The Anti-Silk Road

BERLIN/BEIJING (Own report) – At this week’s Asia-Europe Meeting in Brussels, the EU will introduce a new “connectivity strategy” to counter China’s “New Silk Road.” As outlined by the EU’s head of foreign policy in September, the strategy is aimed at improving transportation infrastructure as well as digital and energy networks linking Asia and Europe. Beijing is also active in these domains in connection with its Silk Road initiative. Recently, Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs launched an initial thrust in this project. At the time, Minister of State Niels Annen (SPD) declared in Uzbekistan that social standards and human rights are “priorities” for Brussels. “This is what makes our offer different from China’s Belt and Road initiative.” For years, Germany had supported – even with military assistance – the Uzbek regime that was applying torture. Washington has also launched a new infrastructure initiative in Asia, to which US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that the USA is committed to “honest accords” and would “never seek dominance over the Indo-Pacific.”

The EU as Soviet lite: I’ve seen this movie before and it does not end well

After the Brexit and recent attacks against migrants in Britain I can’t get rid of the deja vu feeling. I’ve already watched this movie, a quarter century ago. I know how its ends.

In summer of 1989, the Lithuanian Sejm decided to withdraw from the Soviet Union and establish Lithuanian laws in the country. It was the beginning of the end for USSR — a giant corrupt monster, which for 70 years had bullied the world and its people under the pretense of communist ideology.

Intimidation and sanctions could not prevent the collapse. The fabricated artificial entity, thoroughly impregnated with falsehood and lies, fell apart like a house of cards.

Turkex: Time for NATO to wake up and smell the coffee; Moscow was the winner in coup drama

It is unsurprising that the world should be incredulous at the explanations given by the Turkish Government as to the origins, sponsors, and actions of the putsch which was attempted against it on the night of July 15-16, 2016. Indeed, the great difficulty is to avoid considering the “conspiracy theory” that the entire event had been orchestrated by President Reçep Tayyip Erdoğan himself.

The event was cut from whole cloth. It was too perfect, and the responses too complete. Its outcome could not have been more favorable to the president and his ambitions.

U.S. defense intelligence chief predicts increased ISIS attacks

Speaking to a security conference, Marine Corps Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart linked his warning to the militant group’s establishment of “emerging branches” in Mali, Tunisia, Somalia, Bangladesh and Indonesia.

Russian Media Outlets Slam Turkey: Discuss Option Of Nuclear Attack On It, Accuse President Erdogan Of Supporting ISIS

The Russian bear stamps out terror, but Erdogan prepares to stab it in the back (Sputniknews.com, November 24, 2015)

 

The Russian-Turkish conflict is reflected not only in the military, political and economic tension between the two countries but also in the Russian media, which expresses extreme hostility towards Turkey and its president.

This is evident, for example, in articles in English published recently on the Russian websites NEO[1] and Pravda.[2] One of these articles cites “a leading military expert” as saying that, in the event of a war between the two countries, “Russia will have to use nuclear weapons immediately, because the existence of the nation will be at stake.” The others focus on Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, presenting him as an enabler and supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS) and calling him a “madman” and a “murderer.” One even suggests that Turkey was “a prime mover in the [November 13] Paris attack.”

The following are excerpts from the articles.

Fear This Man

From time to time, there’s a must-read article worth posting in its entirety or a majority of it in tact. This is one of those articles.

 

Caption: Russian President Vladimir Putin (Yuri Kadobnov/AFP)

 

Those who underestimate Russia’s Vladimir Putin do so at their peril.

In the West, many see Russian President Vladimir Putin more as a schoolyard bully than a ruthless tyrant. He’s mischievous and unfriendly, but his behavior, we tell ourselves, is the result of insecurity. If we ignore him, he’ll grow out of it. Many are amused by and even admire Putin’s personality and behavior. He is the John Wayne of world politics: decisive, uncompromising and masculine. He is the antithesis of the soft, politically correct Western politician. He’s traditional, conservative and pragmatic in a world growing ever more liberal, secular and dangerously idealistic.

But we must not be deceived by Vladimir Putin.

What Russia is up to in Syria and the ‘progressive’ U.S. suicide

As oft said here, America is suiciding itself, and in more ways than this article states.

Note: As in other rare cases when an article deserves special recognition, a majority of this article will stay posted here. Still be sure to click the source link for the full article.

 

A new round of the “Great Game”* in Syria demonstrates not so much Moscow’s growing power, as the intellectual vacuum in the West.

Western leaders, the media and experts state the obvious: the Kremlin is trying to save Assad. Of course, yes, but principal points remain outside of the focus of their attention.

It is not only about Syria. It’s about two polar ideologies, two worldviews that are incompatible with each other.

Putin is turning the Syrian coast into another Crimea

 

For years, Russia has been helping Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad cling to a diminishing power structure in a shrinking territorial base without trying to impose an overall strategy.

Now, however, there are signs that Russia isn’t content to just support Assad. It wants to control Syria.

The Putin treatment is reserved for countries in Russia’s “near neighborhood” that try to break out of Moscow’s orbit and deprive it of strategic assets held for decades.

EX-CIA GOLDMAN ANALYST: ‘We are in an extraordinarily dangerous time right now’

Robert Dannenberg, who is also a 24-year CIA veteran, believes that Russia is the top strategic threat from a US perspective.

“We are in an extraordinarily dangerous time right now because both Russia and NATO are starting to exercise substantial military activity in close proximity to each other in Eastern Europe and the Baltics,” Dannenberg said in an interview included in a July 9 Goldman Sachs analyst note.

Dannenberg believes that there’s a high risk of an unintended escalation, and notes that “many of the channels of rapid military and intelligence communications that were carefully constructed during the Cold War have been dismantled, lamentably, mostly from the US side.” 

The Key to Understanding Russia

A 2009 article with relevancy for today:

 

What was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century?

…

The catalog of contenders runs long—but the answer is clear to Vladimir Putin. Russia’s strongman believes the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century was the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

The significance of that telling revelation is hard to overstate. That statement, made in his state of the union address in April 2005, provides an invaluable glimpse into the mind of the man who runs Russia. It lies at the core of current international relations, and it gives much-needed clarity and simplicity to the sometimes confusing and contradictory movements of Russia—the nation Winston Churchill identified as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

Putin’s statement furnishes a key to understanding Russia!

SCO awaits expansion

From the way things are shaping up, with a German-run Europe tilting towards Russia combined with Turkish involvement, it’s not difficult to see how a 200 million man army can be fielded, as prophesied in Revelation 9:16. Turkey comes into the fray as it aspires to be part of the EU bloc and is willing to offer large portions of its military in return. It likely won’t sit idly on its own and watch the EU form a new bloc with the SCO in some fashion.

This isn’t necessarily a prediction, but a possibility. However, one thing is clear: America is in suicidal decline and Europe wants NATO out. Europe, as mentioned by German political figures, can only have peace when it has peace with Russia. Peace with Russia also means giving NATO the boot as it has always wanted, which then leads to the Soviet capture of Europe (as NATO does Europe today) when it’s a combined force, which it in the larger scheme of things always also wanted.

 

 

The Secretary General of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Dmitry Mezentsev, said at the opening of the 10th session of the SCO Forum in Khanty-Mansiysk, that the SCO is entering a new period of increased efficiency and quality of the entire multi-tiered system of interaction mechanisms.

“It is expected that, during its further development, the SCO will correspond to the SCO Charter on the openness of the organization, and therefore the actual extension of the basic structure is on the agenda,” Mezentsev said.

Russia Is About To Absorb Part of Another Country

Surely, if this escalates into another war, the propaganda masters behind the last Russian-Georgian war will effectively paint tiny Georgia as the aggressor. The previous, long-planned and pre-determined 2008 Russian invasion of Georgia, that is. The next invasion would likely permanently take away the energy corridor from the Caspian Sea to Europe planned under the Bush/Cheney administration to bring independence. This is also why you see Europe frantically scrambling to find alternatives to Russian resources.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, it was never about an aggressive rogue military in a nation barely larger than Israel. But that’s what the masses believe and it goes to show how effective the propaganda is. You can read more about Georgia under its respective category HERE.

While Moscow continues to be hammered by low oil prices and western-led sanctions, it is doubling down on hard-edged political and financial retribution: Russia is preparing to absorb a province of neighboring Georgia, and delivering an ultimatum to Europe that it could lose much of the Russian gas on which it relies.

Ten months after annexing Crimea and igniting his current standoff with the west, Russian president Vladimir Putin will as early as this week take control of South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia, with which he has a long, sour relationship. He is to sign a little-publicized accord that will hand over foreign policy, border control, and security to Moscow.

The Galloping Militarization of Eurasia

Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the deployment of up to 40,000 troops on Ukraine’s border to support the actions of pro-Russian separatist forces have been widely identified as a turning point in the “post-Cold War” European security system. But Russia’s militarized policy toward Ukraine should not be seen as a spontaneous response to the crisis. It has only been possible thanks to a long-term program by Moscow to build up its military capabilities.

A 21ST CENTURY RUSSIAN MILITARY

To be a “great power” – which is the status that Moscow’s political elite claim for Russia – is to have both an international reach and regional spheres of influence. To achieve this, Moscow understands that it must be able to project military force, so the modernization of Russia’s armed forces has become a key element of its “great power” ambitions. For this reason, seven years ago, a politically painful and expensive military modernization program was launched to provide Russia with new capabilities. One of the key aims of this modernization has been to move the Russian military away from a mass mobilization army designed to fight a large-scale war (presumably against NATO) to the creation of smaller and more mobile combat-ready forces designed for local and regional conflicts.

The Elusive European Army

In both militarily intervention and investment in the defense industry, Europeans lack coordination and have lost credibility. Yet, after the French intervention in the Central African Republic, the issue has returned to the spotlight and will be discussed at the summit on December 19 and 20.

In 1991, the Belgian foreign minister of the time, Mark Eyskens, remarked on the EU’s incapacity to develop a common defence policy when he described Europe as “an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm.” In recent years, there is no denying that the EU has become more active in this field. But the grand and often expressed ambition for real investment in a common security and defence policy, which includes an independent military capacity, has yet to [sic] realised. And this continues to be the case at a time when global change is obliging Europeans to engage in a more serious consideration of security as an issue in common.

Turkey, Azerbaijan lead revival of modern Silk Road

Hundreds of high-level political figures, CEOs and international experts from around the world explored the economic, political and strategic potential of the region at the third Caspian Forum in Istanbul. Experts and politicians discussed the latest about the Caspian region, particularly efforts to transport its energy resources to an eager European market. Experts described the Caspian as the centre of trade relations between East and West and as the new centre of energy for the world.

Participants at the December 5th forum also discussed the latest on transportation projects designed to establish a modern Silk Road trade route that would link Asia and Europe. Turkey and Azerbaijan have been at the centre of those efforts.