by Dmitry Orlov, posted with permission of the author On Tuesday, 23 November, Russia’s most senior military general, Valery Gerasimov, had a “deconfliction” phone conference with US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, in which the two discussed “pressing issues of international security.” Actual details of what they discussed are not available; what is available is Western media speculation, which in recent days has included false reports of
by Ramin Mazaheri and cross-posted with PressTV It’s a question which appears almost too basic a starting point, but not when we recall what a catastrophe the heart of Western Europe has been since 2017: What is to be done about France? Emmanuel Macron: Marketed as Prince Charming but who quickly became Evil King Manu I of the neoliberal empire of the European Union. The Yellow Vests: It’s as if
By Cynthia Chung for the Saker Blog In April 1954, Kennedy stood up on the Senate floor to challenge the Eisenhower Administration’s support for the doomed French imperial war in Vietnam, foreseeing that this would not be a short-lived war.[1] In July 1957, Kennedy once more took a strong stand against French colonialism, this time France’s bloody war against Algeria’s independence movement, which again found the Eisenhower Administration on the
With an Ansarallah takeover of Yemen, Asia’s trade and connectivity projects could expand into some of the world’s most strategic waterways By Pepe Escobar, posted with the author’s permission and cross-posted with TheCradle The usual suspects tried everything against Yemen. First, coercing it into ‘structural reform.’ When that didn’t work, they instrumentalized takfiri mercenaries. They infiltrated and manipulated the Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), ISIS. They
By Zamir Awan for the Saker Blog Senator Ted Cruz, a member of the Republican Party, was the key figure who introduced legislation to exempt India from sanctions under the 2017 CAATSA for buying the Russian S-400 system. Russian news agencies reported that Russia has started delivering the first of the S-400s to India, citing Dmitry Shugayev, head of the Russian military cooperation agency, who said the first S-400 unit
By Thorsten J. Pattberg for the Saker Blog Perseveration means getting stuck in life. The brain notices an error. It shuts down and restarts, but the error is still there, so the entire system is sent into safe mode which, since our primordial times as sponges and reef builders goes about as follows: If this works, repeat. Perseveration is endless repetition and became the supreme survival strategy. Part I. The
A “perfect storm of Russian aggression during the coming winter months” is all but inevitable. Watch it on your screens while you properly freeze. By Pepe Escobar and extensively cross-posted As much as with “brain dead” NATO (copyright Emmanuel Macron) no one ever lost precious assets betting on the incompetence, narrow-mindedness and cowardice of political “leaders” across the Atlanticist EU. There are two main reasons for the latest German legalese
Leader’s unshakeable ambition is that China’s renaissance will smash memories of the ‘century of humiliation’ once and for all By Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times Marx. Lenin. Mao. Deng. Xi. Late last week in Beijing, the sixth plenum of the Chinese Communist Party adopted a historic resolution – only the third in its 100-year history – detailing major accomplishments and laying out a vision
by Dmitry Orlov, posted by permission of the author General Mark Milley, America’s highest-ranking military officer, has recently gone public with a revelation of his: the world is no longer unilateral (with the US as the unquestioned world hegemon) or bilateral (as it was with the US and the SU symmetrically balancing each other out in an intimate tango of mutual assured destruction). It is now tripartite, with three major
By Thorsten J. Pattberg for the Saker Blog In 2016, a video game influencer and Youtube superstar going by the handle of Markiplier uploaded a 5-minutes long video of him gazing at a banana. That video immediately got 3 million views. The baby face with fiery-orange top hair wanted to prove his theory that because he is a celebrity, people will watch his content no matter how moronic. And they did. And this
by Francis Lee for the Saker Blog Moral Hazard: Circumstances that increase the probability of loss because of an applicant’s personal habits or morals. For example, if the applicant is a known criminal or engages in suspect financial dealings. (Dictionary of Business Terms) Economic Rent: Payments and remuneration over and above normal profits which arise from a monopolistic market position. (Cf. David Ricardo – Theory of Ground Rent). For our
Players unite and face off so fast Eurasian integration’s chessboard feels like musical chairs prestissimo by Pepe Escobar for the Saker Blog and cross-posted with Asia Times The Eurasian chessboard is in non-stop motion at dizzying speed. After the Afghanistan shock, we’re all aware of the progressive interconnection of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and of the preeminent roles
US trained and armed Afghan security forces are joining ISIS-K, which makes the US ‘withdrawal’ from Afghanistan look more like an American ‘repositioning’ to keep chaos humming By Pepe Escobar with permission and cross-posted with The Cradle Something quite extraordinary happened in early November in Kabul. Taliban interim-Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi and Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov got together to discuss a range of political and economic issues. Most
By Walt Garlington for the Saker Blog The existential questions regarding the future of the present American union continue to grow more complex and more dire: What comes after liberalism? Can nationalism restore unity and purpose? At the heart of these questions and others like them is a problem that has plagued the States since their independence in 1776: the belief that a political ideology is enough to create a
by Quantum Bird* for the Saker Blog After addressing a number of challenging and current issues, the President of the Russian Federation, Vladmir Putin, in his extensive and detailed speech at the XVIII Valdai Discussion Club Meeting in Sochi, explained that: “I have already mentioned that, in shaping our approaches, we will be guided by a healthy conservatism. That was a few years ago, when passions on the international arena
By Amarynth for the Saker Blog Taiwan. In this article, Taiwan crossing the Red Line when the leader of the Taiwan region, Tsai Ing-wen, admitted to the presence of US military trainers on the island for the first time, was discussed. This was an open secret but the admission in public made it necessary for China to respond. Now it is clear what form the response is taking. At the
By Thorsten J. Pattberg for the Saker Blog Part I. The Arrest. They detained me upon my arrival on a Tuesday morning, October 20th, at 6:15 A.M. at Schiphol International Airport in the Netherlands. I was fastlaned past immigration and escorted by security for questioning by two officers from Interpol and one agent from German Kriminalpolizei. They spoke in neuEnglish. I felt an apparent skin rash on my infraorbitals and intense stress that
by Ramin Mazaheri posted with permission and both parts cross-posted with PressTV As a numerical minority – of course Shia are the Muslim group most interested in Muslim unity: It means survival. It has meant this since the very death of Prophet Mohammad, and both “Muslim unity” and “the survival of Shi’ism” have been inseparable ever since. The logic of that concept – that “Muslim unity” is the best protector
Reviewed by Francis Lee for the Saker Blog: Manias, Panics and Crashes: by Kindleberger and Aliber: Palgrave MacMillan – Basingstoke Hants, UK – first published in 1978 Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin – Charles P. Kindleberger This book was first published in 1978 and is now in its 6th edition. Given human nature and its corollary, economic collapse, there will doubtless be further editions. Mr Kindleberger himself
By Batko Milacic for the Saker Blog Amid numerous discussions about the future of Ukraine – a country that has been unable to form a single nation in 30 years of independence, and is torn apart by interethnic, linguistic and economic contradictions, Europe should ask itself just what Ukraine really means to it. And the answer will be the same – a buffer zone, because this clearly reflects Ukraine’s geopolitical
