by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times
Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, is the world’s foremost diplomat. The son of an Armenian father and a Russian mother, he’s just on another level altogether. Here, once again, we may be able to see why.
Let’s start with the annual meeting of the Valdai Club, Russia’s premier think tank. Here we may follow the must-watch presentation of the Valdai annual report on “The Utopia of a Diverse World”, featuring, among others, Lavrov, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, Dominic Lieven of the University of Cambridge and Yuri Slezkine of UCLA/Berkeley.
It’s a rarity to be able to share what amounts to a Himalayan peak in terms of serious political debate. We have, for instance, Lieven – who, half in jest, defined the Valdai report as “Tolstoyian, a little anarchical” – focusing on the current top two, great interlocking challenges: climate change and the fact that “350 years of Western and 250 years of Anglo-American predominance are coming to an end.”
As we see the “present world order fading in front of our eyes”, Lieven notes a sort of “revenge of the Third World”. But then, alas, Western prejudice sets in all over again, as he defines China reductively as a “challenge”.
Mearsheimer neatly remembers we have lived, successively, under a bipolar, unipolar and now multipolar world: with China, Russia and the US, “Great Power Politics is back on the table.”
He correctly assesses that after the dire experience of the “century of humiliation, the Chinese will make sure they are really powerful.” And that will set the stage for the US to deploy a “highly-aggressive containment policy”, just like it did against the USSR, that “may well end up in a shooting match”.
“I trust Arnold more than the EU”
Lavrov, in his introductory remarks, had explained that in realpolitik terms, the world “cannot be run from one center alone.” He took time to stress the “meticulous, lengthy and sometimes ungrateful” work of diplomacy.
It was later, in one of his interventions, that he unleashed the real bombshell (starting at 1:15:55; in Russian, overdubbed in English): “When the European Union is speaking as a superior, Russia wants to know, can we do any business with Europe?”
He mischievously quotes Schwarzenegger, “who in his movies always said ‘Trust me’. So I trust Arnold more than the European Union”.
And that leads to the definitive punch line: “The people who are responsible for foreign policy in the West do not understand the necessity of mutual respect in dialogue. And then probably for some time we have to stop talking to them.” After all, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had stated, on the record, that for the EU, “there is no geopolitical partnership with modern Russia”.
Lavrov went even further in a stunning, wide-ranging interview with Russian radio stations whose translation deserves to be carefully read in full.
Here is just one of the most crucial snippets:
Lavrov: “No matter what we do, the West will try to hobble and restrain us, and undermine our efforts in the economy, politics, and technology. These are all elements of one approach.”
Question: “Their national security strategy states that they will do so.”
Lavrov: “Of course it does, but it is articulated in a way that decent people can still let go unnoticed, but it is being implemented in a manner that is nothing short of outrageous.”
Question: You, too, can articulate things in a way that is different from what you would really like to say, correct?”
Lavrov: “It’s the other way round. I can use the language I’m not usually using to get the point across. However, they clearly want to throw us off balance, and not only by direct attacks on Russia in all possible and conceivable spheres by way of unscrupulous competition, illegitimate sanctions and the like, but also by unbalancing the situation near our borders, thus preventing us from focusing on creative activities. Nevertheless, regardless of the human instincts and the temptations to respond in the same vein, I’m convinced that we must abide by international law.”
Moscow stands unconditionally by international law – in contrast with the proverbial “rules of the liberal international order” jargon parroted by NATO and its minions such as the Atlantic Council.
And here it is all over again, a report extolling NATO to “Ramp Up on Russia”, blasting Moscow’s “aggressive disinformation and propaganda campaigns against the West, and unchecked adventurism in the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan.”
The Atlantic Council insists on how those pesky Russians have once again defied “the international community by using an illegal chemical weapon to poison opposition leader Alexei Navalny. NATO’s failure to halt Russia’s aggressive behavior puts the future of the liberal international order at risk.”
Only fools falling for the blind leading the blind syndrome don’t know that these liberal order “rules” are set by the Hegemon alone, and can be changed in a flash according to the Hegemon’s whims.
So it’s no wonder a running joke in Moscow is “if you don’t listen to Lavrov, you will listen to Shoigu.” Sergey Shoigu is Russia’s Minister of Defense, supervising all those hypersonic weapons the US industrial-military complex can only dream about.
The crucial point is even with so much NATO-engendered hysteria, Moscow could not give a damn because of its de facto military supremacy. And that freaks Washington and Brussels out even more.
What’s left is Hybrid War eruptions following the RAND corporation-prescribed non-stop harassment and “unbalancing” of Russia, in Belarus, the southern Caucasus and Kyrgyzstan – complete with sanctions on Lukashenko and on Kremlin officials for the Navalny “poisoning”.
“You do not negotiate with monkeys”
What Lavrov just made it quite explicit was a long time in the making. “Modern Russia” and the EU were born almost at the same time. On a personal note, I experienced it in an extraordinary fashion. “Modern Russia” was born in December 1991 – when I was on the road in India, then Nepal and China. When I arrived in Moscow via the Trans-Siberian in February 1992, the USSR was no more. And then, flying back to Paris, I arrived at a European Union born in that same February.
One of Valdai’s leaders correctly argues that the daring concept of a “Europe stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok” coined by Gorbachev in 1989, right before the collapse of the USSR, unfortunately “had no document or agreement to back it up.”
And yes, “Putin searched diligently for an opportunity to implement the partnership with the EU and to further rapprochement. This continued from 2001 until as late as 2006.”
We all remember when Putin, in 2010, proposed exactly the same concept, a common house from Lisbon to Vladivostok, and was flatly rebuffed by the EU. It’s very important to remember this was four years before the Chinese would finalize their own concept of the New Silk Roads.
Afterwards, the only way was down. The final Russia-EU summit took place in Brussels in January 2014 – an eternity in politics.
The fabulous intellectual firepower gathered at the Valdai is very much aware that the Iron Curtain 2.0 between Russia and the EU simply won’t disappear.
And all this while the IMF, The Economist and even that Thucydides fallacy proponent admit that China is already, in fact, the world’s top economy.
Russia and China share an enormously long border. They are engaged in a complex, multi-vector “comprehensive strategic partnership”. That did not develop because the estrangement between Russia and the EU/NATO forced Moscow to pivot East, but mostly because the alliance between the world’s neighboring top economy and top military power makes total Eurasian sense – geopolitically and geoeconomically.
And that totally corroborates Lieven’s diagnosis of the end of “250 years of Anglo-American predominance.”
It was up to inestimable military analyst Andrey Martyanov, whose latest book I reviewed as a must read, to come up with the utmost deliciously devastating assessment of Lavrov’s “We had enough” moment:
“Any professional discussion between Lavrov and former gynecologist [actually epidemiologist] such as von der Leyen, including Germany’s Foreign Minister Maas, who is a lawyer and a party worm of German politics is a waste of time. Western “elites” and “intellectuals” are simply on a different, much lower level, than said Lavrov. You do not negotiate with monkeys, you treat them nicely, you make sure that they are not abused, but you don’t negotiate with them, same as you don’t negotiate with toddlers. They want to have their Navalny as their toy – let them. I call on Russia to start wrapping economic activity up with EU for a long time. They buy Russia’s hydrocarbons and hi-tech, fine. Other than that, any other activity should be dramatically reduced and necessity of the Iron Curtain must not be doubted anymore.”
As much as Washington is not “agreement-capable”, in the words of President Putin, so is the EU, says Lavrov: “We should stop to orient ourselves toward European partners and care about their assessments.”
Not only Russia knows it: the overwhelming majority of the Global South also knows it.
EU so called elite failed History in the last 40 years.
There is nothing to expect from those sell out.
Only for them to be kicked out or those countries to crumble into irrelevance
The final point about “arguing with monkeys” cannot be overstated. There is a tremendous wisdom gap between Western powers and Asian powers. The former essentially stopped developing intellectually in the first half of the 20th century. Economic (and hence technological) advantages following the devastating-for-others World Wars allowed the West to complacently sit on its ass and play “pretend” with totally vacuous neoliberal “theories” of politics & economics.
Meanwhile in the East, political-economic theory has been developing at a regular pace. Bolshevism, Stalinism, Maoism, and so on, based in critical concepts like dialectical materialism, represent dramatic evolutions of theory. It is telling that in the English language we don’t have the common vernacular to describe what follows Stalinism in Russia or Maoism in China, even though there have been many, many intellectual developments in the decades since, in both societies. We tend to just reject it, vacuously, as “communism”. We (in the West) are stuck decades in the past.
Now that the East has caught up (2008) and surpassed (2020) the West economically and technologically, this wisdom gap is a serious liability for the West. Russia and China merely have to play defensively, behind a “Iron Curtain 2.0”. The prison has inverted.
It is naive to say that merely the cards are in favor of the Eastern powers–they printed the deck and designed the playing table.
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
–Sun Tzu
Lavrov could have been the new Metternich if it wasn’t for the fact that US so-called diplomacy has devolved into being the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, domination rather than cooperation. It’s hard to reason with a dude like Pompeo who thinks the Earth was created 6000 years ago. Christian Zionists like him have a hard-on for Armageddon. How can you negotiate with that?
. Russia and China merely have to play defensively, behind a “Iron Curtain 2.0”. The prison has inverted.
Very well stated. Funny how situations can change so rapidly
““The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
–Sun Tzu
“based in critical concepts like dialectical materialism”
From dialectical materialism you will realise that science stands at least temporarily on the shoulders of its ancestor practitioners to facilitate their transcendence.
Some like Mr. Kuhn in his Structure of Scientific Revolutions have used the concept of paradigm to describe
this metamorphosis, thereby failing to achieve this as a function of framing.
Hence whilst paying due respect to the endeavours of ancestor practitioners, there are no devotional texts in science, although non-practitioners often find this difficult to perceive for myriad reasons including but not limited to:
“It is telling that in the English language we don’t have the common vernacular to describe what follows ”
including that labelling truncates concepts into linear frames precluding understanding/transcendence, including but not limited to the following production of scientitsts who decided to temporaily become snake-oil salesmen, namely :”We the people hold these truths to be self-evident….”
This also includes immersion in absolutes/binary thinking which predicates your mistaken statement “We (in the West) are stuck decades in the past” through conflating culture with “political geography” and we with all.
“It is naive to say that merely the cards are in favor of the Eastern powers–they printed the deck and designed the playing table.”
Your metaphor is an illustration of immersion in linear frames and hence in some assay replicates tools upon which the opponents rely, facilitating their iterations of enmazement and hence is naive but very popular with those who deem facility in chess, go, or some other amusement/game to enhance and illustrate an “excellence” in strategy.
Tsun Tsu lived a long time ago and so some present practioners would likely suggest to him if he were alive the following modification:
A (not the) supreme art of war is to transcend (not subdue since history illustrates that this is not sufficient in itself and encourages iterations of subdugation) the opponent (not enemy as this has an assay of emotionalism) whilst appearing to be not fighting (opponents being immersed in limited notions of agency and war previously at least to be limited to things that go bang) by facilitating opportunities for the opponent to fight itself whilst the opponent believes he/she/it is in control.
Knowledge is interational as is stupidity, which both facilitate opportunities of transcendence – the agora is everywhere and any Socrates should be encouraged not to drink the poison, but change the vector of transcendence (apologies for the linear geometric analogy used, since Mr. Kuhn is not alone.)
Enjoy your journey.
OlyaPola,
There seems to be a mismatch in semantics here. “Card games” (and 孫子) are merely idiomatic, not a component of analysis. Regards.
” seems”
Immersion in linear paradigms always facilitates seems.
However seems, is and becoming are not synonymous.
Enjoy your journey.
Thanks, Senor Escobar. Are we going to “see” anything of “Ayatollah Mike” any time soon?
It must be galling….all those hopes dashed. Now the full scheming is known of “partners” one example to destroy Syria and Assad and not even slightly redeem themselves by participating in reconstruction….OPCW lies….MH17 NL ****up….create all sorts of bearocratic(beaurocratic) problems and complexities…..now Russia can say to Merkel stuff your sanctions against Russia for Russia…write off hundreds billions in lost EU economy…. say welcome to all those refugees. Shame Russia spent tens millions getting back into PACE.
Better to spend 100 million euros talking with the monkeys, than 100 million lives fighting with them.
Yeah but soon as there are no more banana’s, money no longer talks w/monkeys.
I would say that this is a fitting epitaph for the West.
I have to digress with Pepe. The EU was not born in 1992, but much earlier, under a different name. It all went something like this, in true globalist fashion:
In 1946 the Council on Foreign Relations decides to create a “United Europe”, ie. the European Union. A step by step approach is applied, as after Hitlers New World Order, Europe was in no mood for another “association”. The bankers therefore use war hero General George Marshall to introduce “The European Recovery Program”, which quickly becomes known as “The Marshall Plan”. A total of 17 billion dollars of bribery money is offered to Europe as a loan on condition Europe creates an 18 member “Organization for European Economic Cooperation”, which ostensibly was a supervising body whose aim was to ensure that the money was not misappropriated, but which in reality was an administrative body for the future European Union. Only 15 % of the 17 billion dollars was payed back to the US, which generously “forgets” the rest.
In 1957 the Organization creates the Common Market, which leads – officially – to the creation of the European Union in 1993, which is basically a carbon copy of the US Federation. That is how the EU was created. And what does the EU have to say when Russia is in question ? Answer:
” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had stated, on the record, that for the EU, “there is no geopolitical partnership with modern Russia”. This is a remarkable piece of honesty from the globalist EU, which is nothing more than a civilian component of NATO. For example, both the EU and NATO are pushing eastwards, and both participated in the 2014 coup d’etat against Yanukovich in Kiev, with other entities giving a helping hand. The EU currently cannot go against US and NATO interests, although cracks are appearing, like with the construction of the Nord Stream – 2 gas pipeline. This fact alone will contribute to the breakup of the EU, not to mention the fact that EU countries lost billions of euros in trade with Russia due to sanctions instigated by Washington.
“… a report extolling NATO to “Ramp Up on Russia”, blasting Moscow’s “aggressive disinformation and propaganda campaigns against the West, and unchecked adventurism in the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan.”. What we have here are laughable Bismarckian tactics by NATO, where innocents are turned into aggressors and aggressors into innocents. Perhaps NATO should explain what US troops are doing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, why the US has 700 combat bases and 300 supply bases outside the US and why the US military created the African Command.
“The Atlantic Council insists on how those pesky Russians have once again defied “the international community by using an illegal chemical weapon to poison opposition leader Alexei Navalny”. What we have here are more laughable Bismarckian tactics. The Atlantic Council is Soros financed, an anti-Russian institution. Having read some of it’s “documents”, I can only propose that it be renamed ‘The Comedy Council’, bearing in mind the amount of disinformation and nonsense it writes. Perhaps the Council should explain how Navalny, like the Scripals, managed to survive an “attack” where military nerve gas was ostensibly “used”, and why people around them were not infected. Since honesty is not the Councils trait, I will be honest in their name:
The false flag against the Scripals was instigated in 2018, just prior to the Russian presidential elections and prior to the World Cup in football. Any bright high school kid can explain why. The intent, of course, was to vilify Putin, all in the hope that this would ruin his chances for reelection, as if Russians were ‘fools’ who did not understand what was going on. The second intent was the hope that the World Cup would be cancelled. Well, it was not. It was splendidly organized, and it boosted Russia’s image, to the utter irritation of globalists.
When it comes to the black comedy with blogger Navalny, it is absolutely incredible that Western Intel used the same foolish methods as in 2018 against the Scripals. Russia is again accused of using (of all things) military nerve gas. Navalny survives. I wonder how. And when did this false flag occur ? Answer: During demonstrations in Belarus, with Western Intel ‘experts’ hoping that the demonstrations would spread to Russia. How “bright” of them. Somebody should have told them that Navalny, and other NGO puppets, are known in Russia as “sorosyata”, which means Soros’s little piggies. And of course, there were no demonstrations in Russia, which is not Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, although globalists would like it to be.
And finally, my last quote from this article:”As much as Washington is not “agreement-capable”, in the words of President Putin, so is the EU, says Lavrov: “We should stop to orient ourselves toward European partners and care about their assessments.”. Perfectly true. Lavrov deserves every compliment. The future relationship between Russia and the EU should be centered around trade, as the EU cannot function without Russian energy and mutual exports and imports. There is no point talking about politics with the EU, created by Anglo-American bankers, where the aim was the curtailment of the sovereign status of European states, and de facto turning the EU into a prison for European countries. Talking to the EU is the same as talking to Washington DC, or to the City of London, run by the Rothschild’s. Readers should take into account that Britain, initially, wanted to join the EU. Now it is leaving. Why ? Because it’s job has been concluded. Together with the US it created the EU, bringing it’s old enemies France and Germany into the Union. Now that both are in, Britain is getting out. What this means is that the bulk of EU’s economic and political problems will have to be solved by France and Germany, while the London and New York bankers will manipulate the EU through it’s Central Bank in Frankfurt. This fact alone should distance Russia from the EU. Ironically Russia will be on the EU’s eastern flank, while Britain will be on it’s western flank. Both will be outside the EU. Nice place to be, as then your hands are not tied with the EU’s globalist rules and regulations.
France and Germany were part of an “EU” long before the UK was admitted as a member. There was never a popular vote in the UK before it was ‘taken in’ by Edward Heath after having been earlier rejected by Charles de Gaulle in 1963. Many in the UK were bitterly opposed to joining the EU, hence the mass support for the present prime minister and Brexit.
I suspect the ‘RAND corporation’ dying roughly the same death as it’s name giver, which is a good thing !
None of Gorbachev’s significant policies seems to have any documents to back them up. No documents to back up NATO’s promise to not expand eastwards either. (Of course we know how agreement capable Amerikastan is so we know what the value of such a document would be, but still.) You’d almost think Gorbachev, who these days spreads anti Russian propaganda from his home, was a deliberate saboteur, but that can’t be right, right?
Last night I suddenly thought, Was Gorbachev a double agent? Because he certainly fled fast enough to ‘the West’.
Dear Dr Maroudas,
That is a very good question. Follow if you can the dark and short trail left by one Alexander Yakovlev, an eminence grise who gave the hitherto marginal bureaucrat his big opening.
Thank you,
Ken
Thanks, Ken. From Wikipedia:
“Yakovlev accompanied Mikhail Gorbachev, who at the time was the Soviet official in charge of agriculture, on his tour of Canada. The purpose of the visit was to tour Canadian farms and agricultural institutions in the hopes of taking lessons that could be applied in the Soviet Union; however, the two renewed their earlier friendship and, tentatively at first, began to discuss the prospect of liberalisation in the Soviet Union.
In an interview years later, Yakovlev recalled:
At first we kind of sniffed around each other and our conversations didn’t touch on serious issues. And then, we had a lot of time together as guests of then Liberal Minister of Agriculture Eugene Whelan in Canada. So we took a long walk on that Minister’s farm and, as it often happens, both of us suddenly just kind of flooded and let go.”
Thank you.
To me this looks like whitewashing by Yakovlev of his own role. The then Soviet Politbureau was a cauldron of interpersonal and inter-group struggles for power and to think that Yakovlev (whose role is still not clear) simply opened up to Gorbachev is implausible. Rather, Gorbachev had been picked up by the forces of “liberalisation” (read destruction of the USSR) as a perfect candidate. They couldn’t afford another Andropov and as history shows, they chose well.
If they bury him beside or near Marx you’ll have your answer. Although I think you’re on the right tack.
Cheers, M
Lavrov & Putin failed to split the EU from US.
The whole Ukraine/Donbass disaster was rationalized with ‘we let it happen so that we don’t alienate the Europeans completely’. Big failure.
Next, this con-vid lockdown nonsense is just the Empire taking a knee – like in NFL – basically hindering the opposing team to play. I predict major problems for the Chinese economy in a year maybe less. BRI still isnt up & running to substitute for western customers. Major social upheaval in China due to economic problems.
China right now is making Australia grovel.
Putinist incompetence in Ukranazistan, however, has been clear for six years for those with eyes to see.
“I predict major problems for the Chinese economy in a year maybe less. BRI still isnt up & running to substitute for western customers. Major social upheaval in China due to economic problems.”
China is the *only* major economy to grow in 2020 and is strengthening regional cooperation every day with that prestige. Where is this delusional thinking coming from? I can only think of 1995 Gordon “Comrade” Chang interviews on Fox News. Regards.
PIB is down 15 at % least. Highly educated student back from western universities can not find jobs. The tech sector is under respirator and not able to get what it needs to produce anything (american sanction).
The chinese economy is a giant casino, Everything is cooked…by the PCC.
Migrant workers are without jobs for more than 9 months
In the last year the Central Bank of China has printed 2 times more money than the FED…the last 3 months 3 majors chinese banks collapsed and were rescued by the government. Private debt off the books are unknown.
Chinese economy can not proper without customers.. Regional cooperation ? Talk to Vietnam or Indonesia…
It’s indeed a rarity to read about someone like ” Lieven focusing on the current top two, great interlocking challenges: climate change and the fact that ‘350 years of Western and 250 years of Anglo-American predominance are coming to an end’.”
These are indeed the two defining moments in today’s historical era of Late-Modernity. But even Lieven does not know what he’s talking about. So let’s clarify what these 2 challenges are all about :
1. with Covid-19 the center of gravity of the economy-world (in its Braudelian sense) has definitely shifted from the West to the East with all the implications this is having on world governance and on future models of national governance :
1.1. The territorial space of the Western civilization, that adhered to the worldview of Western Christianity or what remains of it, has lost its dominance over the world. The nations that are part of the Western territorial space are furthermore in deep trouble socially and societally. Social inequality, between the 1% and the 99%, has indeed reached such outrageous levels that these societies have lost any semblance of societal cohesion. The US, for example, is dangerously balancing presently between totalitarianism and societal collapse…
1.2. East-Asia has now the predominant economy on earth with China assuming the role of the economic locomotive of the world. Let’s remember that the territorial space of the Chinese civilization extends not only to China but to the Korea’s, Japan and Vietnam and that it further exerts a determinant influence on the cultures of the countries composing ASEAN. The US and its lackeys are doing all they can to divide these nations. But the sheer economic potential of China is some 4-5 times the cumulated GDP of the entire West. No East-Asia nation is dumb enough to engage in ventures that could forsake its participation to the Chinese economic sphere. So with time all East-Asia nations will necessarily find ways to set their differences aside.
Furthermore, as soon as the US power of destruction is being checked and matted, North-East Asia will revive “the Far East advanced development zone” into a space of cooperation between Russia, China, North-Korea, South-Korea and Japan …
That’s also when an “East-Asia Economic Block” will affirm its negotiating power to the rest of the world and its culture will naturally start to attract the attention and admiration of the citizens from the rest of the world…
1.3. This economic shift of “the economy-world” as described in 1.1. and 1.2. will naturally result in the abandonment of the Western models of “Liberalism” and “representative democracy”. Observing China we start to see that new ideas are rising and experimentation’s are being implemented that place the “well-being of the people” at the center of societal governance. It is still too early to start painting a picture of the future system of governance that will emerge from these experimentation’s but one thing is for sure already which is that China will stick to the 2 principles it coined recently :
— Chinese societal governance privileges the “well-being of the people” over the interests of big capital holders and their servants (see how that distinguishes China’s handling of Covid-19 from the handling of Western countries)
— “China wants to participate in a community of nations that shares a common destiny building a sustainable social and ecological future for its children”
2. Modernity built an extremely efficient and successful economic system but there is a catch.
Modernity generates mass side-effects. And its abandonment of the traditional precautionary principle has let those side-effects run their course without any mitigation. Climate-change is but one of those side-effects. Many other are as destructive like for example ‒ the chemical poisoning of air, water and soils that kills life ‒ deforestation and the running of top-soils that decreases the outputs of agriculture and threaten famine for the whole world ‒ the destruction of humanity’s tradition worldviews that resulted in Western “hyper-individualism” and “societal atomization” which brings about the fall of societies ‒ and so many other.
Today in Late-Modernity we observe that these multiple side-effects are converging and they are starting to interact among themselves which accelerates the lethality of each one of them. Their interactions are furthermore escalating thresholds of non-livability, also called tipping points by scientists, that unleash deadly consequences for life on earth. These thresholds are then accelerating the process of life mass-extinction.
Whatever Western big capital holders and their servants might be peddling as lies today the fact of the matter is that if the human species wants to survive it will have to act radically in order to stop the further production of side-effects, by its economy and by its way of life, and then it will also have to clean up the mess left over by Modernity…
It is at this point that we discover that China’s rise, as the locomotive of the world economy, offers much promise. The “well-being of the people” and “a community of nations that shares a common destiny building a sustainable social and ecological future for its children” is indeed the best we can dream of today… If interested to read more about all this go read my book “A first blow to Late-Modernity“.
Loadan “The US and its lackeys are doing all they can to divide these nations. But the sheer economic potential of China is some 4-5 times the cumulated GDP of the entire West. No East-Asia nation is dumb enough to engage in ventures that could forsake its participation to the Chinese economic sphere.”
Australia is caught as the China economic tide rises. Here is my short video on ‘Who is the Clown?’ Remember Australia has huge natural resources and a huge land mass.
Since 2007 China has been Australia’s largest trading partner, replacing Japan, with trade valued at US$235 billion in 2019, or 32.6% of its exports. https://youtu.be/p6xLchIIJWo or
http://www.cowdisley.com/videos/australia.mp4
Somehow I have trouble believing that the chinese are going to one day clean up the mess of modernity they contributed so handsomely too, no, I trust that this is gods job, if there is a clean up god naturally.
What mess? Who has PRC nuked and pillaged?
Mess = consumerism, class divide – there are billionaires in China and still a billion poor people (but PR spokesperson will only emphasise the number of Chinese middle class)… China is also going along with the con-vid nonsense…
I was thinking mostly industrial pollution and modern items that not only dont last the test of time, but barely last 1/2 a decade.
Yes, planned obsolescence. I am classifying that as consumerism.
“Not only Russia knows it: the overwhelming majority of the Global South also knows it.”
It is time for the EU to know it too: The self-styled “elites” (French “elus — the chosen ones) of “the West” are corrupt, merciless, selfish and stupid. They must be purged from within the body politic.
A perceptive reflection on the part of Pepe, this bit about ‘modern’ Russia coming into being at the same time as the EU. I’d like to add a bit to that. On this crucial moment what we see is Russia returning to the real ‘rules based international order’, which is to say the UN idea that took shape in 1945 as against the EU which is headed in the opposite direction of a Fourth Reich, and this at the constant urging of the North Atlantic Better Class of People. For years, Russian diplomacy, using it’s characteristic language of ‘partnership’ tried again and again to restore the norms of 1945 and yet again and again we see the Europeans sink further and further into idiocy, farce, and incoherence, all the while trying to assert the international moral high ground by setting the face of ‘human rights’ on the seedy business of cold war hegemonic politics. During this time the moral backbone of Europe has turned to jelly and basically is no more. The centre of moral gravity in international affairs is one that recognises the essential principles of the Westphalian sovereign state with its attendant axiom of non interference in the affairs of other states. There was this, but the Westphalian system was prone to crashes into total warfare once the pilfering of the rest of the planet failed to slake the thirst for grubbing the resources required to keep all the domestic squeaky wheels greased. This gave rise to modifications of the system which took the form of successive arrangements: the ‘Concert of Europe’, League of Nations, and presently the United Nations. This is where we’ve come to. This remains preferable to yet another Reich. But in any case there are two roads, one leading in the direction of the original United Nations which enshrined the principle of state sovereignty and non interference, and the other road leads to our fabled ‘new world order’. Pepe calls attention to the fateful moment on the morrow of the collapse of the old USSR. Russia took one road, Europe the other, and here we are.
A Russian pivot? I think it’s a mistake to conceive a Russian ‘pivot’ away from a European partnership and into the arms of the Shanghai alliance. My take: to begin with, back in the 80s, the idea was to restore Europe to what it had been up till the Bolshevik Revolution, which effectively was a stretch ‘from Lisbon to Vladivostok’ and where Russia had a seat at the table. We soon discovered, during the Yugoslavia war years, that there would be no seat for Russia at the table of Europe. Things went from bad to worse and at length, along came China, or so goes the story. But actually, I believe that as China grew in importance the Russian idea of it’s place in the world only grew greater and more ambitious. Russia is in a partnership with China. China’s role is essentially economic, though in an impressively universalistic way. Russia handles the diplomatic and security aspects, which include energy and food security as well as weapons and political backing. Russia’s role in the alliance is a strong one and I do not take seriously the lopsided ideas of those who base everything on demographics and GNP, fearing for Russia in the presence of such tremendous population and wealth. Russia’s role is absolutely central in the emerging Eurasian centred world order. Europe has a place in all this whether they’re on speaking terms with their Slavic neighbours or not. They exist in a somewhat peripheral way, rather the way Greece existed when Alexander was rampaging through Asia. I think they know this, or those who can still think do, and don’t like it. Russia matters and Europe doesn’t is what it comes down to. Still they have no choice. If they want a future it’s get on board with the Eurasia Express. Russia occupies the central role. This is how things are going. But the most interesting feature of the whole business is that Russian strategic aims do not involve anything in the way of dirty tricks or below the belt operations. On the contrary, the achievement of their aims results from a diplomatic posture of peace, prosperity and stability with all their neighbours, near and far, and domestic development at home. That’s it. This is not four dimensional chess; it’s something better than that.
Kevin, good remind us of the positive EU, UNO and other ideals of “peace, prosperity and stability with all neighbours near and far”. There are always two Jerusalems: the ideal Heavenly Jerusalem for which even atheist materialist communists pray; and the actual ‘tatsachlich’ Earthly Jerusalem of the tax office and the defense hq. The one does not cancel the other.
“Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell”. — Shakespeare
“The Utopia of a Diverse World.” Ha ha ha.
We LIVE in a diverse world. Unfortunately, we are wantonly killing diversity while extolling human diversity: for example, so many different sexes!!!
While politicians talk, argue, and debate scientists and technologists dramatically change our world.
Who introduced the use of fossil fuels? Who split the atom and gave birth to controlled nuclear explosions and uncontrolled release of nuclear radiation? Who developed genetic engineering so that the various genomes of life can be altered at will, enabling among other things BIOWARFARE with tailored viral chimeras? Who develops communication technologies and artificial intelligence that render much of human labour superfluous, and possibly much of human life? The world is filling with humans and their chosen plants, animals, and microorganisms while destroying nature’s rich diversity of life. So much for the Utopia of a Diverse World.
Discussion is a ‘waste of time’. Oh?
The “day after foreign ministers of the European Union reached an agreement to impose sanctions on Russia over the alleged poisoning of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny”, Lavrov said, “we PROBABLY have to suspend dialogue with them for a while.” THEY impose more and more sanctions, while both sides continuing to talk. talk, TALK. But remember to be respectful to ‘partners’ !!! What does Sergei Lavrov caution? To perhaps stop talking for a while.
My, oh my! The EU must now be terribly afraid, hence Borrell’s wish to maintain communication with Russia.
“We all remember” Pepe tells us. Yes, we remember Pepe saying how Russia’s placing of the S400 would transform the skies of Syria, allowing Russia to impose a ‘no-fly zone’. Unfortunately, no one appears to have informed Israel of this and so its raids on Syria continue unabated. And the USA continues to steal Syria’s oil: why is there no bombing of their transportation of stolen oil, as happened when Russia first went in at the request of President Assad? Now, Pepe assures us, “Moscow could not give a damn because of its de facto MILITARY SUPREMACY” It may take two to tango, but it only needs one to start a war, so perhaps it would be unwise to think ‘military supremacy’ is enough to ensure one’s safety. When nuclear destruction comes, everyone shall be victims.
Misbehaving Europe. I don’t think it’s a question of shutting Europe out due to their sub optimal demeanor. Capable diplomacy based on real strategic aims takes little account of hurt feelings but instead remains steadfastly focused on ‘the road to Berlin’. The Berliners aren’t going to like this. The Moscovites understand this perfectly well. It’s not particularly intended that way. Russia’s intentions are simply to stay the course, all in line with the principles of the UN and international law, as they never tire of affirming, while gradually shoehorning Europe into it’s only viable future, which is with Eurasia in the status of a junior partner, politically and diplomatically less important than Russia. War is brewing with America. It’s a matter of importance to neutralise America’s allies in Europe. All the economic pundits, and not least the LaRouchies, are warning of the immanence of the 75 trillion dollar derivatives time bomb that is set to go off .. any minute now. This will effect everybody, but those who’ve been stocking up on gold and paying strict attention to the real factors of economic life – as distinct from the virtual economy of Wall St. and the City of London – will remain afloat, or at least potentially. We notice that the EU leadership is doing everything they can to go down with the American ship (almost). Maybe Lavrov is right; it’s time to stop talking to these people. Soon enough the rats will start jumping ship. Perhaps then will be a good time for respectful communication? Perhaps. But the strategic aim is to break up Nato and ensure that the coming war, and it is coming, sees the US isolated along with it’s Axis of Evil friends in Wahabiland and Palestine. So then, injury (self inflicted), fine, but no insults. Like Bismark. Let the North Atlantic elites go down but keep a line of flight open, one that herds the European sheep in a suitable direction. All in the name of partnership.
because they are soiling their panties in fear that several centuries of Western world dominance are imploding.
“350 years of Western and 250 years of Anglo-American predominance are coming to an end.”
And this, ladies and gentleman, is the fundamental reason why the Americans and their Europeon crime partners are throwing an unprecedented geopolitical hissy fit.
It is the real reason why the Americans, Anglos, and Europeons have waged multiple wars of aggression (the Supreme International Crime) against Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, the fake War on Terrorism, and now Cold War 2.0 against Russia and China.
The collective West thinks it has a Manifest Destiny to impose its perverse brand of “Western values” like its fake Liberal Democracy on the entire planet.
As such, they are guilty of waging not only wars of aggression but also economic siege warfare, political regime, and Two Minutes of Hate media campaigns against all nations that object to these “Western values” … like Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, etc.
And make no mistake, the Americans and their Euro/Anglo crime partners will have no problem launching nuclear Armageddon if they cannot fulfill their God-given right to dominate, control, and spread of the gospel of (spit) Western Civilization over all mankind.
You will accept universal Western Democratic values (Removed by the moderator because insulting those less fortunate than yourself only demeans this site (not acceptable) and Yourself (it is not required that you hold yourself in high regard) —OR ELSE! ;-)
“Manifest Destiny”
The Manifest Destiny of species is to be born, to exist and to die.
The prime variable is when, how being a minor subset.
Is Russia going to reject the Euro and only accept doing business with UE with gold or a currency pegged do gold or silver? The same with USA rejecting the dollar unless it is pegged to gold or silver
Yes!
Not tomorrow or next week, not even next year but at some time the Euro and US Dollar will become worthless.
If you research why and when the original Iron Curtain was erected you will understand that Russia will not be fooled again.
“If you research why and when the original Iron Curtain was erected you will understand that Russia will not be fooled again.”
It is useful if you continue to believe that “The Soviet Union” and/or the Russian Federation were fooled.
The “appearances of foolery” were largely functions of facility of some and of some others, which informed views on the US dollar and various other matters from 1922 onwards.
As to lacunae in facility of some others, they were and continue to be in process of transcendence.
There has been a lot of quacking about the Crimea: what a crime against humanity; how could they abuse the Ukrainians again after the Holdomor; those brave, but treacherous Tartars; how can they violate a sovereign countries borders? In Canada this includes many who purport to be informed historians and progressives. I’m thinking of Gwynne Dyer (http://gwynnedyer.com), a historian who is a professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston. I brought him up short on the Crimea once, and like Max Boot he sucked his thumb, and disappeared from the debate rather than honestly admit his ignorance.
The facts are that Russia added the Crimea, and everything else to the north and east, to the Russian Empire in 1784. Kiev is a seminal root to the Russian identity as the founding source of Russian Orthodox Christianity. The contrived controversy denying Russian Orthodox leadership of Christianity in the East is the latest denial of commonly understood Russian history.
Sevastopol is a critical, strategic military asset for Russia, and has been such since its capture in 1784. It is the major warm water port for Russia since the Crimean War. Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Victoria Nuland, should have remembered the charge of the Light Brigade before attempting the Maidan False Flag sniper attacks. After the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, Russia and NATO negotiated the Budapest Memorandum with the newly independent Ukraine to destroy the nuclear weapons stored there. The later Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership, Partition Treaty on the Status and Conditions of the Black Sea Fleet, and, Kharkiv Pact secured uninterrupted Russian access and control of Sevastopol, and the ancient Russian language and cultural rights of the large Russian majority in the eastern provinces. All of these treaties were violated with US and NATO encouragement by the Bandera Nazis.
All of these treaties were conveniently ignored by Obama, Clinton, their comprador Banderists, and the MSM, so they could arrogantly attempt to attack Russia. All of this information is available on Wikipedia, but that would require superficially honest research by Western media collaborators.
This Maidan foreign policy adventure was profoundly stupid and deliberately provoked war. The very first acts of the Banderists were to deny Russian language and cultural rights, attack Russians returning home on the highways, to form Nazi militias, and to join EU. The notion that Russia would abandon its Russian citizens, allow NATO to threaten Russia from forward bases on Ukrainian soil, and surrender Sevastopol to NATO, could have resulted in the first large war between nuclear armed NATO and RUSSIA. We can all thank Putin, Lavrov, and Russians for the measured and restrained response that kept the war limited to its present small size.