First Russia-China naval war games underway in Mediterranean

Neither Russia nor China has one inch of coastline on the Mediterranean Sea, making it an unlikely and provocative venue for their first joint naval war games.

The 10 days of maneuvers that got underway Monday will include live-fire exercises in the strategic sea connecting Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The point is lost on no one: A powerful new alliance of eastern giants is flexing its muscles in the very backyard of Western Europe — much as China has done on its own in the Pacific.

The war games follow Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow, where he headlined Victory Day celebrations and spent three days making billion-dollar deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia’s World War II allies mostly stayed away.

Russia has been driven into the arms of its communist neighbor by Western sanctions imposed for its role in the bloody Ukraine crisis. The United States and European Union have cut off Russia’s businesses and its government from international lending and provoked tit-for-tat trade embargoes that have hurt both sides.

Obama forced to concede new ‘international order’: Duowei

The rise of China and Russia is forcing the US president, Barack Obama, to concede the dawn of a new “international order” that is no longer controlled by the United States, reports Duowei News, an outlet run by overseas Chinese.

Delivering a commencement speech over the weekend at the US Military Academy at West Point, Obama said he would seek a new international order with more international cooperation, stronger international standards and institutions and alliances to help resolve challenges ranging from terrorism, nuclear proliferation, climate change to economic decline.

“Our adversaries would like to see America sap its strength by overextending our power,” Obama said. “So we have to shape an international order that can meet the challenges of our generation.”

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.