Target Russia. Target China. Target Iran |
Pepe ESCOBAR | 28.05.2016 >> Not
a day goes by without US Think Tankland doing what it does best;
pushing all sorts of scenarios for cold – and hot – war with Russia,
plus myriad confrontations with China and Iran.
That
fits into the Pentagon’s Top Five existential threats to the US, where
Russia and China sit at the very top and Iran is in fourth place – all
ahead of «terrorism» of the phony Daesh «Caliphate» variety.
Here
I have come up with some concise realpolitik facts to counterpunch the
hysteria – stressing how the Russian hypersonic missile advantage
renders useless the whole construct of NATO’s paranoid rhetoric and
bluster.
The
US Aegis defense system has been transferred from ships to land. The
Patriot missile defense system is worthless. Aegis is about 30% better
than the THAAD system; it may be more effective but their range is also
limited.
Aegis
is not a threat at all to Russia – for now. Yet as the system is
upgraded – and that may take years – it could cause Russia some serious
concern, as Exceptionalistan is increasingly pushing them eastward, so
near to Russia’s borders.
Anyway,
Russia is still light-years ahead in hypersonic missiles. The Pentagon
knows that against the S-500 system, the F-22, the awesomely expensive
F-35 and the B-2 stealth airplanes – stars of a trillion-dollar fighter
program – are totally obsolete.
So
it’s back to the same old meme: «Russian aggression», without which the
Pentagon cannot possibly fight for its divine right to be showered with
unlimited funds.
Washington
had 20,000 planners at work before WWII was ended, focused on the
reconstruction of Germany. Washington had only six after the destruction
of Iraq in 2003’s Shock and Awe.
That
was no incompetence; it was «Plan A» from the get-go. The former USSR
was deemed a mighty threat at the end of WWII – so Germany had to be
rebuilt. Iraq was a war of choice to grab oil fields – mixed with the
implementation of hardcore disaster capitalism. No one in Washington
ever cared or even wanted to rebuild it.
«Russian aggression» does not apply to Iraq; it’s all about Eastern Europe. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov anyway has made it clear that the deployment of the Aegis will be counterpunched in style – as even US corporate media starts to admit that the Russian economy is healing from the effects of the oil price war
.
Take a look at my liquid asssets
Here
my purpose was to show that China is not a House of Cards. Whatever the
real Chinese debt to GDP ratio – figures vary from as low as 23% to
220% – that is nothing for an economy the size of the Chinese,
especially because it is entirely internally controlled.
China
keeps over $3 trillion in US dollars and other Western currencies in
reserves while it gradually delinks its economy from the real House of
Cards: the US dollar economy.
So
under these circumstances what does foreign debt mean? Not much. China
could – although they don't do it yet – produce more yuan and buy back
their debt, as much as the US with quantitative easing (QE) and the
European Central Bank (ECB) as it asks certain 'favorite countries'
(strong NATO supporters) to produce more than their share of euros.
And
yet Beijing doesn't really need to do this. China, Russia, the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO) and what's left of the BRICS (Brazil is
on hold until at least 2018) are slowly but surely forging their own
internal currency and currency transfer system (in China and Russia it
works already internally) to sideline SWIFT and the Bank of
International Settlements (BIS).
When
they are ready to roll it out for the rest of the world to join them,
then US dollar-based foreign debt will be meaningless.
US Think Tankland, as usual, remains clueless. As one of my Chinese sources explains, «whenever
a Western big mouth mentions China's debt ‘problem’ they quote a figure
that seems to come out of thin air, and it includes all debts, central,
provincial, city government levels, estimated all corporate debts,
loans from banks outside China. Meanwhile, they compare this total
number in China with those of Western countries and Japan's central
government debt alone».
The source adds,
«China is operating with a balance sheet of the equivalent to $60
trillion.
Loans from external sources is in the $11 trillion range while
cash and equivalent is in the $3.6-4 trillion range. All this cash – or
very liquid asset – is the biggest discretionary force in the hands of
China's leaders while nothing worth mentioning is in the hands of any
other Western government».
Not
to mention that globally, Beijing is betting on what the World Economic
Forum calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution. China is already the
central hub for global production, supply, logistics and value chain.
Which leads us to One Belt, One Road (OBOR); all roads lead to the
Chinese-driven New Silk Roads, which will connect, deeper and deeper,
China’s economy and infrastructure all across Eurasia. OBOR will
simultaneously expand China’s global power while geopolitically
counterpunching the so far ineffective «pivot to Asia» – Pentagon
provocations in the South China Sea included – and improving China’s
energy security.
Sanctions, like diamonds, are forever
Another major Exceptionalistan fictional narrative is that the US is «worried» about
the inability of European banks to do business in Iran. That’s
nonsense; in fact, it’s the US Treasury Department that is scaring the
hell out of any European bank who dares to do business with Tehran.
India and Iran have struck a $500 million landmark deal
to develop the Iranian port of Chabahar – a key node in what could be
dubbed the New India-Iran Silk Road, connecting India to Central Asia
via Iran and Afghanistan.
Immediately
afterwards the US State Department has the gall to announce that the
deal will be «examined» – as the proverbial Israeli-firster US senators
question whether the deal violates those lingering sanctions against
Iran that refuse to go away. This happens in parallel to a mounting
official narrative of «unrest» contaminating former Soviet republics in
Central Asia – especially Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. CIA-paid hacks
should know those sources of unrest well – as the CIA itself is
fomenting it.
India
doing business with Iran is «suspicious». On the other hand, India is
more than allowed to formalize a historic military cooperation deal with
the US hazily dubbed the «Logistics Support Agreement» (LSA) –
according to which the two militaries may use each other’s land, air and
naval bases for resupplies, repairs and vaguely-defined «operations».
So
it’s all hands on deck all over Exceptionalistan to counter Russia,
China and prevent any real normalization with Iran. These localized
offensives – practical and rhetorical – on all fronts always mean one
thing, and one thing only; splitting and fracturing, by all means
necessary, the OBOR Eurasian integration. Bets can be made that Moscow,
Beijing and Tehran simply won’t be fooled. >> http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/05/28/target-russia-target-china-target-iran.html
Wall Street On Parade has posted a new item: "The Rich Can Relax": Barron’s Says “The Stock Market Won’t Crash – Yet” By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 2, 2016 | In 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote: “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” One thing that makes the rich different is that they will pay $5 for the May 30 issue of Barron’s, which is dispensing the peculiarly [...]
SIDEBAR: Wall Street is going to crash but, on the terms of China, Iran and Russia. These powers in blue planet earth know full well exactly how to take down the evil empire -- the past isn't a new reality in evil empire truths. Ask any of the past dictators who ruled in the earth empires as the named. Maybe the species Homo~Sapiens can dream a new working model for the life in a galaxy which is genuinely not interested in the concept of "money" ... to be continued ....
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The Unconscious Synapses Alright USA Wall Street and PUBLIC EMPLOYEES' RETIREMENT SYSTEM not to be an investment for the NEW SILK ROAD pleaaaaasssseeeee!!!!!
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