Pentagon Confirms Unsafe Chinese Aerial Encounter

Congress criticizes Beijing’s aerial harassment of RC-135

After initially refusing to provide details, the Pentagon on Tuesday confirmed that a Chinese jet made an unsafe pass near a U.S. RC-135 surveillance jet last week.

“I can confirm for you that the department’s reviewing a report that came in from [U.S. Pacific Command] regarding a Sept. 15 intercept of a U.S. RC-135 by an aircraft from the People’s Republic of China,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters.

IMF fears ‘cascade’ of woes as Fed crunch nears

The United States is poised to raise rates much more sharply than markets expect, risking a potential storm for global asset prices and a dollar shock for much of the developing world, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

The IMF fears a “cascade of disruptive adjustments” as the US Federal Reserve finally pulls the trigger for the first time in eight years, ending an era of cheap and abundant dollar liquidity for the international system.

Welcome to the World Without the West

It’s become standard practice for U.S. officials to describe the future of Sino-American ties as the central drama of international politics. In early November, just ahead of President Obama’s summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, Secretary of State John Kerry told an audience in Washington that, “The U.S.-China relationship is the most consequential in the world today, period, and it will do much to determine the shape of the 21st century.” National Security Adviser Susan Rice took to the Twittersphere shortly after touching down in Beijing in September to reiterate the oft-repeated phrase that, “Most major global challenges of 21st century cannot be addressed effectively without U.S. and China working together.”

This isn’t just diplomatic courtesy; it’s a core signal of how American foreign-policy makers see the world. The dominant framing in Washington is that the United States and China will in the final analysis sink or swim together, and carry most of the rest of the world with them. If the two powers manage to get their relationship right and cooperate effectively, things go well; if they don’t, then the coming decades will be difficult to navigate for just about everyone.

World risks deflationary shock as BRICS puncture credit bubbles

The world is one financial downturn, one major terrorist attack or one regional war away from collapse. 9/11 happened when the U.S. was on the brink of another economic bubble whereas the downturn of 2008 was a bubble created during the Clinton years in which it was only a matter of time before it popped.

As matters stand, the next recession will push the Western economic system over the edge into deflation

Half the world economy is one accident away from a deflation trap. The International Monetary Fund says the probability may now be as high as 20pc.

It is a remarkable state of affairs that the G2 monetary superpowers – the US and China – should both be tightening into such a 20pc risk, though no doubt they have concluded that asset bubbles are becoming an even bigger danger.

Intelligence community: U.S. out as sole superpower by 2030

A new report by the intelligence community projects that the United States will no longer be the world’s only superpower by 2030.

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“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” — prepared by the office of the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — projects that the “unipolar” world that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union will not continue.