By Rostislav Ishchenko
Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard
cross posted with http://www.stalkerzone.org/rostislav-ishchenko-russian-order-vs-western-chaos/
source: https://ukraina.ru/opinion/20180914/1021144841.html

 

On September 14th the Court of Appeal of England and Wales made the decision to satisfy Ukraine’s appeal and to send the case of the $3 billion that Yanukovych managed to receive from the $15 billion loan granted by Russia in 2013 for new consideration.

Ukraine recognises the debt, but hopes that a final decision is made on the example of the decision of the Stockholm arbitration court about the debt of “Naftogaz” to “Gazprom”. Kiev considers that if to subtract its debt from the bills [presented to Russia – ed] for “stealing Crimea” and the help of Russia to Donbass, then Moscow will continue to be indebted to Ukraine for a large sum.

I will remind that the Stockholm arbitration, having reviewed the mutual claims of the parties, “satisfied” them in such a way that Ukraine appeared to be the winner for $2.5 billion. The arbitrators motivated their decision not by the contents of contracts, but by the bad economic situation in Ukraine. Now Russia fights for the revision of this decision in the court of appeal and, exactly on the day prior to the decision of the British court, the Court of Appeal of Stockholm cancelled the suspension of the decision of the Stockholm arbitration until a final decision is pronounced by the appeal instance.

Meanwhile both decisions don’t change anything. Both disputes remain essentially incomplete. But it is precisely their basic incompleteness, along with the absolutely obvious faultlessness of the Russian position, together with the already made illegal decision of the Stockholm arbitration court, that creates a situation in which traditional international structures regulating economic disputes are useless because of the obvious politicisation of the made decisions.

The Stockholm arbitration court isn’t authorised to solve the economic problems of Ukraine (especially at the expense of “Gazprom”), and the British courts can’t consider the political claims of states made to each other. Their business lies only in considering the performance/non-performance by the parties of clauses and, in the event of non-performance, applying the sanctions provided by this same contract.

But in recent days not only “Gazprom” suffered, not only Russia, and not only international justice. The Constantinople Patriarchate Bartholomew, despite the protests of the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Metropolitan Onufry, sent two exarchs to Ukraine for the preparation of autocephaly, concerning which he was asked not by Orthodox Christians of Ukraine, but by political authorities and schismatic sects. Meanwhile, in the EU a scandal inflames over the attempt of the European Parliament and the EU Council to undermine Hungary for its anti-migrant policy.

Externally these events can seem like they have nothing in common with each other. In reality, they are links of the same chain. Each of them is an attempt to destroy the existing world order – some in the sphere of the international justice, some in the church’s relationship in the orthodox world, some in the sphere of the relations of national states and the bureaucratic structures of the EU. And here it is not about reformatting certain structures or obtaining advantages by some state, but precisely about destroying the entire global legal system regulating political, economic, financial, sports, cultural, and other relations. So, for example, the “Olympic doping scandal” concerning Russian athletes was not so much an attempt to steal the victories of the Russian national team, defame Russian sport, and humiliate Russia (it was desired to make it seem like this in order to force Moscow to make inadequate reciprocal actions) as it was an attempt to destroy the world Olympic Movement, but in such a way that Russia is to blame for it.

As we see, Moscow is constantly being pushed towards making sharp actions in the most different directions – against the international economic courts, against the Olympic Movement, and intervening in the church question. And in the political-diplomatic sphere the “case of Skripal’s cat” – within the framework of which the royal British government remorselessly poisons not only our deserters, but also their own citizens – Russia, being led to the point of absurdity, is supposed to be finally roused to a sharp diplomatic demarche against Britain, which will allow to lay the blame on Moscow for the sharp deterioration of the international climate.

But it’s not only about Moscow here. Similarly, the US pushes China and the EU towards the game of weakening the dollar, which is needed by Trump’s team much more than it is by Beijing or Brussels (it will yield only losses rather than profits to Europe and the People’s Republic of China). We already mentioned the Hungarian precedent. Here, in fact, it concerns the fact that globalist euro-bureaucracy pushes the national states of Europe towards the dismantlement of the European Union as a structure hostile to their sovereignty.

Since time immemorial, the state launching war wishes to lay the blame on the victim of aggression. It happens not at all with the aim of calming a sick conscience. The reputation of an aggressor still hasn’t brought dividends to anyone. Usually people unite against those who can attack without a motivation. For example, the reason for the entry of Great Britain, and then the US in World War I was the violation by Germany of the neutrality of Belgium. Similarly, the violation of the neutrality of Belgium, Denmark, and Norway in World War II served Roosevelt’s administration a good propaganda service, which allowed to firstly convince the more than neutrally-intended Americans that the US is obliged to give military-economic support to Great Britain, including in forms that are inadmissible for a neutral state (in fact, to provoke the involvement of the US in war). And this is despite the fact that during World War II the allies didn’t hide their intention to also violate neutrality – at least of Belgium and Norway, and on the eve of World War I England strenuously hinted to the Germans that it won’t start to be at war regardless of what happens on the continent. And then it stated that it simply can’t endure the impudent violation of Belgian neutrality.

In both cases, the status of an aggressor assigned to Germany promoted the creation against it of an almost global coalition. Moreover, if during World War II this status corresponded to reality, then in World War I Berlin was no more an aggressor than London, which used more than its best efforts to provoke and incite this war.

Thus, the culprit for global troubles loses allies, bears responsibility for the creation of a conflict situation in the opinion of the world community, loses support, and plunges into isolation, and all of this doesn’t help its victory in the standoff.

Nowadays the US, having appeared to be incapable of preserving its hegemony in the current global configuration, puts in maximum effort for its destruction. Everything that Washington can reach is being destroyed: countries, international organisations, and the norms of international law. But the reputation of a destroyer leads to serious political expenses. Even the congenial elite of the closest allies started to become afraid of the unpredictability of their partner – more precisely, of its predictable destructiveness. And the US would like to share this responsibility with the others (Russia, the EU, and China). It is approximately like Ukrainian “experts” on Russian talk-shows, who answer a question about any violations in Ukraine of norms of law, honor, justice, and common sense by starting to howl: “It’s the same in your country!” or “it’s even worse in your country!”. In a situation when there is no justification and the crime is obvious, they don’t try to justify themselves, but seek to share responsibility.

And the US in the same way, chaotisizing the planet, destroying the structures governing international relations in the most different spheres, creating a barbarous periphery where there was once civilisation (like in Libya, Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen; as they tried and still try in Syria, Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Armenia, Central Asia, Pakistan, China, and in Russia) wishes to transfer responsibility for the destruction of civilisation, the death of millions and displacement of tens, if not hundreds of millions of people – who lost in the homeland their means of livelihood – to other world players.

It is for this purpose that they support the available contradictions and create new lines of split where they previously didn’t exist, and they use their influence in international structures to force some of them to make decisions that are inadequate and obviously hostile towards certain countries (including Russia), waiting for a reciprocal rigid reaction from the offended, which would make it possible to blame them for the dismantlement of the global system of international law and the collapse of the relevant institutions.

All of this is supposed to increase the level of trust in the US and reduce the support that its opponents receive, which, in turn, will give Washington the chance, having lost the ordered world, to win a chaotisized world.

This is the long and difficult playing on the nerves of each other, in which Russia, China, Iran, partially Turkey, and now a considerable part of the European Union buy time for the rebuilding of the global system and the creation of a new area of international law that is closed to the US’ interference. In turn, Washington and its allies in the most different countries hurry to chaotisize as many countries and structures as possible, to provoke clashes with the participation of their opponents, so that in the game without rules they are deprived of the advantages that they obtained in the game with rules.

We have to understand that the destruction of the system of international law is not a side effect of America’s actions, but a strategic objective of the US – their last chance to jump out of zugzwang and to obtain freedom of political manoeuvre. And Washington will continue to consistently go all the way towards this goal.

When the desire exists to provoke you into a conflict, sooner or later a situation will be created whereby you all the same will be obliged to either fight or capitulate. There is a need to always be ready for this. It’s just that the transformation of “Leopold into a leopard” [A Soviet cartoon in which Leopold transforms into a leopard – ed] must always be sudden, unexpected for the enemy, and as (or even more) effective as the Georgian operation of 2008 and Crimean one of 2014.

Order always has more of a chance of winning than chaos does. But for this purpose one needs to preserve order, at least for oneself and one’s allies.