Guest Analyses
Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s ‘facilitate, not mediate’ role could be the key to solving the Afghan imbroglio By Pepe Escobar, with permission and first posted at Asia Times Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting of Foreign Ministers on Wednesday in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, may have been an under-the-radar affair, but it did reveal the contours of the big picture ahead when it comes to Afghanistan. So let’s see what Russia and China
by Batko Milacic – Independent analyst – for The Saker Blog The events in the Middle East have made a large number of interstate relations of the former “allies” very complicated due to the large-scale operation “Arab Spring”. After the failure of the original idea of creating the Great Middle East, a project in which the main role was played by Washington, in alliance primarily with the Gulf monarchies but
By Fabio Reis Vianna for The Saker Blog Even if the rhetoric and the interim security strategy of the Joe Biden administration itself tries to give a multilateralist veneer to the idea that the benevolent hegemon would be back, the reality imposed by the increase in competitive pressure, which deepens after the outbreak of the pandemic, and acquires dramatic contours in the so-called “vaccine war”, reveals a challenging scenario for
Russia-China-Iran alliance is taking Afghanistan’s bull by the horns By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on a Central Asian loop all through the week. He’s visiting Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The last two are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded 20 years ago. The SCO heavyweights are of course China and Russia. They are joined by
by Batko Milacic – Independent analyst – for The Saker Blog After Yugoslavia’s (Serbia) President Slobodan Milosevic refused to accept the so-called Rambouillet Agreement in 1999, which in reality was NATO ultimatum that demanded from Serbia and Montenegro to allow NATO troops to occupy the province of Kosovo as well as that NATO can build bases in Serbia, and that all NATO personnel have diplomatic immunity, which means that they
Deploying diplomatic skills refined from Doha to Moscow, the Taliban in 2021 has little to do with its 2001 incarnation by Pepe Escobar with permission, and first posted at Asia Times A very important meeting took place in Moscow last week, virtually hush-hush. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, received Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s national security adviser. There were no substantial leaks. A bland statement pointed to the obvious:
by Batko Milacic for The Saker Blog Free speech has long been a cornerstone of Western society. However, within the past few years the situation has completely changed. Recently, one of the Western`s oldest public figures – the legendary leader of the Western Civil Liberties Union Ira Glasser, who for many years fought against racism, violation of the rights of workers and employees, and government corruption, spoke about a discussion
By Jimmie Moglia for the Saker Blog There is a certain satisfaction, however idle, in finding the seeds and weak beginnings of social phenomena that affect the world at large. And in understanding the orientations and critical directions of the historical process we live in. Even if most of us remain helpless and impotent spectators of public calamities, or witness the vanity of conjecture and the inefficacy of predictions. For
Creditocracy: A Geopolitical Economy by Radhika Desai and Michael Hudson : reposted by special permission Introduction As President Biden continues his predecessor’s New Cold War on China, it is clear that the pandemic has vastly accelerated the on-gong shift in the international balance of power, away from the US and towards China. For former US Treasury Secretary, Lawrence Summers, it was likely a ‘hinge of history’: ‘[i]f the 21st century
By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times And it’s all over For the unknown soldier It’s all over For the unknown soldier The Doors, The Unknown Soldier Let’s start with some stunning facts on the ground. The Taliban are on a roll. Earlier this week their P.R. arm was claiming they hold 218 Afghan districts out of 421 – capturing new ones every day. Tens of
By Pepe Escobar, exclusively for the Saker Blog He was like Blake’s tiger, always burning bright and chasing Rimbaud rainbows – just to finish, like Marat, in a bathtub. He was only 27. Jim Morrison died on July 3, 1971 in Paris. Half a century later, The Collected Works of Jim Morrison: Poetry, Journals, Transcripts, and Lyrics lavishly celebrates the soul of the poet. Before he died, Jim had self-published
The West’s ‘rules-based order’ invokes rulers’ authority; Russia-China say it’s time to return to law-based order By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times We do live in extraordinary times. On the day of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi Jinping, in Tiananmen square, amid all the pomp and circumstance, delivered a stark geopolitical message: The Chinese people will never allow foreign
By Peter Koenig with permission and written for China’s Chongyang Institute of the Renmin University in Beijing – for the 100 Anniversary – 1 July 2021 – of China’s Communist Party. The legendary Chinese success story goes hand-in-hand with the evolution of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and China’s Communist Revolution that began in 1945. The foundation of the CPC on 1 July 1921 signaled the end of some
Western exceptionalists may continue to throw a fit 24/7 ad infinitum: that will not change the course of history. By Pepe Escobar with permission and widely distributed The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centennial takes place this week at the heart of an incandescent geopolitical equation. China, the emerging superpower, is back to the global prominence it enjoyed throughout centuries of recorded history, while the declining Hegemon is paralyzed by the
by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Welcome to the latest NATO show: Sea Breeze starts today and goes all the way to July 23. The co-hosts are the US Sixth Fleet and the Ukrainian Navy. The main protagonist is Standing NATO Maritime Group 2. The show, in NATOspeak, is just an innocent display of “strenghtening deterrence and defense”. NATO spin tells us the exercise is
By Larry Romanoff for The Saker Blog, June 27, 2021 In our world today, who desperately needs to be “fact-checked“? The mass media, of course. And, in today’s world, who owns, funds, and controls the entire fact-checking infrastructure and conducts all the fact-checks? The mass media, of course. So, the inmates are running the asylum and the foxes are guarding the henhouse. What could possibly go wrong? First, let’s disabuse ourselves of the foolish
by Nat South for the Saker Blog HMS Defender’s highly visible transit past the Crimea coastline, off Cape Fiolent, is the latest bout of heated tensions in the Black Sea and in this article, I’d like to present some aspects relating to UNCLOS and consider some interesting issues that have been revealed following the incident. The UK sailed a warship, HMS Defender, inside 12nm territorial waters near to the main
by Aram Mirzaei for the Saker blog In what can only be called an act of piracy, the US government “seized” several pro-resistance media outlets in a coordinated attack this week. One of the outlets that were siezed was Presstv.com. Other web domains, including Palestine al-Youm, a Palestinian-directed broadcaster, Karbala TV – the official television of the Imam Hussein (PBUH) shrine in the holy Iraqi city of Karbala, Iraqi Afaq
by Straight-Bat for the Saker Blog 1. Prelude The other day, I was trying to visualize the conversation that would take place on a rainy humid day in July 2021, in a cafeteria in the Eurasian region of heaven where Karl Marx, Robert Owen, Comrade Lenin, Chairman Mao, and Generalissimo Chiang would meet. Purpose – to exchange critical views around the Communist Party of China (CPC) centenary and China. Generalissimo
By Sushi for the Saker Blog Mr. Ron Unz has offered a hypothesis with respect to the origins of the COVID pandemic. He asserts the likelihood of the pandemic originating as a United States biological warfare attack (hereafter BWA)) on China. This essay examines the extraordinary claims of the BWA hypothesis and offers a modified hypothesis which may better fit the available evidence. The Sagan standard demands that “extraordinary claims
