STRATEGIC ALERT NEWSLETTER
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| | | The world has never been closer to a nuclear war, in a global situation more dangerous than the Cuban missile crisis. Western leaders assure us it’s all Russia’s fault, but cover up the fact that the conflict in Ukraine has become a direct war of NATO against Russia since at least mid-September (cf. SAS 38/22). That escalation includes, as we reported last week, the call by the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces for the western alliance to use its “entire arsenal of means” against Russia, including nuclear weapons.
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On Sept. 21, President Putin announced a “partial” mobilization of Russia’s armed forces, and underscored Moscow’s intent, in the event of a threat to its territory and against its people, to “make use of all weapon systems at our disposal. It’s not bluff.” He also pointed out that some of Russia’s weapons are “more modern” than those of NATO. At the same time, as we know, it was announced that referendums would be held in four regions of Ukraine on whether or not to join the Russian Federation. If a majority of the population votes yes, and if and when Moscow effectively agrees to integrate them into the Russian Federation, any attack from Ukrainian or NATO forces on those regions, as Russian leaders have stated clearly, would be considered as an attack on Russia itself, and they would respond accordingly.
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Clearly, now is the time for the West to make every effort to arrive at a negotiated settlement. But, unfortunately, leaders of NATO member states reacted to these statements in the same arrogant way they have responded for decades to the demands and warnings from Moscow, i.e., by dismissing them offhand, with no further consideration.
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Thus, NATO secretary General Stoltenberg called Putin’s remarks “reckless rhetoric”, and the referendums “sham votes” that “do not have any legitimacy”. Ukraine’s puppet President Zelensky said that “Putin is bluffing”, while his senior adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told The Guardian that the West should carry out “nuclear strikes” on Russia’s launch sites, if Moscow “even thinks of carrying out nuclear strikes”, in other words preemptively. From Brussels, Commission President von der Leyen called for more of what has not worked until now, namely sanctions, a call that was supported by the EU’s foreign policy chief Borrell, who is convinced that “Putin is failing militarily”. President Biden told the UN that the U.S. would not respect the outcome of the referendums, after asserting, absurdly, that “no one has threatened Russia”.
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However, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, Admiral Charles Richard, admitted that he and his colleagues are now studying the implications of “potential direct armed conflict with a nuclear-capable peer... This is no longer theoretical.”
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| The only rational conclusion to draw is that the escalation must be stopped now, urgently. If NATO countries, but especially the United States, were to stop sending weapons and providing intelligence to their proxy in Kiev, the fighting would end almost immediately, and serious negotiations could begin. That is the sense of an open letter the Schiller Institute submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, co-signed by the Foundation to Battle Injustice. It calls on the UN to “guarantee an open and free debate on the need to establish a new international security and development architecture”, which takes into account the legitimate interests of every country on the planet. |
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| | | A sober assessment of the current danger was given in the Swiss weekly Weltwoche, in a Sept. 23 editorial by Roger Köppel. After reviewing the evolution of the confrontation with Russia, up to the acute danger we face today, Köppel notes that “The more the Americans and the Europeans get caught up in their feverish spiral of aggression, the longer, more global and more dangerous this war will become.”
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In his view, Europe would have to lead the way to peace, “restrain the Biden administration, set limits to the Ukrainians with their much-filmed charisma President Zelenskyy, who could fall victim to the Messiah syndrome. Risking a world war against Russia is madness. Peace negotiations are called for. Our politicians, our elites, our media are doing the opposite. They are racing full throttle to the wall. And have been for years now, demonstrably so.”
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On the geopolitical level, he charges further, our governments “have risked a nuclear war against Russia, not because Putin is crazy, but because they don’t take the Russians seriously, probably because of deep-seated racist prejudices, treat them disparagingly, and don’t give a damn about their interests, while, power-hungry and self-intoxicated, they put their own interests above everything else....
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“The demonization of Russia and Putin has become a substitute for thought and program, whipping up their own blindness and the general arrogance that blocks their view and the path to realism and peaceful coexistence.”
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| | | The good news about the general elections held on Sept. 25 in Italy is that voters have unequivocally punished Mario Draghi and his legacy; the bad news is that “Draghism”, while kicked out from the main door, might come back through the window.
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The elections were won by the center-right alliance, with 43.79% in the Chamber of Deputies and 44.2% in the Senate. Thanks to a “majority bonus”, the coalition ends up with a large majority in both houses (235 seats out of 400 in the Chamber and 112 out of 200 in the Senate). Within the center-right, Giorgia Meloni's Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) got the most votes as expected, with 25.99%, while its allies Lega scored 8.77%, Forza Italia 8.11% and a tiny moderate group 0.95%. In the Senate, Fdi got 26.01%, the Lega 8.85%, FI 8.27% and the “Moderates” 0.89%.
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The big success of FdI, which increased its votes sevenfold from the 2018 elections, is due to the simple fact that under the ruinous reign of the Draghi government, FdI was the only opposition party. Conversely, the Lega lost 50% of its 2018 votes because it had joined the Draghi government.
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The center-left suffered a historic debacle, mainly because they were the most enthusiastic supporters of the Draghi government, but also because Democratic Party leader Enrico Letta refused to ally with the Five Star Movement (M5S) and ran in a coalition with minor groups, such as the Greens and the pro-EU party “Più Europa”, plus the splinter group around former M5S leader and Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio. Thus, the center-left only received 26.13% and 80 seats in the Chamber and 25.99% and 51 seats in the Senate.
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The M5S, which ran alone under former PM Giuseppe Conte, got an unexpected 15.43% and 41 seats in the Chamber and an equally unexpected 15.55% and 28 seats in the Senate. That result is much lower than the whopping 32% in 2018, but still better than forecast, given the incompetence shown by its representatives in the government and by the fact that they too, had been part of the Draghi government. However, Conte had expressed his disagreement with Draghi on the Ukraine war and ultimately promised to maintain his “baby”, the so-called reddito di cittadinanza, or citizens' income, which all the other parties want to either cancel or reduce.
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A fourth group, born out of the merger of former PM Matteo Renzi's Italia Viva party and former minister Carlo Calenda's new party called Azione, failed to reach its goal of over 10%, which would have allowed them to play the kingmaker between the two blocs, receiving 7.79% in the Chamber and 7.73% in the Senate. This is worth reporting, as Renzi-Calenda had enjoyed overproportional media coverage and campaigned on a plan to bring back Mario Draghi as Prime minister.
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| The real winner of the elections, however, are the non-voters. Abstentionism was at the record-high level of 36%, with peaks of 50% in some Southern Italian regions. |
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| | | Italy experienced the fiercest foreign meddling in elections ever, with the possible exception of 1948, when her place in the western camp was at stake, threatened by a possible victory of the Popular Front.
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Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Fratelli d'Italia party and most probably the new Prime Minister, had outdone herself in swearing allegiance to NATO, to the U.S. and to Brussels. And yet, the mainstream media, think tanks and transatlantic political figures warned and warned of the danger of a center-right victory and the installation of Mrs. Meloni in Rome’s Palazzo Chigi.
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On the Ukraine conflict, Meloni claimed that she was more hawkish than Mario Draghi, he himself being among the most hawkish in the EU. She sent her emissary, Adolfo Urso, to Kiev to manifest her support for the Zelensky regime. And on election eve, in an interview with the Taiwan news agency CNA, she promised that, if elected, she would not renew the 2019 Memorandum of Understanding between Italy and China, or Italy's membership in the Belt and Road Initiative. On economic policy, another of her emissaries, Guido Crosetto, stated that her government would not deviate from EU-dictated rigor, but she would call on Draghi to help draft together the next budget plan.
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Apparently, this was not enough for the transatlantic elites. Exemplary is an analysis published Sept. 22 by the Atlantic Council, one of the leading Anglo-American think-tanks, which concluded that “there seems to be little concern about whether Italy will remain a solid transatlantic partner, but the big question mark looms over relations with Europe. Will Italy fight at any cost for a Europe whole and free, or will it simply squabble with other European countries? As the Italians say, non si sa -- no one knows.”
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Indeed, Meloni has been a close ally of Hungary's Victor Orban, with whom she and her party share the view that national law should have preeminence over European law. The perspective that Italy, the third largest EU member state, join forces with the tiny Hungary and maybe Poland in blocking the EU’s so-called “integration” process is a nightmare for Brussels, Paris and Berlin, so much so that Ursula von der Leyen literally issued threats on the eve of the vote, in the event of a center-right victory. Speaking in Princeton, she said: “We’ll see. If things go in a difficult direction — and I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland — we have the tools.”
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And a senior White House official had told reporters three days before that President Biden would “take measure of” the new Prime Minister and “make a determination about what it’s going to mean”.Even German Chancellor Olaf Scholz broke protocol one week before the vote, urging Italians not to vote for “Meloni's post-fascists who would lead the country in a wrong direction”.
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In the end, the only one who did not interfere in the Italian elections was Vladimir Putin! All this is unprecedented, showing the hysterical fear that Giorgia Meloni might, despite her assurances, be pushed by events and by her allies to get out of control.
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| Indeed, both Matteo Salvini (Lega) and Silvio Berlusconi (Forza Italia), have campaigned for a review of the sanctions on Russia, which have boomeranged on Europe and Italy, a major consumer of Russian gas. A few days before the vote, Berlusconi stated in a television spot that he is convinced that Putin's original intention with the military operation was “to replace Zelensky with decent people”. With their low election results, Salvini's and Berlusconi's weight in the coalition is not what they expected, but they know that the majority of Italians are against the sanctions, according to several polls, which is something the future Meloni government cannot simply ignore. |
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| | | Faced with double digit inflation and runaway cost of living, the United Kingdom is facing a very hot autumn under the leadership of what some investors call a “doomsday cult” . On Sept. 23, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and Prime Minister Liz Truss announced the government’s “mini budget”. It includes a tax cut for the rich, which will slash 45 billion pounds from state revenues, and an energy program which bails out the energy companies, while it foresees borrowing an extra 411 billion pounds over the next five years to fund “growth”. How the energy plan, which they optimistically claim will cost 60 billion, will be financed, was not presented.
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The announcement virtually immediately sent the pound plunging nearer to parity with the U.S.dollar (spot-trading at 1.0552 to the dollar on Sept. 27). Many in the City speculate that it could go below parity by the end of the year. At the same time, yields on government bonds spiked to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.
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This led Paul Donovan, chief economist of UBS, to comment in his Sept. 26 blog: “Advanced economy bond yields are not supposed to soar the way UK gilt yields rose. This also reminds investors that modern politics produces parties that are more extreme than either the voter or the investor consensus. Investors seem inclined to regard the UK Conservative Party as a doomsday cult.”
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According to British media, the Bank of England could intervene with a new interest rate hike beyond the current rate of 2.25% set less than one week ago.
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In addition to widespread worker actions (cf. SAS 38/22), British trade unions are attempting to put forward their own proposals. The Trade Union Congress has called for creating a nationalized energy company that could save each British household up to £4,400 annually, while giving the government between £63 billion and £122 billion in revenue over the next two years. In a Sept. 24 report, the TUC demonstrates that a “public energy champion” could own low-carbon energy projects including wind, solar, tidal and nuclear power. Excess profits generated by such a public company, which might be modeled after France’s EDF, could be deployed to cut bills and insulate homes, improving their energy efficiency.
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The study shows that a fully privatized energy generation market is responsible for the higher consumer bills, the non-modernization of the energy infrastructure and the shortage and lack of investment in the workforce. For TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady, “Privatization has led to higher bills and colder homes. We need a fairer, greener approach that stops energy companies using U.K. families like cash machines.”
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| Last July, the TUC made a proposal to nationalize five of the biggest energy companies, including E.ON, EDF, Scottish Power and Ovo, at an estimated cost of £2.85 billion. That would be far cheaper than bailing out private companies. |
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| | | Contradicting the German government’s narrative that “we have everything under control”, virtually all business associations, big and small, have sounded the alarm: the country may well be heading into an unprecedented economic disaster. The same could be said of all other European countries that have voluntarily cut themselves off from Russian gas supplies thought sanctions, coming on top of the suicidal Green Deal.
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Thus, a new survey by the Deutsche Bank has forecast a “deep recession” in 2023 for Europe. In a report issued Sept. 21, the bank’s chief economist Mark Wall admits that “the baseline call we made in July for a mild recession this winter is now too benign”. He and his team expect real gross domestic product (GDP) in the euro area to drop roughly 3% between mid-2022 and mid-2023. But they also admit that an “even sharper winter downturn cannot be ruled out”.
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Germany’s leading business daily Handelsblatt ran a devastating report Sept. 21 on the growing pressure on industry due to high energy prices, with numerous sectors already responding with production cutbacks to save gas and electricity. Logically, the energy-intensive sectors are most hard-hit and have cut production across the board: the steel industry by around 5% and the chemical industry by 8%. The fertilizer sector has even cut back or shut down 70% (!) of its generation capacity.
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Cuts on this scale are certainly one of the reasons why the underground gas storages are now filled to almost 90%, according to the government. Less production by industry means less gas consumption.
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“Experts expect that the rapid loss of competitiveness could permanently change the German economy”, wrote Handelsblatt, quoting Oliver Falck, head of the Ifo Center for Industrial Economics, as assessing that if energy prices remain so high over the long-term, some industries could decide to move out of Germany.
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That would mainly affect energy-intensive companies in the metal and chemical industries, for example, as well as basic industries such as oil, glass, ceramics and paper. Most of the industries hit had already suffered competitive disadvantages before the Ukraine war, but as Falck points out: "The current crisis is accelerating this process." As for the burden of inflation on companies, producer prices increased by a huge 45.8% in August compared to July – which is the largest increase since statistics began in 1949.
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| The problem could easily be alleviated, of course, by changing the failed energy policy. The government could, for example, take the definitive decision to keep the last three nuclear power plants running beyond their scheduled shutdown at the end of the year or next April. It could also reject the NATO war policy, and negotiate the opening up of Nord Stream 2. But that requires, as Lyndon LaRouche always used to say, the courage to break with one’s failed axioms. |
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| | | Lost in all the chatter about "defending Ukrainian democracy" coming from officials in the U.S. and U.K. governments and spokesmen for the European Union is a simple reality that these fraudsters are doing their best to keep hidden: the post-coup governments of Ukraine -- including that of Zelensky -- have moved to silence all domestic opposition, by shutting down press and media which do not parrot the NATO line, and by banning opposition political parties. Whether such a totalitarian policy of crushing all opposition is allowed to stand was challenged before the Ukraine Supreme Court on Sept. 27, when a hearing took place on the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine’s motion appealing the ban imposed by the Ministry of Justice. The Supreme Court upheld the ban.
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Accused by the government of being "anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia", the PSPU offices were raided in 2016 and documents seized, and leaders of the party have been subjected to threats and intimidation since then. In particular, the statement makes clear that the charges against them are a violation of Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits applying a law retroactively. In this case, the charges against the party refer to actions which were not illegal prior to the passage of new laws, which were then applied to past actions. The statement also argues that the prosecution of the PSPU violates the Ukrainian Constitution.
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On Sept. 15, the Supreme Court upheld the ruling which banned the Opposition Platform -- For Life Party (OPFL). This was the leading opposition party, receiving 13% of the vote in the 2019 elections and winning 44 seats in the Rada (Parliament), before it was banned. Its leader, Viktor Medvedchuk, was imprisoned until his release in a prisoner swap with Russia this week.
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The PSPU statement concludes by stating, "If the Supreme Court does not overturn the ruling...we believe that will mark the end of democracy in Ukraine." The Supreme Court did not overturn the ruling, but don't expect to hear any protests from the faux democrats using the government of Ukraine and its people as a battering ram against Russia. While Ukrainian government agencies are engaged in violent threats against, and executions of those deemed to be opponents of the regime, not only have NATO and EU officials been silent, but have been involved in the planning sessions to carry out these measures, in the name of "countering disinformation" (cf. SAS 31-36/22).
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| The complicity in such un-democratic tactics makes a mockery of the claims by NATO and EU officials that its citizens should be willing to "freeze for democracy" this winter. |
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| | | The United Nations General Assembly this year was largely overshadowed by the NATO-Russia conflict in Ukraine and the growing danger of a wider war. However, the developing nations did not go along with the Russia-bashing and secondarily the China-bashing tirades of a number of transatlantic leaders and their defense of the use of economic sanctions.
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U.S. President Biden delivered his standard line of defending democracy against autocracy, and blaming all the world’s woes on Russia. And while claiming to care about the development of poorer countries, he strongly criticized the Belt and Road Initiative carried out by China, the one nation that has been the most successful in lifting people out of poverty over the past decades.
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The U.S. President, however, was outdone in rhetoric by the United Kingdom’s new PM, Liz Truss. She discredited herself quite effectively in the beginning by claiming that “her late Majesty” Queen Elizabeth II “symbolized the post-war values” on which the UN was founded. She too pressed for systematic action to be taken against “authoritarian regimes”, not only with “sanctions, diplomatic action, and rapid military support”, but also on the economic front. “The G7 and our like-minded partners should act as an economic NATO, collectively defending our prosperity. If the economy of a partner is being targeted by an aggressive regime we should act to support them. All for one and one for all,” she proclaimed.
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She added, presumably to the amusement of anyone listening, that the “might of the City of London” would help provide funding for countries that need it.
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In contrast to such speeches, contributions from the Global South raised issues of real concern for their citizens. South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr. Pandor, stressed the importance for the UN to fully attend to “the needs of the marginalized and forgotten. Our greatest global challenges are poverty, inequality, joblessness, and feeling excluded. South Africa, like many other developing countries, faces huge developmental challenges, including in our energy sector.” Kenya’s President Ruto, and numerous other speakers, deplored the “undemocratic and unrepresentative” nature of the UN Security Council, called for long overdue reforms and argued for multilateralism.
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| Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez Fernandez addressed the stark inequality of the current world financial system, pointing in particular to the Coronavirus pandemic, which caused immense suffering in the developing sector. It brought to light, he said, the incredible inequality of the global system, where wealth is concentrated in a few hands, while the poor are left to die in poverty. “We had to beg” for vaccines, he recalled. Fernandez also described the Ukraine/Russia conflict as a war between “NATO and Russia”, whose victims are largely in the Global South. |
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| | | On Sept. 13, the government of Ukraine presented its proposed Kiev Security Compact, which demands NATO Article 5-type guarantees for Ukraine. That means, concretely, that NATO should directly deploy its full military might against Russia, on Ukraine’s behalf. The document was drafted by a working group on security co-chaired by Ukraine’s Chief of the Presidential Office Andrii Yermak and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Other unnamed “Western experts, including former and acting politicians and scientists” also participated in the working group, according to press accounts.
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Just one week before, on Sept. 7, the commander in chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, had co-authored a shocking article published on the Ukrainian news site Ukrinform, which claimed that there were indications that Russia was preparing a nuclear strike in Ukraine. Therefore, it is "extremely necessary ... any Russian attempts at practical steps in the use of tactical nuclear weapons must be preempted by employing the entire arsenal of means at the disposal of world powers."
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“The entire arsenal of means” clearly includes nuclear weapons. As EIR noted at the time, "such an outrageously dangerous and provocative article could never have been written, let alone published, without the prior approval of the U.S., U.K. and NATO forces running the war."
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This article appeared one day before the meeting at the U.S. Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, of the Ukraine Contact Group Meeting, which pledged more and better weapons for Ukraine, and was timed with the offensive by Kiev’s armed forces, planned and coordinated with NATO (cf. SAS 37/22).
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Then, last weekend, the Atlantic Council, Washington-based think tank funded by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, NATO, and the U.S. State Department, and which has played a leading role in openly promoting war against both Russia and China -- published a Memo to the President of the United States calling for precisely that policy of preemptive nuclear warfare. The author, Matthew Kroenig, writes that if the U.S. fails to "deter" Russia from using a nuclear weapon, the third option would be to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on Russia!
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We cannot repeat often enough that behind this talk of nuclear war by growing numbers of the so-called Western elite, rather than seeking a reasonable, negotiated settlement between Ukraine and Russia and, beyond that, the implementation of a new global security initiative, is the breakdown collapse of the transatlantic financial system, which represents the basis of their own power.
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| FLASH: The news came in, as we had finished this newsletter, that four regions in eastern and southern Ukraine will hold referendums within a few days on joining the Russian Federation. This will likely multiply the calls for nuclear strikes from among the lunatics. |
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