despite the pressure (cf. below).
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Vladimir Putin responded to the threat of NATO troops being sent to Ukraine as well as weapons to be used to hit the Russian territory by stating on Feb. 29 that “what they are doing now to scare the whole world, risks a conflict with nuclear weapons which means the destruction of civilization. Do they understand this, or what?” Apparently, NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana has not. He commented that Putin was only bluffing, expressing “the logic of psychological intimidation” and not “real intentions”.
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Overall, Moscow’s warnings have been recklessly dismissed by the “Utopian” faction in the West, which clings to the illusion that Russia can be defeated, and after that China as well, and that the “unipolar world” will rule victorious.
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| The same perverted thinking is visible in the policy toward South-West Asia, where the last shred of credibility of the transatlantic world is being destroyed not only by the support for genocide, but by the absence of serious perspectives for peace. In that respect, China is actively organizing diplomatic initiatives for both regions. If “the West” doesn’t want to bolster China’s influence in the world, now is the time it should radically change policies.... |
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| | | For months, the Biden Administration had rejected even the use of the term "ceasefire" in discussing the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. But then, suddenly, in a speech in Selma, Alabama on March 3, Vice President Kamala Harris called for an "immediate ceasefire". She described the situation in Gaza as "devastating... too many innocent Palestinians have been killed", and mentioned an "immense scale of suffering". Harris' comments came on the day before a scheduled meeting in Washington with Benny Gantz, a retired general and member of Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet. His visit to the U.S. capital was attacked by members of Netanyahu's cabinet, one of whom called him a "Trojan horse", as the government did not approve of his visit.
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One close observer of Washington's politics said he believes the statement by the Vice President signals a deepening panic in the Biden camp. He pointed to several recent developments:
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1. The anti-Biden vote in the Michigan Democratic primary on Feb. 27, in which more than 101,000 votes (13.2%) were cast for "uncommitted", in an organized protest against Biden's continuing support for Netanyahu. For Biden to be re-elected in 2024, Michigan is a must-win state.
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2. The shock and anger catalyzed by the self-immolation of an active-duty member of the U.S. Air Force, Aaron Bushnell, in front of the Israeli Embassy in Washington on Feb. 25, as a powerful protest against what the young man called "U.S. support for genocide".
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3. Widespread reporting of the "flour massacre", in which well over 100 Palestinians were killed trying to reach food trucks delivering flour. While the Israeli Defense Forces insisted initially that the deaths resulted from a stampede, later reports corrected that, confirming Israeli fire caused many of the deaths.
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4. The announcement by the Deputy Executive Director of the UN World Food Program that more than 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza are at risk of starvation.
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5. A New York Times poll released over the weekend which shows that 73% of those who voted for Biden in 2020 now consider him "too old to be effective", according to the paper's report.
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Further, in addition to the growing opposition to the policy in Southwest Asia, it is increasingly clear that the Biden-NATO plan for a victory in the proxy war against Russia has been shattered, while the stalemate over additional funds for Ukraine continues in the Congress. These developments have rattled all but the most deluded war hawks in Washington.
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| The fear among Biden supporters is that the decidedly negative turn of events in the wars is sinking the prospects of defeating Donald Trump, who has all but wrapped up the Republican nomination with primary victories in the last week. The statement by Kamala Harris may have been a trial balloon, to test the response to a change in policy. In itself, it means nothing, except as a sign that at least some in the U.S. establishment are looking for a way out, as the chaos unleashed by its commitment to Permanent War is creating a highly volatile political environment. |
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| | | The brainstorming by leading German Air Force officers, including the Chief Inspector of the Air Force, on options to deploy Taurus missiles against Russian targets such as the bridge across the Azov Sea (cf. above), does not have the backing of the German government – if one can believe the official statements. Both Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius declared that there would be no delivery of the Taurus to Ukraine and no German personnel deployed to operate the system. However, discussions such as this one leaked by the Russians, reflect the unwillingness of military utopians in the West to accept that Ukraine has lost the war and that it is high time for ceasefire initiatives, preparatory to a peace agreement.
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To deliberate on continuing the hostilities at all costs means marching straight into another round of escalation bringing the world closer to a direct military confrontation between NATO and Russia and to the exchange of nuclear weapons. The refusal to recognize that danger, as German General (ret.) Harald Kujat said in commenting on that leaked session, has implications under criminal law, because it implies preparation for a war of aggression which the German Constitution explicitly bans.
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The only reasonable alternative to a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would be to for Europe and the United States to accept Vladimir Putin’s offer of talks, which he reiterated in his recent exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson (cf. SAS 7/24). The Russian President added that he thinks the West would like to end this war, but does not know how to do it.
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| In that context, an interesting assessment was made by a former envoy of UN peace missions Michael von der Schulenburg, published by RT on Feb. 28. If Ukraine comes to the conclusion that the war with Russia is lost, it might not wait for a change of mind in the West but take up the Russia offer to begin talks. A resumption of direct negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow, he hints, like those that began in March 2022 but were sabotaged by the West (in particular by then PM Boris Johnson), might lead to a rather “unexpected end” to the war without involvement of the West. It could end along the following lines: military neutrality for Ukraine with no NATO membership, and Russian control over former parts of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, with Russian access to the Black Sea. Such a solution, at the expense of western geopolitical interests against Russia, would also be welcomed by the countries of the Global South, von der Schulenburg adds. |
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| | | The atrocious massacre that took place in Gaza City on Feb. 29, when Israeli Defense Forces opened live fire on starving Palestinians desperately trying to get food from a convoy of relief trucks, leaving at least 115 people dead and over 700 injured, jarred the conscience of even the most cynical observers of the ongoing genocide. But it was apparently not enough to convince Washington to support a resolution in the UN Security Council, calling on all parties to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. In countless cities around the world, millions of protesters took to the streets on Saturday, March 2 to express their horror. The Biden Administration, too, is feeling the pressure (cf. above).
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Nonetheless, the negotiations on some sort of temporary ceasefire to allow the release of the hostages and of Palestinian prisoners are still ongoing in Cairo, with delegations of Hamas, Qatar and the United States. Israel has refused to participate so far.
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Moreover, Moscow has sponsored talks between Fatah and Hamas to discuss the possibility of forming a unity government for the Palestinian territories. This is key as the conflict between the two groups is used as an excuse to prevent a settlement with Israel. According to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, speaking at a meeting in Türkiye, progress was made and Hamas had agreed to “respect the platform of the Palestine Liberation Organization”. Mustafa Barghouti, the Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, said that unity was closer than ever “to alleviate this terrible suffering in Gaza” and prevent the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
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The Arab League has welcomed the initiative for the talks taken by the Russian government and the results achieved so far. The Israeli government has not. In fact, it announced last week that, in a complete reversal of its policy up to now, it would begin supplying military equipment to Ukraine to contribute to defeating Moscow. Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, for his part, compared Russia to terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Iran.
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| The Schiller Institute has launched a renewed campaign to gather support for Lyndon LaRouche’s “Oasis Plan” for Israel and Palestine, which would lay the basis for a lasting peace through mutual development of both. |
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| | | Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke for millions around the world when he raised the question of whether or not the Western political elites have the moral fitness to survive, given their toleration and even support for the Netanyahu government’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. That is the question of the hour. One which Lula put on the table when asked in his Feb. 18 press conference in Ethiopia, after the African Union summit, why Brazil did not join the United States and most of the nations of Europe in cutting funding for the UNRWA, the UN’s relief agency for Palestine.
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“When I see the rich world announcing that it is stopping its humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, I wonder how politically aware these people are? And how big is their solidarity at heart, that they cannot see that it’s not a war going on in the Gaza Strip, but a genocide!” he exclaimed. If UNRWA’s funding is cut, he explained, the humanitarian aid desperately needed cannot be provided.
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Establishment media censored Lula’s warning, playing up instead his comparison of what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people in Gaza today to what “occurred when Hitler decided to kill the Jews”. Israel and the rules-based order crowd went ballistic against him. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the President of Brazil to be persona non grata in Israel until he apologizes. U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken explained to Lula how he was wrong. Brazilian opposition parties aligned with disgraced former President Jair Bolsonaro are waving Israeli flags in their demonstrations against Lula.
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However, the Brazilian President is not about to bow before the “rules-based-order”. He spent 19 months in jail from 2018-2019 on fraudulent charges cooked up as part of an “anti-corruption” operation run directly by the U.S. Department of Justice. He said in a Feb. 23 speech in Brazil that “just as I said when I was in prison that I would not accept a deal to get out of jail and that I wouldn’t trade my freedom for my dignity, I say: I won’t trade my dignity for falsehood. I am in favor of the creation of a free and sovereign Palestinian state. May this Palestinian state live in harmony with the State of Israel. What the government of the State of Israel is doing is not war, it is genocide.”
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| At his press conference in Ethiopia, Lula also discussed the need for a new system to fight poverty throughout the world, and how the BRICS can contribute to that. Concerning the role of the World Bank and the IMF, he asked whether these institutions will help finance the development of poor countries, or “continue to suffocate them”. As chairman of the G20 this year, he intends to make that a primary issue, leading into the summit of the Group to be held Nov. 18-19 in Rio de Janeiro. |
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| | | China began its most important political deliberations of the year on March 4, with the opening of its Two Sessions, that is, the assembly of its two major legislative bodies, the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese Peoples’ Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). This year’s gathering is particularly important given the war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, and the increased economic pressure from the U.S. and others to restrict the sale of high technology products to China. The main theme of the ten day deliberations will be how to move the deteriorating world situation in the direction of President Xi’s community of shared interests.
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While the Western “hype” about China’s imminent demise as a major economic power is not taken seriously by most scholars, the hostile actions taken by the United States and European countries have had an adverse impact on the economy. The Chinese leadership will no doubt take additional measures to open up the economy to foreign investment, as some U.S. companies hesitate to expand their business activities in China. Chinese banks have recently eased credit for specific categories of investment, which are also important for maintaining employment, and therefore social stability.
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But at the same time, the Chinese government will be wary about simply “opening all doors”, given the clear intention expressed by CIA Director William Burns to recruit more “human resources” for purposes of espionage in China. Beijing can expected to respond with measures to protect China’s data.
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There will continue to be an emphasis on pushing forward in all fields of science and technology. What China is being deprived of due to the restrictions from abroad will have to be made up by the country’s own domestic talents. Already there has been something of a “forced march” in the area of S&T, and there may be some big surprises coming out of the Congress in that respect.
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On the foreign policy front, China is at the forefront of peace initiatives for both Ukraine and Israel-Palestine. Beijing’s special envoy Li Hui was in Moscow on March 2-3 to discuss China’s peace proposal, on a tour that took him to Brussels, and will have included Ukraine, Poland, Germany and France. Beijing has also been discreetly, but effectively, proposing approaches for mutual development in South-West Asia, both in the region itself and at the UN. A new foreign minister is likely to be named at the NPC, and it may well be Liu Jianchao, who has already traveled to important countries to make himself more known to his counterparts.
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| We note that just three days before the Two Sessions began, Global Times ran an article on the major goals of the leadership, in which two foreign experts were quoted, the first being Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute. She said, among other things, that she hoped the event “will show the world the way forward in terms of how to overcome the mistaken view that a country or a group of countries must defend its interests against another group by any means necessary”. |
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| | | Leading Russian economist Sergey Glazyev has called for the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) to play the leading role in the establishment of a new currency to boost investments and trade by avoiding submission to the bankrupt, dollar-based international financial system. Economist Glazyev, Minister for Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the policy arm of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), was interviewed by journalist Pepe Escobar, who published the exchange in Sputnik on Feb. 28.
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Glazyev stated that, although the process of de-dollarization and the shift to trade in national currencies has advanced substantially over the last 2-3 years, the central challenge remains how to construct a new financial architecture, including a new currency, which can function for trade, settlement of accounts, and most importantly productive investment on a global scale? For the currency, Glazyev proposes a “two basket” model linking stable pricing for major commodities based on long-term state-to-state contracts (not the speculative futures market), and a basket of participating currencies, such as those of the BRICS nations.
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But, he elaborated, “you need someone who’s responsible. In BRICS there is such an organization- the NDB. If the heads of state decide to appoint the NDB as an institution which will elaborate the new model, the new currency, organize an international conference with the draft of an international treaty, this can work. The problem is that the NDB works according to the dollar charter. They have to reorganize this institution in order to make it workable. Now it works like an ordinary international development bank under the American framework.”
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The Presidents of Russia, Brazil and South Africa have all stated that a new financial architecture needs to be constructed, but as Glazyev points out, the central banks of the BRICS nations are a major obstacle, as they insist that any arrangement has to maintain the central role of the dollar. For that reason, the discussion of his and similar proposals remains at the “technical” level, but has not yet been approved at the “political” level of heads of state and their Finance Ministers.
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Escobar asked him directly how his proposal has been received, and what the roadblocks are. His answer was blunt: “We presented it to Chinese experts, our partners at Renmin University. We had good feedback - but I did not have the opportunity to present it on a political level. Here in Russia, we promote the discussion via papers, conferences, seminars, but there’s still no political decision on introducing this mechanism even on the BRICS agenda. The proposal by our team of experts is to include it in the agenda of the BRICS summit next October in Kazan. The problem is the Russian Central Bank is not enthusiastic.”
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| While President Putin understands how serious the issue is, Glazyev said, he’s not sure if the Ministry of Finance does. As for Dilma Rousseff, the current head of the NDB, she was “rather enthusiastic and invited us to come to the NDB. But afterwards there was no follow-up.” |
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| | | The proposal made by Russian economist Sergey Glazyev is extremely important, and cannot be simply reduced to a “de-dollarization”, or a “replacement” of the dollar in international trade and as a reserve currency. What Glazyev presents above is nothing less than a credit system and is very similar to proposals for a reform of the international monetary system made by the late American economist Lyndon LaRouche. LaRouche insisted on the distinction between a mere “monetary” system, in which currency is used as a commodity, and a “credit” system, in which currency is subordinated to the capacity of the system to issue credit for development. Since a monetary system is incapable of generating credit, it is inherently unstable and produces recession and inflation. A credit system, by pegging the value of a currency to physical productivity, is a characteristic of healthy, prosperous economies.
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Whereas Glazyev's proposal goes in the right direction as concern the policy that the BRICS-centered alliance of nations must adopt in order to promote integration and development among themselves, we must not forget that many of those nations have major trade relations with the U.S., the EU, the UK, Japan and other nations, trade which is denominated in dollars, euros or yens. Therefore, those currencies will continue to have a role in international trade. Since it is not acceptable to have a world divided into blocs that wage commercial and financial warfare against one another, it is indispensable to think about how the principles of the emerging BRICS-centered new paradigm of development must be adopted by the West.
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In his 2000 essay On a Basket of Hard Commodities: Trade Without Currency, LaRouche addressed the proposal to replace the bankrupt, dollar-centered financial system with a system based on a basket of currencies. LaRouche warned that “as long as the IMF system, and its related attributes exist in their present form, the attempt to use a 'basket of currencies' as a substitute for the kind of role performed by the 1945-1963 U.S. dollar is not a remedy but a trap”.
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LaRouche then proposed two steps: first, to create regional blocs around institutions to protect from the worst consequences of the inevitable collapse of the system. One such proposal was to create an Asian Monetary Fund to promote “measures of hard-commodity forms of combined trade and long-term capital improvements among Asian nations”.
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Secondly, to wipe out a large part of global financial assets, based on derivatives and similar speculative claims, and to reorganize the system so as to provide credit to “resume and maintain levels of employment, consumption, and production, especially in hard-commodity categories” and to maintain rates of net growth in hard commodities and related infrastructure.
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This would mean that “many among the world's leading currencies will have to be either simply wiped from the accounts, or put through bankruptcy-reorganization under the authority of a new world system”. LaRouche proposed that a new system, based on a “basket of commodities”, should be created, such as that notion “implicitly underlies the relative success of the 1945-1965 fixed-exchange-rate monetary system”.
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“So, in a situation in which the hard-commodity content among currencies is fluctuating, one has still the option of constructing a synthetic unit of account which is based upon an agreed basket of hard commodities. Thereafter, as currencies fluctuate, it is the currencies not the commodities, which are given implicitly adjusted values, as based upon the basket of commodities used to define the unit.”
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| However, LaRouche went further, and enlarged the notion of “commodity” in a dynamic way. Consider, he wrote, “combined market-baskets of economic infrastructure (such as public works), combined with household consumption and with technologically progressive, hard-commodity forms of increasingly capital-intensive investments in capital goods of production and physical distribution, increases the relative productive powers of labor, as this is to be measured, in physical product, per capita and per square kilometer. It is that factor of rate of growth, as expressed in hard-commodity terms, which defines the appropriate notion of assignable economic value.” |
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| | | Trotz all der Ausrüstung, Berater und Gelder, die in den letzten zwei Jahren in den NATO-Krieg gegen Rußland gepumpt wurden, hat die Ukraine keine Chance zu gewinnen. Diese Tatsache wird von praktisch allen westlichen Beobachtern anerkannt, auch wenn die meisten führenden Politiker es nicht öffentlich zugeben wollen. Statt dessen verschärfen sie die Rhetorik gegen Rußland und Präsident Putin. Während die amerikanische Hilfe für Kiew deutlich reduziert wurde, sagte US-Verteidigungsminister Lloyd Austin am 29.2. vor dem Streitkräfteausschuß des Kongresses: „Offen gesagt, wenn die Ukraine fällt, glaube ich wirklich, daß die NATO in einen Kampf mit Rußland verwickelt wird.“
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Der französische Präsident Emmanuel Macron sorgte am 26.2. auf einer Konferenz mit hochrangigen Vertretern von 20 EU-Staaten über verstärkte Unterstützung der Ukraine für Aufregung, als er die Entsendung von Bodentruppen nicht ausschloß, weil „wir alles Notwendige tun müssen, um zu verhindern, daß Rußland gewinnt“. Obwohl fast alle anderen Regierungen dies sofort ablehnten, legte Macron am 29.2. nach und erklärte gegenüber Journalisten, er habe es ernst gemeint. Selbst sein Außenminister Stéphane Séjourné ist anderer Meinung, er sagte France Inter: „Wir werden keine Truppen schicken.“ Wie der slowakische Premierminister Robert Fico nach der Konferenz feststellte, fiel dort „nicht ein Wort über einen Friedensplan“.
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Am 1.3. sickerte dann der Mitschnitt eines Telefongesprächs zwischen hohen Bundeswehroffizieren durch, u.a. über den möglichen Einsatz deutscher Taurus-Marschflugkörper für einen Angriff auf die Kertsch-Brücke zwischen der Krim und dem russischen Festland sowie andere Ziele in Rußland wie Waffendepots (Hier im Wortlaut: https://www.anti-spiegel.ru/2024/das-transkript-des-gespraeches-der-luftwaffen-fuehrung/). Das deutsche Verteidigungsministerium bestätigte die Echtheit der Aufnahme. Die Generäle verrieten nebenbei, daß britisches, französisches und US-Personal bereits vor Ort in der Ukraine ist, um in der Bedienung der bereitgestellten Kurzstreckenraketen auszubilden. Bundeskanzler Scholz schloß jedoch trotz des Drucks Taurus-Lieferungen an Kiew aus (s.u.).
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Putin antwortete am 29.2. auf die Drohung, NATO-Truppen in die Ukraine und Waffen für Angriffe auf russisches Territorium zu entsenden: „Was sie jetzt tun, um die ganze Welt zu erschrecken, riskiert einen Konflikt mit Atomwaffen, der die Vernichtung der Zivilisation bedeutet. Verstehen sie das, oder was?“ Der stellv. NATO-Generalsekretär Mircea Geoana tat das offensichtlich nicht und meinte, daß Putin nur bluffe und „die Logik der psychologischen Einschüchterung“, aber nicht „echte Absichten“ zum Ausdruck bringe.
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Moskaus Warnungen wurden von der „utopischen“ Fraktion im Westen leichtfertig abgetan, die sich weiter an die Illusion klammert, daß die „unipolare Welt“ über Rußland und China siegen wird.
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| Das gleiche perverse Denken zeigt sich in der Südwestasien-Politik, mit der die transatlantische Welt den letzten Rest an Glaubwürdigkeit verliert, nicht nur durch die Unterstützung von Völkermord, sondern auch den Mangel an Friedensperspektiven. Dagegen fördert China diplomatische Initiativen für beide Regionen. Wenn der „Westen“ tatsächlich Chinas Einfluß in der Welt nicht stärken will, müßte er jetzt seine Politik radikal ändern. |
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