I think you're right, Miriam. I'm saving this one for future
reference. If this article depicts a scenario even close to what is
developing, it makes good sense out of some of the crazy actions of
the Corporate Empire. It is safe to predict that regardless, there
will be no winners.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/24/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
This, I think, is an important article.
Miriam
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > How China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington's Designs
to
Control the Planet
________________________________________
How China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington's Designs to
Control the Planet
By Pepe Escobar [1] / TomDispatch [2]
July 23, 2015
Let's start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one
that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: from now on, any
possible future attack [3] on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in
conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of
an
interlocking set of organizations -- the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia,
India, China, and South Africa), the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation
Organization), the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), the AIIB (the new
Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), and the NDB (the
BRICS' New Development Bank) -- whose acronyms you're unlikely to recognize
either. Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.
Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, and New Delhi have been actively
establishing interlocking security guarantees. They have been
simultaneously
calling the Atlanticist bluff when it comes to the endless drumbeat of
attention given to the flimsy meme of Iran's "nuclear weapons program."
And
a few days before the Vienna nuclear negotiations finally culminated in an
agreement, all of this came together at a twin BRICS/SCO summit in Ufa,
Russia -- a place you've undoubtedly never heard of and a meeting that got
next to no attention in the U.S. And yet sooner or later, these
developments will ensure that the War Party in Washington and assorted
neocons (as well as neoliberalcons) already breathing hard over the Iran
deal will sweat bullets as their narratives about how the world works
crumble.
The Eurasian Silk Road
With the Vienna deal, whose interminable build-up I had the dubious
pleasure
[4] of following closely, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his
diplomatic team have pulled the near-impossible out of an extremely
crumpled
magician's hat: an agreement that might actually end sanctions against
their
country from an asymmetric, largely manufactured conflict.
Think of that meeting in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Bashkortostan, as a
preamble to the long-delayed agreement in Vienna. It caught the new
dynamics
of the Eurasian continent and signaled the future geopolitical Big Bangness
of it all. At Ufa, from July 8th to 10th, the 7th BRICS summit and the 15th
Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit overlapped just as a possible
Vienna deal was devouring one deadline after another.
Consider it a diplomatic masterstroke of Vladmir Putin's Russia to have
merged those two summits with an informal meeting of the Eurasian Economic
Union (EEU). Call it a soft power declaration of war against Washington's
imperial logic, one that would highlight the breadth and depth of an
evolving Sino-Russian strategic partnership. Putting all those heads of
state attending each of the meetings under one roof, Moscow offered a
vision
of an emerging, coordinated geopolitical structure anchored in Eurasian
integration. Thus, the importance of Iran: no matter what happens
post-Vienna, Iran will be a vital hub/node/crossroads in Eurasia for this
new structure.
If you read [5] the declaration that came out of the BRICS summit, one
detail should strike you: the austerity-ridden European Union (EU) is
barely
mentioned. And that's not an oversight. From the point of view of the
leaders of key BRICS nations, they are offering a new approach to Eurasia,
the very opposite of the language of sanctions [6].
Here are just a few examples of the dizzying activity that took place at
Ufa, all of it ignored by the American mainstream media. In their meetings,
President Putin, China's President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi worked in a practical way to advance [7] what is essentially
a
Chinese vision of a future Eurasia knit together by a series of
interlocking
"new Silk Roads." Modi approved more Chinese investment in his country,
while Xi and Modi together pledged to work to solve the joint border issues
that have dogged their countries and, in at least one case, led to war.
The NDB, the BRICS' response to the World Bank, was officially launched
with
$50 billion in start-up capital. Focused on funding major infrastructure
projects in the BRICS nations, it is capable of accumulating as much as
$400
billion in capital, according to its president, Kundapur Vaman Kamath.
Later, it plans to focus on funding such ventures in other developing
nations across the Global South -- all in their own currencies, which means
bypassing the U.S. dollar. Given its membership, the NDB's money will
clearly be closely linked to the new Silk Roads. As Brazilian Development
Bank President Luciano Coutinho stressed [8], in the near future it may
also
assist European non-EU member states like Serbia and Macedonia. Think of
this as the NDB's attempt to break a Brussels monopoly on Greater Europe.
Kamath even advanced the possibility of someday aiding [9] in the
reconstruction of Syria.
You won't be surprised to learn that both the new Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank and the NDB are headquartered in China and will work to
complement each other's efforts. At the same time, Russia's foreign
investment arm, the Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), signed a memorandum of
understanding with funds from other BRICS countries and so launched an
informal investment consortium in which China's Silk Road Fund and India's
Infrastructure Development Finance Company will be key partners.
Full Spectrum Transportation Dominance
On the ground level, this should be thought of as part of the New Great
Game
in Eurasia. Its flip side is the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Pacific
and the Atlantic version of the same, the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment
Partnership, both of which Washington is trying to advance to maintain U.S.
global economic dominance. The question these conflicting plans raise is
how
to integrate trade and commerce across that vast region. From the Chinese
and Russian perspectives, Eurasia is to be integrated via a complex network
of superhighways, high-speed rail lines, ports, airports, pipelines, and
fiber optic cables. By land, sea, and air, the resulting New Silk Roads are
meant to create an economic version of the Pentagon's doctrine of "Full
Spectrum Dominance" -- a vision that already has Chinese corporate
executives crisscrossing Eurasia sealing infrastructure deals.
For Beijing -- back to a 7% growth rate [10] in the second quarter of 2015
despite a recent near-panic on the country's stock markets -- it makes
perfect economic sense: as labor costs rise, production will be relocated
from the country's Eastern seaboard to its cheaper Western reaches, while
the natural outlets for the production of just about everything will be
those parallel and interlocking "belts" of the new Silk Roads.
Meanwhile, Russia is pushing to modernize and diversify its
energy-exploitation-dependent economy. Among other things, its leaders hope
that the mix of those developing Silk Roads and the tying together of the
Eurasian Economic Union -- Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and
Kyrgyzstan -- will translate into myriad transportation and construction
projects for which the country's industrial and engineering know-how will
prove crucial.
As the EEU has begun establishing free trade zones with India, Iran,
Vietnam, Egypt, and Latin America's Mercosur bloc (Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela), the initial stages of this integration
process already reach beyond Eurasia. Meanwhile, the SCO, which began as
little more than a security forum, is expanding and moving into the field
of
economic cooperation. Its countries, especially four Central Asian "stans"
(Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) will rely ever more on
the Chinese-driven Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the NDB.
At Ufa, India and Pakistan finalized an upgrading process in which they
have
moved from observers to members of the SCO. This makes it an alternative
G8.
In the meantime, when it comes to embattled Afghanistan, the BRICS nations
and the SCO have now called upon "the armed opposition to disarm, accept
the
Constitution of Afghanistan, and cut ties with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other
terrorist organizations." Translation: within the framework of Afghan
national unity, the organization would accept the Taliban as part of a
future government. Their hopes, with the integration of the region in mind,
would be for a future stable Afghanistan able to absorb more Chinese,
Russian, Indian, and Iranian investment, and the construction -- finally!
--
of a long-planned, $10 billion, 1,420-kilometer-long
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline that would
benefit those energy-hungry new SCO members, Pakistan and India. (They
would
each receive 42% of the gas, the remaining 16% going to Afghanistan.)
Central Asia is, at the moment, geographic ground zero for the convergence
of the economic urges of China, Russia, and India. It was no happenstance
that, on his way to Ufa, Prime Minister Modi stopped off in Central Asia.
Like the Chinese leadership in Beijing, Moscow looks forward (as a recent
document [11] puts it) to the "interpenetration and integration of the EEU
and the Silk Road Economic Belt" into a "Greater Eurasia" and a "steady,
developing, safe common neighborhood" for both Russia and China.
And don't forget Iran [12]. In early 2016, once economic sanctions are
fully
lifted, it is expected to join the SCO, turning it into a G9. As its
foreign
minister, Javad Zarif, made clear recently to Russia's Channel 1
television,
Tehran considers the two countries strategic partners. "Russia," he said,
"has been the most important participant in Iran's nuclear program and it
will continue under the current agreement to be Iran's major nuclear
partner." The same will, he added, be true when it comes to "oil and gas
cooperation," given the shared interest of those two energy-rich nations in
"maintaining stability in global market prices."
Got Corridor, Will Travel
Across Eurasia, BRICS nations are moving on integration projects. A
developing Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor is a typical
example. It is now being reconfigured as a multilane highway between India
and China. Meanwhile, Iran and Russia are developing a transportation
corridor from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the Caspian Sea and
the Volga River. Azerbaijan will be connected to the Caspian part of this
corridor, while India is planning to use Iran's southern ports to improve
its access to Russia and Central Asia. Now, add in a maritime corridor that
will stretch from the Indian city of Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bandar
Abbas and then on to the southern Russian city of Astrakhan. And this just
scratches the surface of the planning underway.
Years ago, Vladimir Putin suggested that there could be a "Greater Europe"
stretching from Lisbon, Portugal, on the Atlantic to the Russian city of
Vladivostok on the Pacific. The EU, under Washington's thumb, ignored him.
Then the Chinese started dreaming about and planning new Silk Roads that
would, in reverse Marco Polo fashion, extend from Shanghai to Venice (and
then on to Berlin).
Thanks to a set of cross-pollinating political institutions, investment
funds, development banks, financial systems, and infrastructure projects
that, to date, remain largely under Washington's radar, a free-trade
Eurasian heartland is being born. It will someday link China and Russia to
Europe, Southwest Asia, and even Africa. It promises to be an astounding
development. Keep your eyes, if you can, on the accumulating facts on the
ground, even if they are rarely covered in the American media. They
represent the New Great -- emphasis on that word -- Game in Eurasia.
Location, Location, Location
Tehran is now deeply invested in strengthening its connections to this new
Eurasia and the man to watch on this score is Ali Akbar Velayati. He is the
head of Iran's Center for Strategic Research and senior foreign policy
adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Velayati stresses [13] that
security in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the
Caucasus hinges on the further enhancement of a Beijing-Moscow-Tehran
triple
entente.
As he knows, geo-strategically Iran is all about location, location,
location. That country offers the best access to open seas in the region
apart from Russia and is the only obvious east-west/north-south crossroads
for trade from the Central Asian "stans." Little wonder then that Iran will
soon be an SCO member, even as its "partnership" with Russia is certain to
evolve. Its energy resources are already crucial to and considered a matter
of national security for China and, in the thinking of that country's
leadership, Iran also fulfills a key role as a hub in those Silk Roads they
are planning.
That growing web of literal roads, rail lines, and energy pipelines, as
TomDispatch [14] has previously reported [15], represents Beijing's
response
to the Obama administration's announced "pivot to Asia" and the U.S. Navy's
urge to meddle in the South China Sea. Beijing is choosing to project power
[16] via a vast set of infrastructure projects, especially high-speed rail
lines [17] that will reach from its eastern seaboard deep into Eurasia. In
this fashion, the Chinese-built railway from Urumqi in Xinjiang Province to
Almaty in Kazakhstan will undoubtedly someday be extended to Iran and
traverse that country on its way to the Persian Gulf.
A New World for Pentagon Planners
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month, Vladimir
Putin told [18] PBS's Charlie Rose that Moscow and Beijing had always
wanted
a genuine partnership with the United States, but were spurned by
Washington. Hats off, then, to the "leadership" of the Obama
administration.
Somehow, it has managed to bring together two former geopolitical rivals,
while solidifying their pan-Eurasian grand strategy.
Even the recent deal with Iran in Vienna is unlikely -- especially given
the
war hawks in Congress -- to truly end Washington's 36-year-long Great Wall
of Mistrust with Iran. Instead, the odds are that Iran, freed from
sanctions, will indeed be absorbed into the Sino-Russian project to
integrate Eurasia, which leads us to the spectacle of Washington's
warriors,
unable to act effectively, yet screaming like banshees.
NATO's supreme commander Dr. Strangelove, sorry, American General Philip
Breedlove, insists that the West must create [19] a rapid-reaction force --
online -- to counteract Russia's "false narratives." Secretary of Defense
Ashton Carter claims to be seriously considering [20] unilaterally
redeploying nuclear-capable missiles in Europe. The nominee to head the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Commandant Joseph Dunford, recently directly
labeled [21] Russia America's true "existential threat"; Air Force General
Paul Selva, nominated to be the new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
seconded [22] that assessment, using the same phrase and putting Russia,
China and Iran, in that order, as more threatening than the Islamic State
(ISIS). In the meantime, Republican presidential candidates and a bevy of
congressional war hawks simply shout and fume when it comes to both the
Iranian deal and the Russians.
In response to the Ukrainian situation and the "threat" of a resurgent
Russia (behind which stands a resurgent China), a Washington-centric
militarization of Europe is proceeding apace. NATO is now reportedly
obsessed with what's being called [23] "strategy rethink" -- as in drawing
up detailed futuristic war scenarios on European soil. As economist Michael
Hudson has pointed out [24], even financial politics are becoming
militarized and linked to NATO's new Cold War 2.0.
In its latest National Military Strategy [25], the Pentagon suggests that
the risk of an American war with another nation (as opposed to terror
outfits), while low, is "growing" and identifies [26] four nations as
"threats": North Korea, a case apart, and predictably the three nations
that
form the new Eurasian core: Russia, China, and Iran. They are depicted in
the document as "revisionist states," openly defying what the Pentagon
identifies as "international security and stability"; that is, the
distinctly un-level playing field created by globalized, exclusionary,
turbo-charged casino capitalism and Washington's brand of militarism.
The Pentagon, of course, does not do diplomacy. Seemingly unaware of the
Vienna negotiations, it continued to accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear
weapons. And that "military option" against Iran is never [27] off the
table.
So consider it the Mother of All Blockbusters to watch how the Pentagon and
the war hawks in Congress will react to the post-Vienna and -- though it
was
barely noticed in Washington -- the post-Ufa environment, especially under
a
new White House tenant in 2017.
It will be a spectacle. Count on it. Will the next version of Washington
try to make it up to "lost" Russia or send in the troops? Will it contain
China or the "caliphate" of ISIS? Will it work with Iran to fight ISIS or
spurn it? Will it truly pivot to Asia for good and ditch the Middle East or
vice-versa? Or might it try to contain Russia, China, and Iran
simultaneously or find some way to play them against each other?
In the end, whatever Washington may do, it will certainly reflect a fear of
the increasing strategic depth Russia and China are developing
economically,
a reality now becoming visible across Eurasia. At Ufa, Putin told Xi on the
record: "Combining efforts, no doubt we [Russia and China] will overcome
all
the problems before us."
Read "efforts" as new Silk Roads, that Eurasian Economic Union, the growing
BRICS block, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those
China-based banks, and all the rest of what adds up to the beginning of a
new integration of significant parts of the Eurasian land mass. As for
Washington, fly like an eagle? Try instead: scream like a banshee.
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is
"Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009)." He may be reached at
pepeasia@xxxxxxxxx [28].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [29]
[30]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/how-china-and-russia-are-running-rings-around-
washingtons-designs-control-planet
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/pepe-escobar
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[3]
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/247864-pentagon-chief-to-allies-we-will-us
e-military-option-against-iran-if-necessary
[4] http://atimes.com/category/pepe-escobar/
[5] http://mea.gov.in/Uploads/PublicationDocs/25448_Declaration_eng.pdf
[6] http://rt.com/news/272764-brazil-rousseff-brics-result/
[7]
http://russia-insider.com/en/news-conference-vladimir-putin-following-brics-
and-shanghai-cooperative-summits/ri8665
[8]
https://soundcloud.com/radiosputnik/brics2015-ndb-new-source-of-support-luci
ano-coutinho-bndes-president
[9] http://sputniknews.com/business/20150708/1024384989.html
[10]
http://www.ibtimes.com/chinas-q2-gdp-growth-stable-7-exports-housing-sales-p
ick-growth-investment-2008965
[11]
http://www.scribd.com/doc/267511978/Toward-the-Great-Ocean-3-Creating-Centra
l-Eurasia
[12] http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150716/1024715212.html
[13] http://www.khabaronline.ir/detail/367227/Politics/diplomacy
[14]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176007/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy,_washington%2
7s_great_game_and_why_it%27s_failing_/
[15]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175935/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar,_eurasian_int
egration_vs._the_empire_of_chaos/
[16]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bensimpfendorfer/2015/06/15/chinas-silk-road-pol
icy-implications/
[17] http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/06/china-high-speed-rail-roundup.html
[18]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/watch-live-charlie-rose-interviews-vladi
mir-putin/
[19]
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/03/22/nato-command
er-west-must-fight-russia-in-information-war/25178383/
[20]
http://www.dw.com/en/us-could-potential-deploy-missiles-in-europe-to-deter-r
ussia/a-18497133
[21]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/joint-chiefs-chairman-nominee-says-russia-is-top
-military-threat-1436463896
[22]
http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/07/russia-not-isis-greatest-threat-u
s-general/117733/
[23]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/06/us-ukraine-crisis-nato-insight-idU
SKCN0PG18E20150706
[24] http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42330.htm
[25]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176026/.%2520Forget%2520about%2520Eurasian%2
520integration.%2520For%2520the%2520Pentagon,%2520the%2520only%2520foreseeab
le%2520future%2520is%2520death%2520and%2520destruction%2520%25E2%2580%2593%2
520be%2520it%2520asymmetrical,%2520preemptive,%2520first%2520strike,%2520Pro
mpt%2520Global%2520Strike%2520%28PGS%29.
[26]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/2015_National_Military_Strategy.pdf
[27]
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/07/15/420377/US-Iran-nuclear-conclusion-nu
clera-deal-Vienna-Israel-Ash-Carter
[28] mailto:pepeasia@xxxxxxxxx
[29] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on How China and Russia
Are Running Rings Around Washington's Designs to Control the Planet
[30] http://www.alternet.org/
[31] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > How China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington's Designs
to
Control the Planet
How China and Russia Are Running Rings Around Washington's Designs to
Control the Planet
By Pepe Escobar [1] / TomDispatch [2]
July 23, 2015
Let's start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one
that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: from now on, any
possible future attack [3] on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in
conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of
an
interlocking set of organizations -- the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia,
India, China, and South Africa), the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation
Organization), the EEU (Eurasian Economic Union), the AIIB (the new
Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank), and the NDB (the
BRICS' New Development Bank) -- whose acronyms you're unlikely to recognize
either. Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.
Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, and New Delhi have been actively
establishing interlocking security guarantees. They have been
simultaneously
calling the Atlanticist bluff when it comes to the endless drumbeat of
attention given to the flimsy meme of Iran's "nuclear weapons program." And
a few days before the Vienna nuclear negotiations finally culminated in an
agreement, all of this came together at a twin BRICS/SCO summit in Ufa,
Russia -- a place you've undoubtedly never heard of and a meeting that got
next to no attention in the U.S. And yet sooner or later, these
developments
will ensure that the War Party in Washington and assorted neocons (as well
as neoliberalcons) already breathing hard over the Iran deal will sweat
bullets as their narratives about how the world works crumble.
The Eurasian Silk Road
With the Vienna deal, whose interminable build-up I had the dubious
pleasure
[4] of following closely, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his
diplomatic team have pulled the near-impossible out of an extremely
crumpled
magician's hat: an agreement that might actually end sanctions against
their
country from an asymmetric, largely manufactured conflict.
Think of that meeting in Ufa, the capital of Russia's Bashkortostan, as a
preamble to the long-delayed agreement in Vienna. It caught the new
dynamics
of the Eurasian continent and signaled the future geopolitical Big Bangness
of it all. At Ufa, from July 8th to 10th, the 7th BRICS summit and the 15th
Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit overlapped just as a possible
Vienna deal was devouring one deadline after another.
Consider it a diplomatic masterstroke of Vladmir Putin's Russia to have
merged those two summits with an informal meeting of the Eurasian Economic
Union (EEU). Call it a soft power declaration of war against Washington's
imperial logic, one that would highlight the breadth and depth of an
evolving Sino-Russian strategic partnership. Putting all those heads of
state attending each of the meetings under one roof, Moscow offered a
vision
of an emerging, coordinated geopolitical structure anchored in Eurasian
integration. Thus, the importance of Iran: no matter what happens
post-Vienna, Iran will be a vital hub/node/crossroads in Eurasia for this
new structure.
If you read [5] the declaration that came out of the BRICS summit, one
detail should strike you: the austerity-ridden European Union (EU) is
barely
mentioned. And that's not an oversight. From the point of view of the
leaders of key BRICS nations, they are offering a new approach to Eurasia,
the very opposite of the language of sanctions [6].
Here are just a few examples of the dizzying activity that took place at
Ufa, all of it ignored by the American mainstream media. In their meetings,
President Putin, China's President Xi Jinping, and Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi worked in a practical way to advance [7] what is essentially
a
Chinese vision of a future Eurasia knit together by a series of
interlocking
"new Silk Roads." Modi approved more Chinese investment in his country,
while Xi and Modi together pledged to work to solve the joint border issues
that have dogged their countries and, in at least one case, led to war.
The NDB, the BRICS' response to the World Bank, was officially launched
with
$50 billion in start-up capital. Focused on funding major infrastructure
projects in the BRICS nations, it is capable of accumulating as much as
$400
billion in capital, according to its president, Kundapur Vaman Kamath.
Later, it plans to focus on funding such ventures in other developing
nations across the Global South -- all in their own currencies, which means
bypassing the U.S. dollar. Given its membership, the NDB's money will
clearly be closely linked to the new Silk Roads. As Brazilian Development
Bank President Luciano Coutinho stressed [8], in the near future it may
also
assist European non-EU member states like Serbia and Macedonia. Think of
this as the NDB's attempt to break a Brussels monopoly on Greater Europe.
Kamath even advanced the possibility of someday aiding [9] in the
reconstruction of Syria.
You won't be surprised to learn that both the new Asian Infrastructure
Investment Bank and the NDB are headquartered in China and will work to
complement each other's efforts. At the same time, Russia's foreign
investment arm, the Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), signed a memorandum of
understanding with funds from other BRICS countries and so launched an
informal investment consortium in which China's Silk Road Fund and India's
Infrastructure Development Finance Company will be key partners.
Full Spectrum Transportation Dominance
On the ground level, this should be thought of as part of the New Great
Game
in Eurasia. Its flip side is the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the Pacific
and the Atlantic version of the same, the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment
Partnership, both of which Washington is trying to advance to maintain U.S.
global economic dominance. The question these conflicting plans raise is
how
to integrate trade and commerce across that vast region. From the Chinese
and Russian perspectives, Eurasia is to be integrated via a complex network
of superhighways, high-speed rail lines, ports, airports, pipelines, and
fiber optic cables. By land, sea, and air, the resulting New Silk Roads are
meant to create an economic version of the Pentagon's doctrine of "Full
Spectrum Dominance" -- a vision that already has Chinese corporate
executives crisscrossing Eurasia sealing infrastructure deals.
For Beijing -- back to a 7% growth rate [10] in the second quarter of 2015
despite a recent near-panic on the country's stock markets -- it makes
perfect economic sense: as labor costs rise, production will be relocated
from the country's Eastern seaboard to its cheaper Western reaches, while
the natural outlets for the production of just about everything will be
those parallel and interlocking "belts" of the new Silk Roads.
Meanwhile, Russia is pushing to modernize and diversify its
energy-exploitation-dependent economy. Among other things, its leaders hope
that the mix of those developing Silk Roads and the tying together of the
Eurasian Economic Union -- Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and
Kyrgyzstan -- will translate into myriad transportation and construction
projects for which the country's industrial and engineering know-how will
prove crucial.
As the EEU has begun establishing free trade zones with India, Iran,
Vietnam, Egypt, and Latin America's Mercosur bloc (Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela), the initial stages of this integration
process already reach beyond Eurasia. Meanwhile, the SCO, which began as
little more than a security forum, is expanding and moving into the field
of
economic cooperation. Its countries, especially four Central Asian "stans"
(Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) will rely ever more on
the Chinese-driven Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the NDB.
At Ufa, India and Pakistan finalized an upgrading process in which they
have
moved from observers to members of the SCO. This makes it an alternative
G8.
In the meantime, when it comes to embattled Afghanistan, the BRICS nations
and the SCO have now called upon "the armed opposition to disarm, accept
the
Constitution of Afghanistan, and cut ties with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other
terrorist organizations." Translation: within the framework of Afghan
national unity, the organization would accept the Taliban as part of a
future government. Their hopes, with the integration of the region in mind,
would be for a future stable Afghanistan able to absorb more Chinese,
Russian, Indian, and Iranian investment, and the construction -- finally!
--
of a long-planned, $10 billion, 1,420-kilometer-long
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline that would
benefit those energy-hungry new SCO members, Pakistan and India. (They
would
each receive 42% of the gas, the remaining 16% going to Afghanistan.)
Central Asia is, at the moment, geographic ground zero for the convergence
of the economic urges of China, Russia, and India. It was no happenstance
that, on his way to Ufa, Prime Minister Modi stopped off in Central Asia.
Like the Chinese leadership in Beijing, Moscow looks forward (as a recent
document [11] puts it) to the "interpenetration and integration of the EEU
and the Silk Road Economic Belt" into a "Greater Eurasia" and a "steady,
developing, safe common neighborhood" for both Russia and China.
And don't forget Iran [12]. In early 2016, once economic sanctions are
fully
lifted, it is expected to join the SCO, turning it into a G9. As its
foreign
minister, Javad Zarif, made clear recently to Russia's Channel 1
television,
Tehran considers the two countries strategic partners. "Russia," he said,
"has been the most important participant in Iran's nuclear program and it
will continue under the current agreement to be Iran's major nuclear
partner." The same will, he added, be true when it comes to "oil and gas
cooperation," given the shared interest of those two energy-rich nations in
"maintaining stability in global market prices."
Got Corridor, Will Travel
Across Eurasia, BRICS nations are moving on integration projects. A
developing Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar economic corridor is a typical
example. It is now being reconfigured as a multilane highway between India
and China. Meanwhile, Iran and Russia are developing a transportation
corridor from the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the Caspian Sea and
the Volga River. Azerbaijan will be connected to the Caspian part of this
corridor, while India is planning to use Iran's southern ports to improve
its access to Russia and Central Asia. Now, add in a maritime corridor that
will stretch from the Indian city of Mumbai to the Iranian port of Bandar
Abbas and then on to the southern Russian city of Astrakhan. And this just
scratches the surface of the planning underway.
Years ago, Vladimir Putin suggested that there could be a "Greater Europe"
stretching from Lisbon, Portugal, on the Atlantic to the Russian city of
Vladivostok on the Pacific. The EU, under Washington's thumb, ignored him.
Then the Chinese started dreaming about and planning new Silk Roads that
would, in reverse Marco Polo fashion, extend from Shanghai to Venice (and
then on to Berlin).
Thanks to a set of cross-pollinating political institutions, investment
funds, development banks, financial systems, and infrastructure projects
that, to date, remain largely under Washington's radar, a free-trade
Eurasian heartland is being born. It will someday link China and Russia to
Europe, Southwest Asia, and even Africa. It promises to be an astounding
development. Keep your eyes, if you can, on the accumulating facts on the
ground, even if they are rarely covered in the American media. They
represent the New Great -- emphasis on that word -- Game in Eurasia.
Location, Location, Location
Tehran is now deeply invested in strengthening its connections to this new
Eurasia and the man to watch on this score is Ali Akbar Velayati. He is the
head of Iran's Center for Strategic Research and senior foreign policy
adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. Velayati stresses [13] that
security in Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia, and the
Caucasus hinges on the further enhancement of a Beijing-Moscow-Tehran
triple
entente.
As he knows, geo-strategically Iran is all about location, location,
location. That country offers the best access to open seas in the region
apart from Russia and is the only obvious east-west/north-south crossroads
for trade from the Central Asian "stans." Little wonder then that Iran will
soon be an SCO member, even as its "partnership" with Russia is certain to
evolve. Its energy resources are already crucial to and considered a matter
of national security for China and, in the thinking of that country's
leadership, Iran also fulfills a key role as a hub in those Silk Roads they
are planning.
That growing web of literal roads, rail lines, and energy pipelines, as
TomDispatch [14] has previously reported [15], represents Beijing's
response
to the Obama administration's announced "pivot to Asia" and the U.S. Navy's
urge to meddle in the South China Sea. Beijing is choosing to project power
[16] via a vast set of infrastructure projects, especially high-speed rail
lines [17] that will reach from its eastern seaboard deep into Eurasia. In
this fashion, the Chinese-built railway from Urumqi in Xinjiang Province to
Almaty in Kazakhstan will undoubtedly someday be extended to Iran and
traverse that country on its way to the Persian Gulf.
A New World for Pentagon Planners
At the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last month, Vladimir
Putin told [18] PBS's Charlie Rose that Moscow and Beijing had always
wanted
a genuine partnership with the United States, but were spurned by
Washington. Hats off, then, to the "leadership" of the Obama
administration.
Somehow, it has managed to bring together two former geopolitical rivals,
while solidifying their pan-Eurasian grand strategy.
Even the recent deal with Iran in Vienna is unlikely -- especially given
the
war hawks in Congress -- to truly end Washington's 36-year-long Great Wall
of Mistrust with Iran. Instead, the odds are that Iran, freed from
sanctions, will indeed be absorbed into the Sino-Russian project to
integrate Eurasia, which leads us to the spectacle of Washington's
warriors,
unable to act effectively, yet screaming like banshees.
NATO's supreme commander Dr. Strangelove, sorry, American General Philip
Breedlove, insists that the West must create [19] a rapid-reaction force --
online -- to counteract Russia's "false narratives." Secretary of Defense
Ashton Carter claims to be seriously considering [20] unilaterally
redeploying nuclear-capable missiles in Europe. The nominee to head the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Commandant Joseph Dunford, recently directly
labeled [21] Russia America's true "existential threat"; Air Force General
Paul Selva, nominated to be the new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs,
seconded [22] that assessment, using the same phrase and putting Russia,
China and Iran, in that order, as more threatening than the Islamic State
(ISIS). In the meantime, Republican presidential candidates and a bevy of
congressional war hawks simply shout and fume when it comes to both the
Iranian deal and the Russians.
In response to the Ukrainian situation and the "threat" of a resurgent
Russia (behind which stands a resurgent China), a Washington-centric
militarization of Europe is proceeding apace. NATO is now reportedly
obsessed with what's being called [23] "strategy rethink" -- as in drawing
up detailed futuristic war scenarios on European soil. As economist Michael
Hudson has pointed out [24], even financial politics are becoming
militarized and linked to NATO's new Cold War 2.0.
In its latest National Military Strategy [25], the Pentagon suggests that
the risk of an American war with another nation (as opposed to terror
outfits), while low, is "growing" and identifies [26] four nations as
"threats": North Korea, a case apart, and predictably the three nations
that
form the new Eurasian core: Russia, China, and Iran. They are depicted in
the document as "revisionist states," openly defying what the Pentagon
identifies as "international security and stability"; that is, the
distinctly un-level playing field created by globalized, exclusionary,
turbo-charged casino capitalism and Washington's brand of militarism.
The Pentagon, of course, does not do diplomacy. Seemingly unaware of the
Vienna negotiations, it continued to accuse Iran of pursuing nuclear
weapons. And that "military option" against Iran is never [27] off the
table.
So consider it the Mother of All Blockbusters to watch how the Pentagon and
the war hawks in Congress will react to the post-Vienna and -- though it
was
barely noticed in Washington -- the post-Ufa environment, especially under
a
new White House tenant in 2017.
It will be a spectacle. Count on it. Will the next version of Washington
try
to make it up to "lost" Russia or send in the troops? Will it contain China
or the "caliphate" of ISIS? Will it work with Iran to fight ISIS or spurn
it? Will it truly pivot to Asia for good and ditch the Middle East or
vice-versa? Or might it try to contain Russia, China, and Iran
simultaneously or find some way to play them against each other?
In the end, whatever Washington may do, it will certainly reflect a fear of
the increasing strategic depth Russia and China are developing
economically,
a reality now becoming visible across Eurasia. At Ufa, Putin told Xi on the
record: "Combining efforts, no doubt we [Russia and China] will overcome
all
the problems before us."
Read "efforts" as new Silk Roads, that Eurasian Economic Union, the growing
BRICS block, the expanding Shanghai Cooperation Organization, those
China-based banks, and all the rest of what adds up to the beginning of a
new integration of significant parts of the Eurasian land mass. As for
Washington, fly like an eagle? Try instead: scream like a banshee.
Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times. His latest book is
"Obama Does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009)." He may be reached at
pepeasia@xxxxxxxxx [28].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [29]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[30]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/how-china-and-russia-are-running-rings-around-
washingtons-designs-control-planet
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/pepe-escobar
[2] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[3]
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/247864-pentagon-chief-to-allies-we-will-us
e-military-option-against-iran-if-necessary
[4] http://atimes.com/category/pepe-escobar/
[5] http://mea.gov.in/Uploads/PublicationDocs/25448_Declaration_eng.pdf
[6] http://rt.com/news/272764-brazil-rousseff-brics-result/
[7]
http://russia-insider.com/en/news-conference-vladimir-putin-following-brics-
and-shanghai-cooperative-summits/ri8665
[8]
https://soundcloud.com/radiosputnik/brics2015-ndb-new-source-of-support-luci
ano-coutinho-bndes-president
[9] http://sputniknews.com/business/20150708/1024384989.html
[10]
http://www.ibtimes.com/chinas-q2-gdp-growth-stable-7-exports-housing-sales-p
ick-growth-investment-2008965
[11]
http://www.scribd.com/doc/267511978/Toward-the-Great-Ocean-3-Creating-Centra
l-Eurasia
[12] http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150716/1024715212.html
[13] http://www.khabaronline.ir/detail/367227/Politics/diplomacy
[14]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176007/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy,_washington%2
7s_great_game_and_why_it%27s_failing_/
[15]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175935/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar,_eurasian_int
egration_vs._the_empire_of_chaos/
[16]
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bensimpfendorfer/2015/06/15/chinas-silk-road-pol
icy-implications/
[17] http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/06/china-high-speed-rail-roundup.html
[18]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/watch-live-charlie-rose-interviews-vladi
mir-putin/
[19]
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/03/22/nato-command
er-west-must-fight-russia-in-information-war/25178383/
[20]
http://www.dw.com/en/us-could-potential-deploy-missiles-in-europe-to-deter-r
ussia/a-18497133
[21]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/joint-chiefs-chairman-nominee-says-russia-is-top
-military-threat-1436463896
[22]
http://www.defenseone.com/politics/2015/07/russia-not-isis-greatest-threat-u
s-general/117733/
[23]
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/06/us-ukraine-crisis-nato-insight-idU
SKCN0PG18E20150706
[24] http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article42330.htm
[25]
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176026/.%2520Forget%2520about%2520Eurasian%2
520integration.%2520For%2520the%2520Pentagon,%2520the%2520only%2520foreseeab
le%2520future%2520is%2520death%2520and%2520destruction%2520%25E2%2580%2593%2
520be%2520it%2520asymmetrical,%2520preemptive,%2520first%2520strike,%2520Pro
mpt%2520Global%2520Strike%2520%28PGS%29.
[26]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/2015_National_Military_Strategy.pdf
[27]
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/07/15/420377/US-Iran-nuclear-conclusion-nu
clera-deal-Vienna-Israel-Ash-Carter
[28] mailto:pepeasia@xxxxxxxxx
[29] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on How China and Russia
Are Running Rings Around Washington's Designs to Control the Planet
[30] http://www.alternet.org/
[31] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
