by Pepe Escobar (cross-posted with the Asia Times by special agreement with the author)
Key economic forums in cities across Eurasia point the way to new power structures rising to challenge Western dominance
Ahead of the crucial Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Qingdao this coming weekend, three other recent events have offered clues on how the new world order is coming about.
The Astana Economic Forum in Kazakhstan centered on how mega-partnerships are changing world trade. Participants included the president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Jin Liqun; Andrew Belyaninov from the Eurasian Development Bank; former Italian Prime Minister and president of the EU Commission Romano Prodi; deputy director-general of the WTO Alan Wolff; and Glenn Diesen from the University of Western Sydney.
Diesen, a Norwegian who studied in Holland and teaches in Australia, is the author of a must-read book, Russia’s Geoeconomic Strategy for a Greater Eurasia, in which he analyzes in excruciating detail how Moscow is planning “to manage the continent from the heartland by enhancing collective autonomy and influence, and thus evict US hegemony directed from the periphery.”
In parallel, as Diesen argues, Moscow aims “to ensure the sustainability of an integrated Eurasia by establishing a balance of power or ‘balance of dependence’ to prevent the continent from being dominated by one power, with China being the most plausible candidate.”
In a nutshell; this New Great Game installment revolves around “Russia’s strategy to enhance its bargaining power with the West by pivoting to the East.”
Concerning Astana, Diesen told me that the AIIB’s Liqun “took the hardest stance in defense of diversifying financial instruments, while Belyaninov was very critical of anti-Russian sanctions.”
Diesen argues that: “The emergence of economic mega-blocks actually improves economic relations by creating more symmetry. For example, China’s CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System) undermined the ability of SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) to be used for economic coercion, while CIPS and SWIFT still cooperate. Similarly, the EAEU [Eurasia Economic Union] gets its strength from the ability to integrate with other regions as opposed to isolating itself.”
And here’s the clincher: “China’s cooperation with the EAEU mitigates Russian concerns about asymmetries, and enables greater EAEU-BRI [Belt and Road Initiative] integration under the stewardship of the SCO. Also, unlike the EU, the EAEU provides great benefit to non-members (non-zero sum) by creating an effective transportation corridor with harmonized tariffs, standards, etc.”
Diesen remarked how Liqun, a key character in the whole game, “is very positive about the Eurasian Economic Union and insistent on the positive-sum game of integration of regions.” Liqun is “direct, honest and forceful” and does not refrain from criticizing the Trump administration, arguing “there is not a trade war between the US and China, it is a US trade war against the world.”
Add to the debate the crucial Astana headline, ignored by Western corporate media: Iran signed a provisional free-trade-zone agreement with the EAEU, lowering or abolishing customs duties, and opening the way for a final deal in 2021. For Iran, that will be a golden ticket to do business way beyond Southwest Asia, integrating it further with Russia and also Kazakhstan, which happens to be a key member of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
All about Eurasian integration
The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is the annual Russian equivalent of Davos. Predictably, coverage on Western media was appalling – at best rehashing bits and pieces of the joint press conference held by presidents Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron.
There was no mention, as Asia Times previously reported, of how Moscow was instrumental in ironing out differences between North and South Korea at the Far East summit in Vladivostok last September, impressing the need for a win-win regional business plan; the integration of the Trans-Siberian with a future Trans-Korean railway, a key plank of Eurasia integration.
When it comes to tracking Eurasia integration, SPIEF is invaluable. The St Petersburg get-together has also been a traditional forum for key SCO discussions. One panel illustrated how the Shanghai forum is fast advancing on the trade and economic front; new members India and Pakistan are now very much active in the SCO Business Council. The discussion of the business, industrial and technological agenda for observer states was also important; that’s where Iran, a future full SCO member, fits in.
Eurasia integration also featured on another panel about new logistical routes opened by international transport corridors – very much the stuff BRI and the EAEU are made of.
And the BRICS revival was also part of the picture, as attested by this panel on the BRICS in Africa “leveraging the Fourth Industrial Revolution” for economic development, featuring the president of the BRICS’s New Development Bank (NDB), Kundapur Kamath, and Jiakang Sun, the executive vice-president of Chinese giant COSCO Shipping Corp.
Yet the clincher in terms of possible game-changing relations between Russia and Europe came from Finance Minister and first deputy Prime Minister Anton Siluanov: “As we see, restrictions imposed by the American partners are of an extraterritorial nature. The possibility of switching from the US dollar to the euro in settlements depends on Europe’s stance toward Washington’s position.”
So once again the EU was on the spot – on both crucial fronts, Iran and Russia. Siluanov left the door wide open: “If our European partners declare their position unequivocally, we could definitely see a way to use the European common currency for financial settlements, such as payments for goods and services, which today are often subject to restrictions.”
Siluanov did not fail to mention that Russia, as much as China and Iran, is already bypassing the US dollar. That accounts for three crucial nodes of Eurasian integration, and that’s the way to go for BRI, EAEU, SCO and BRICS.
The Indo-Pacific enigma
Meanwhile, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore has been the top venue for defense diplomacy debate in the Asia-Pacific since 2001.
With the “Indo-Pacific” concept is hyped to the extreme, it was up to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the keynote speaker, to strike a deft balancing act.
Even as Modi said the Indo-Pacific should not develop as an exclusive club, he took pains to stress that “Asia and the world will have a better future when India and China work together in trust and confidence. No other relationship of India has as many layers as our relationship with China.”
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi dismissed the “Indo-Pacific” push as an “attention-grabbing idea” that will “dissipate like ocean foam,” as he hopes that the Quad – US, India, Japan, Australia – does not focus on targeting China, like the previous Obama administration “pivot to Asia.”
The problem is the Indo-Pacific focus, in practice, amounts to a military counterpunch to BRI, with no wide-ranging economic cooperation dimension apart from sketchy plans for a “new global infrastructure.” Compare it, for instance, with China financing over 130 projects within the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework, integrating Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam into the Chinese economy.
BRI is a multi-trillion-dollar, multinational, decades-long, inclusive project. As Wang Yiwei, a senior research fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies of the Renmin University of China, said “All SCO members are participating in BRI, and this organization [SCO] is the initiative’s security guarantee.”
Yet when it comes to the Indo-Pacific sphere, the US, Japan and Australia are not SCO members. And India still refuses to acknowledge the SCO is interlinked with BRI.
Moreover, everything about BRI cannot but clash front-on with the depth and reach of the US across Asia. So the security stress is inevitable. The 10-nation ASEAN, caught in the middle, is adopting at best a “wait and see” strategy. Indonesia at least is venturing a step ahead, promoting a non-confrontational “Indo-Pacific cooperation concept.”
The bottom line is that China’s relentless drive to multiply Chinese-organized solutions in international relations is unstoppable. As in Wang Yi’s discreet but forceful diplomacy leading to Kim Jong-un’s first visit to China; President Xi solidifying his role as the go-to leader of globalization 2.0; and the Chinese leadership as a whole arguing that the future of Asia-Pacific security cannot be hostage to a Cold War 2.0 mentality.
US Defense Secretary James Mattis’ warning to China in Singapore of “much larger consequences” if its sovereignty expansion across virtually the whole South China Sea is not contained may be an idle threat. Beijing has no intention to restrict freedom of navigation in the South China Sea; for a mercantile giant, that would be counter-productive. The whole game is about high-stakes geopolitical control. Even the new head of the renamed US Indo-Pacific Command, Admiral Philip Davidson, had to admit to the US Senate that short of war between China and the US, Beijing will prevail in the South China Sea.
Welcome to the post-Westphalian world
In his latest, avowedly “provocative” slim volume, Has the West Lost It? former Singaporean ambassador to the UN and current Professor in the Practice of Public Policy at the National University, Kishore Mahbubani frames the key question: “Viewed against the backdrop of the past 1,800 years, the recent period of Western relative over-performance against other civilizations is a major historical aberration. All such aberrations come to a natural end, and that is happening now.”
It is enlightening to remember that at the Shangri-la Dialogue two years ago, Professor Xiang Lanxin, director of the Centre of One Belt and One Road Studies at the China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, described BRI as an avenue to a ‘post-Westphalian world.’
That’s where we are now. Western elites cannot but worry when central banks in China, Russia, India and Turkey actively increase their physical gold stash; when Moscow and Beijing discuss launching a gold-backed currency system to replace the US dollar; when the IMF warns that the debt burden of the global economy has reached $237 trillion; when the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warns that, on top of that there is also an ungraspable $750 trillion in additional debt outstanding in derivatives.
Mahbubani states the obvious: “The era of Western domination is coming to an end.” Western elites, he adds, “should lift their sights from their domestic civil wars and focus on the larger global challenges. Instead, they are, in various ways, accelerating their irrelevance and disintegration.”
Meanwhile, Eurasian integration, as depicted in Diesen’s book, is slowly but surely redefining the future.
Fine analysis! A must read, pass on!
Looks to me that the hysteria plus the exceptionalism of the American 17-18 Deep States are the reason U.S. news only focuses on U.S. Swamp news.
Not an international partner one can trust to even hear you, much less understand much of anything. Exceptionalism of German, U.S., British or French style does not allow any actual analysis to drive internationally effective innovations. U.S. presently is redoing Hitlerism or a Fourth Reich. Instead of killing millions in food empty prisons, making medical innovations on their dying bodies, interactive brain chips are being inserted into the soft sculls of infants leaving the womb globally.. Chips to be used to brainwash these new humans en mass.
Then historical archives globally are to be rewritten to favour America
Okey, if the vision that Pepe depicts is true I think there is obvious elephant in the room. Do we expect racist western elites to simply bow down and accept a secondary role? While still, at least in theory, they have a big red nuclear button? All signs lead to a not so distant War especially in the region of the OBOR , and if that is the case – are the Chinese naive or they have a hedged bet? And how is the special nation of Israel fitting into this new world?
Supremacist racist Western elites will not bow down. As their ability to plow and plunder the coalescing multifarious East slips from their fingers they will become desperate and even more openly brutal. We are now at that point.
We are in the middle of the transition to a new non-Western centric and controlled world. It will take all the thousands of years storehouse of wisdom available to the East to manage the transition path ahead without a major war. The West for all its high opinion of itself is a dangerously irrational near psychopathic monster. The East knows what it is dealing with and has done an impressive job managing the way forward.
Escobar ignores the Jewish controllers of overreach policy, the culprits who are bringing the empire to an end.
Like Chomsky, he faithfully always runs cover for the Jews.
https://mastersofdeception.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/masters-of-deception-chapter-fourteen/
Another example:
In this otherwise good article, Escobar gives false credibility to Israel’s illicit birth:
“The second map shows the United Nations partition plan of 1947, which awarded Jews (who only then owned about 6% of Palestinian land) a substantial state alongside a much reduced Palestine.”
https://www.juancole.com/2014/07/palestinian-thwarted-speaking.html
This statement indicated that the US “awarded Jews” a state, which is patently false. Escobar should’ve made it clear that the Partition Plan was a mere PROPOSAL and that when it was righteously and legally rejected by Palestinians and surrounding Arab states it became null.
https://www.countercurrents.org/hart050410.htm
Such trickery is employed by the enemy within, and Israel remains a legitimate state in the reader’s eyes.
Also see: http://www.natsummit.org/transcripts/jeffrey_blankfort.htm
I think you have little tolerance for people who do other than you think they should. The same happens to Julian Assange because he doesn’t want to trouble the ocean SO MUCH that he will be disabled – by talking about Israel. Pepe is like that – but here – Nathan didn’t mention Julian or Pepe in this fabulous video –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THBS9rElkc8
When influential writers choose not to expose the source of a problem, they become part of the problem. Those who know that two plans being pushed by Washington’s neocon Jews are causing millions of deaths and refugees, yet are too cowardly to connect the dots for the masses who are misinformed by Jewish-dominated media and politicians, deserve no tolerance. Those of us who whisper in the Zionist howling winds could use a little help from people who call themselves journalists, keepers of the Fourth Estate. It’s their job to defend the truth and expose the liars.
These are the plans:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/pnac.htm
These are the Jews behind the plans:
http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/americas-jews-are-driving-americas-wars/
This is some of their work for PNAC – pushing NATO tor Russia’s door in Ukraine:
https://richardedmondson.net/2014/03/01/ned-jewish-neocons-provoke-crisis-in-ukraine/
Personally, I always get suspicious when any given writer is avoiding (often purposefully) to see the real puppeteers behind the curtain. However, we can still enjoy some other perspectives by reading those, who for a bunch of reasons, never hit the target in the center, but prefer to dance around it. In addition to that, the very top of this pyramid is not all that uniform.
Jews are not the one that control anything. Israel is not Jewish state… and Jews are not master puppeteers.
Jews indeed control Western powers via their powerful Lobby, media and academia network, and to a degree Jews also still control much of Russia’s internal politics and industry, despite Putin saving Russia from near collapse by the Jewish oligarchs who ravaged Russia during the Yeltzin-The-Drunk period.
Bolsheviks were mostly Jews, and Trotskyite global conquest by armed revolution has now morphed into the Jewish neocon’s Project For A New American Century (PNAC) plan, which has been re-packaged as their Foreign Policy Initiative of global conquest:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/The_Foreign_Policy_Initiative
For more than a century Zionist Jews have infiltrated governments, laying the groundwork for the motherboard, Israel, which now has control wires into every powerful government on Earth.
Also see:
https://nationalvanguard.org/2017/12/the-jewish-hand-in-the-world-wars-part-2/
I agree that there is much value to be gleaned from writers who might be marginalized and silenced by Jewish-dominant media players if full exposure were pursued. https://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/jews-in-the-media-hollywood/
Helen Thomas, Patrick Buchanan are examples. Anchor Rick Sanchez was fired by Jewish-controlled CNN for hinting that Jews dominate media (care for some in-your-face irony, anyone?); and there are others. But collective challenge would surely open the Wizard’s curtain if mass firings were conducted against those mentioning the feared “J” word. Those few media people who dance around the target aren’t dancing well enough to make any real difference, as the masses are too misguided by Zionist to understand the dance.
In the 19th century Otto von Bismarck advocated an economic alliance with Russia and China. The Kaiser foolishly had him removed, opening the way for two world wars. At the turn of the century the British geographer John Mackinder warned the British Government of the dangers of a German-Russian economic alliance and the importance of Eurasia. One can argue that two world wars were fought to prevent this. The US has continued the British policy of preventing the political and economic emergence of Eurasia. It’s not working, as the US is applying British style colonial methods based on war and subversion, using “democracy” to install puppets through color revolutions.
Russia and China, on the other hand, are offering trade and development based on respect for the sovereign status of individual states, something Washington would never dream of doing. This Russian-Chinese tactic is working. Now even Europe is more and more being drawn to Russia and China. Yes, the US has taken over from Britain in trying to influence European politics. However, it’s imperial methods based on brute force are only driving Europe faster towards the East. And yes, Western elites are indeed “accelerating their irrelevance and disintegration”. However, this conclusion should really apply to US elites. European elites (Britain excluded for the time being) are certainly going to break away from the US elites, as predicted by analysts. Business is business. The elites in Europe have no intention of playing second fiddle to Wall Street and lose billions in the process. And Wall Street ? It will come to it’s senses only when it is too late. Washington DC too. I have been watching them. Both have trouble fully accepting the accelerating changes in the world, and both have left the impression of zombies who are not sure what they have to do, having difficulty forgetting the glorious days of the past.
Notice where the cracks in the EU are showing.
Italy, Hungary, Austria. There are centuries of civilizational wisdom (if not political achievement) in those societies. They understand sovereignty, now that the commune of EU has failed.
They also respect the wisdom, restraint and power of Russia and Putin.
Solon
Yes, that is true. One can debate if the US has any history of importance. Europe, on the other hand, has more than 2000 years of history, tradition and culture. It’s coming into effect.
One has to understand the fact that, in civilizational terms, the Anglo world is THE aberation, really an ‘exception’ (that’s the real sense of ‘American exceptionalism’), the world of ‘Newton’s sleep and single vision’.
IIRC, Bismarch essentially wanted an alliance with everyone. It seemed contradictory to ally with everyone, but it meant that if anyone double-crossed Germany they found a Germany already allied with their other enemies. Bismarck kept this multi-ball juggling act going while he still had a job, and thus maintained the peace. Then, the Kaiser foolishly fired him and all the balls came crashing down to earth and Germany found itself in the middle of a two-front war.
Evidently he let his alliance with the Kaiser lapse.
Good comment, I could only add that the current Eurasian integration efforts will bear the fruit thanks to the military might of Russia and wisdom of its leadership in resurrecting it when on it’s knees.
So what does that tell you about the Kaiser then? ;) I doubt he was a fool so much as already complicit. All these European monarchies folded without a fight to phantom “people’s revolutions”.
The Kaiser was Queen Victoria’s grandson.
All of the European monarchs and sub-monarchs were related.
It was Bismarck, not the “Kaiser,” who unified Germany.
And Wilelm II’s father had played a central military role in the unification.
Very likely Willi had little clue as to what was going on and had a neurotic relationship with his father grandmother, and her empire—a neurotic need to prove that he was as powerful as she.
And, he ended up more or less bringing the whole thing down around everyone’s ears.
Talk about the Sampson Option!!
Interesting sidelights here on Wilhelm II:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor#Biography
And most of these male rulers were hemophyliac (sp?) to boot!
Katherine
Wasn’t hit Halford Mackinder?
Katherine
“Add to the debate the crucial Astana headline, ignored by Western corporate media: Iran signed a provisional free-trade-zone agreement with the EAEU, lowering or abolishing customs duties, and opening the way for a final deal in 2021. For Iran, that will be a golden ticket to do business way beyond Southwest Asia, integrating it further with Russia and also Kazakhstan, which happens to be a key member of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).”
More reasons why they want to knock Iran to its knees.
The primary reason for attacking Iran is because Iran supports Israel’s victims, and Israel controls US government and US foreign policy.
Meet the war makers:
http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/americas-jews-are-driving-americas-wars/
This plan is behind their wars
https://leaksource.wordpress.com/2015/01/17/the-yinon-plan-greater-israel-syria-iraq-and-isis-the-connection/
These writers of US foreign policy also putsched Ukraine, pushing NATO to Russia’s door
https://richardedmondson.net/2014/03/01/ned-jewish-neocons-provoke-crisis-in-ukraine/
But their PNAC global strategy, seemingly viable for the late 20th century uni-polar world seems quaint but no less destructive within the new global reality. Zionist Jews still wield considerable US-NATO military power.
http://www.atimes.com/article/turkey-iran-russia-india-playing-new-silk-roads/
If the ‘White Men” could only realize that dropping their so called “burden” could be a great relief, and allow them to repair their failing societies, while allowing the world to achieve a new balance, more in line with emerging realities.
But dinosaurs who have long been dominant do not go quietly into that good night. Will it take the equivalent of a huge meteor strike to dislodge them from their increasingly precarious dominance?
Love the article.
This is “real” news that does NOT get into the mainstream ‘western’ media (perception management/propaganda agency).
The same time the ‘west’ wallows in self-inflicted corruption and ‘tainting‘ by global ideological collective fifth column based on discrimination and deception, Eurasia continues to rise and make constructive progress.
Great article, by Pepe Escobar. This is indeed a crucial time in history – and we are living it! It is thrilling! Without analysis such as Pepe’s, we would miss some of the most exhilarating events…
Pepe’s articles are always rewarding, jampacked with information completely unavailable in western corporate media.
He works hard to research his material and explains the complex interactions between the various countries in the new relationships in an easy to understand way.
It is worth reading this in conjunction with his previous article (on this site) “The Syria Connection to Iran, Afghanistan and China”
/the-syria-connection-to-iran-afghanistan-and-china/
The scale and planning of these projects is eyewatering and countries are being encouraged to participate by the lure of modest prosperity instead of at the point of a gun which is the Anglo/American legacy.
Commenters about how the US will respond to these unstoppable and much welcome human initiatives are simply left to wonder if the US regime will blow everything up in a fit of pique because other than their ability to demonstrate unbelievable levels of malevolence they are almost a complete irrelevance.
Well, they might but I presume even the psychopaths running things want to live and I rather tend to think that as the avalanche of dollar collapse accelerates rendering it worthless not only will their military empire dry up and blow away but the country’s 350 million people will be faced with social collapse as they discover their dollar is almost useless and can scarcely buy them enough food to eat – never mind electronic gadgets.
Maybe in an act of human kindness such as the US has never shown a gram of to the rest of the world, the time is not far off when the Eurasian countries will be sending them food – ( perhaps in return for their denuclearisation !)
Keep up the good work Pepe – your writings along with the Saker’s are moments of real clarity and education floating in an ocean of otherwise mindless garbage and lies.
Although I am sure that Pepe , in the title, meant to write ‘presage’, not ‘ preview’.
>>when Moscow and Beijing discuss launching a gold-backed currency system to replace the US dollar<<
Has anyone here got a link to that discussion? as I would like to see it if they have.
Thanks
I was looking for one and come across this very important interview from 2009 which seems to predict it in detail = although no specific reference to the new gold standard is made as such, it does predict power shifting from West to East in an organised way:
See from 06.48 to the end:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOjckJWqb0A
It is good that the author brings up SCO. That sets the stage for an interesting question.
OBOR – A Muslim Road? Or, a No Muslims Allowed Road?
Good thing you clarified that OBOR is either black or it’s white. I guess I just never realized that a person’s relationship with their God could either grant them OBOR passage or deny them passage. Many Thanks! Mod. J
The Chinese government is making significant progress towards de-Islamification in Xinjiang province having increased the non-Muslim, Han Chinese population to 38%+ as of the last official numbers from 2011 (3). This intentional demographic shift is widely expected to reach to 60%+ non-Muslim by the next official release scheduled for 2021. If anyone has reliable interim demographic numbers for Xinjiang province, please share.
Russia and Singapore, at a minimum, tacitly support China’s de-Islamification policy. For example, at the upcoming SCO meeting they are both expected to back China’s de-Islamification force build up in Xinjiang province under the rubric of combating domestic, Islamic terrorism (2).
Singapore-Beijing-Moscow road building is strong under the SCO structure.
However, it is hard to see how OBOR will pass thru Tehran or Istanbul in the face of China’s unapologetic success at de-Islamification.
__________
(2) http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2149743/china-puts-fight-against-extremism-regional-security
(3) -Article from 2015- http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/1789160/chinas-drive-settle-new-wave-migrants-restive-xinjiang
well actually the Westphalian age was from the end of the 30 year war (1648) until Napoleon (1806).
Kremlin on Trump’s Call for Russia’s G8 Return: We Are Focused on Other Formats
https://sputniknews.com/world/201806081065230372-trump-russia-g7/
“Kremlin spokesman Dmitriy Peskov responded to Trump’s remark, concerning Moscow’s participation in the G7 meeting, set to kick off on Friday:
“Russia is focused on other formats, apart from the G7,” the spokesman stated, referring to formats for interaction between governments such as the G7 forum and BRICS.”
”Instead, they / the Western Elites / are, in various ways, accelerating their irrelevance and disintegration.”
Correct. And of these various ways, the most central one is known as neoliberalism. It destroyed the West’s industrial and fiscal basis, heralding the era of ”post-industrial society” and ”freedom of choice”, with everything running on steadily increasing indebtedness. The Western Elites can hence only sustain their rotting society by plunder and war abroad, but the world’s stiffening resolve makes this increasingly risky with each passing day.
The Western Elites are at a loss understanding neoliberalism as the bogus ”science” it really is. Moreover, their entire entourage is made up of pure charlatans, so there is little chance they will ever wise up.
Now things regards Europe are complicated. European Union led by German is Russia’s ally, its biggest trade partner and energy customer. and this alliance will turn the balance of power completely in Eurasian favor against the Empire. Putin repeatedly said he wants a integrated space from lisbon-vladivostok (which is why Russia supports Serbian EU membership) and to keep the EU united, wheras he said NATO (the anti-russian army of the Anglo) has no place in expanding to the East. It is not Baltic and Polands EU membership russia disagrees with, it is the Anti Russian character and policy of the individual governments which is the problem.
The Anglo will not allow this Eurasian-EU alliance to happen without a fight. All Anti EU movements ultimately benefit the Anglo, although they may not realise this.. Italys’ new semi fascist government is doing the Anglo’s work by creating a Divide and Conquer move, against Germany. Salvini so called ‘pro Russian’ rhetoric to remove sanctions is a psy op. He will serve USA banks by increasing national debt (read lega nord economic policy) and helping the completly crazy, terrorist supporting neocon state UK in their mission to destroy EU. Orban, Podemos, Sweden Democrats, AfD, all can be considered tools of Anglo imperialism.
We can consider UK in its Anti European Union actions ito be an exact mirror of Cuba’s role in Latin America for the USSR in the cold war, a puppet island supporting extreme movements in the nearby continent. USA will not care at all if Russia nuclear bombs UK, but they hope to use it first to bring down EU. Pro Russian views are common in the EU at all levels. Berlusconi was a mainstream pro EU politician, like Gerhard Schröder who was also truly Pro Russian. In short, Russia can NEVER be an ally of an anti EU oriented state, if it values Eurasianism.
Interesting analysis, Anonymous – from your perspective it would seem that Russia wants to be part of the extended EU without being officially recognizd as part of it- because if that were not the case, why would it be so open to provindifg resources to EU – for them to become dependent on Russian supplies for example. At the end of the day, regardlessof sanctions – as The Saker also recently pointed out – it is all about the business deals.
It is also an interesting perspective you have about Russia-Germany relations, because despite historical and ideological differences > in terms of energy agreements or arrangements, Germany is the main receiver of Russian gas in the E.U. and Russia is the main supplier. Would either want to jeapordise this economic mutally beneficial relationship, regardless of politics on the surface?
The UK Government campaigned for a “Remain” vote.
I voted for our joining the European Common Market.
We were not given the opportunity to vote on our joining the European Union, which I would have voted against.
Given this belated opportunity, I voted “Leave” .
As for the USA bringing down the EU, there is no need for them to do so, the EU can manage that for itself.