By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission
The Russian role will be to balance the hegemonic powers, as a guarantor of a new union of non-aligned nations
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping get friendly at a ceremony to present Xi with a degree from the St Petersburg State University on June 6, 2019. Photo: AFP / Dmitri Lovetsky
Professor Sergey Karaganov is informally known in influential foreign policy circles as the “Russian Kissinger” – with the extra bonus of not having to carry a “war criminal” tag from Vietnam and Cambodia to Chile and beyond.
Karaganov is the dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics. He’s also the honorary chairman of Russia’s Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
In December 2018, I had the pleasure of being received at Karaganov’s office in Moscow for a one-on-one conversation essentially about Greater Eurasia – the Russian path for Eurasia integration.
Now Karaganov has expanded his main insights for an Atlanticist made in Italy vehicle usually more distinguished for its maps than its predictable “analyses” straight from a NATO press release.
Even noting, correctly, that the EU is a “profoundly inefficient institution” on a slow path towards dissolution – and that’s a massive understatement – Karaganov observes that Russia-EU relations are on their way to a relative normalization.
This is something that has been actively discussed in Brussels corridors for months now. Not exactly the agenda envisaged by the US Deep State – or the Trump administration, for that matter. The degree of exasperation with Team Trump’s antics is unprecedented.
Still, as Karaganov recognizes: “Western democracies don’t know how to exist without an enemy.” Enter NATO’s routine secretary-general Stoltenberg’s platitudes on the Russian “threat.”
Even as Russia’s trade with Asia is now equivalent to trade with the EU, a new “threat” emerged in Europe: China.
An Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China was just invented last week as a new demonization platform, congregating representatives from Japan, Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK, Norway and Sweden as well as members of the European Parliament.
China “as led by the Chinese Communist Party,” is to be faced as a “threat” to “Western values” – the same old triad of democracy, human rights and neoliberalism. The paranoia embodied in the dual Russia-China “threat” is nothing but a graphic illustration of the prime Grand Chessboard clash: NATO vs Eurasia integration.
A great Asian power
Karaganov breaks down the crucial Russia-China strategic partnership to an easily absorbed formula: As much as Beijing finds strong support on Russia’s strategic power as a counterpunch to the US, Moscow can count on China’s economic might.
He recalls the crucial fact that when Western pressure on Russia was at its peak after Maidan and the Crimea referendum, “Beijing offered Moscow virtually unlimited credit, but Russia decided to brave the situation on its own.”
One of the subsequent benefits is that Russia-China abandoned their competition in Central Asia – something I saw for myself in my travels late last year.
That does not mean competition has been erased. Conversations with other Russian analysts reveal that fear of excessive Chinese power is still on, especially when it comes to China’s relations with weaker and non-sovereign states. But the bottom line, for such a sterling realpolitik practitioner as Karaganov, is that the “pivot to the East” and the strategic entente with China favored Russia in the Grand Chessboard.
Karaganov totally understands the Russian DNA as a great Asian power – taking into consideration everything from authoritarian politics to the natural resource wealth of Siberia.
Russia, he says, is “close to China in terms of common history despite the enormous cultural distance separating them. Up to the 15th century, both were under Genghis Khan’s empire, the largest in history. If China assimilated the Mongols, Russia ended up expelling them, but in two and a half centuries of submission it incorporated many Asian traits.”
Karaganov considers Kissinger and Brzezinski “lucid strategists,” and laments that even if they suggested otherwise “the American political class” inaugurated a “new Cold War” against China. He breaks down Washington’s objective as playing a “Last Battle” profiting from the forward bases the US still dominates in what Wallerstein would define as our collapsing world-system.
New Non-Aligned Movement
Karaganov is very sharp on Russia’s independent streak – always fiercely countering “whoever pointed at a global or regional hegemony: from the descendants of Genghis Khan to Charles XII of Sweden, from Napoleon to Hitler. In the military and political spheres, Russia is self-sufficient. Not in the economic, technological and cyber spheres, where it needs markets and external partners, which it will search and find.”
The result is that the Russia-EU rapprochement dream remains very much alive, but under “Eurasian optics.”
That’s where the concept of Greater Eurasia comes in, as I discussed with Karaganov in our meeting: “a multilateral, integrated partnership, officially supported by Beijing, based on an egalitarian system of economic, political and cultural links between diverse states,” with China playing the role of primus inter pares. And that includes a “significative part of the Western extremity of the Eurasian continent, that is, Europe.”
That’s what the evolution in the Grand Chessboard seems to point at. Karaganov – correctly – identifies western and northern Europe as attracted to the “American pole,” while southern and eastern Europe are “inclined towards the Eurasian project.”
The Russian role, under this framework, will be to “balance the two possible hegemonic powers,” as a “guarantor of a new union of non-aligned nations.” That hints at a very interesting new configuration of the Non-Aligned Movement.
So meet Russia as one of the supporters of a new multilateral, multi-vector partnership, finally moving from a status of “periphery of Europe or Asia” to “one of the fundamental centers of northern Eurasia.” A work in – steady – progress.
The US imperialist machine calls for a G-7 expansion to tackle China’s 5G penetration in its Western sphere of influence
https://t.co/OlHrx9KOKR
Nice.
But i would not advertise men like Josip Broz Tito. Tito was a NATO stooge who decoupled the Serbs of Yugoslavia from Russia/USSR which proved almost fatal for the Serbs. An Austro-Hungarian war criminal during WWI became the long-life President of Yugoslavia and the only Marshall. He was a NATO puppet with a hidden agenda behind the apparent movement of non-alignment. The CIA showered him with money which he in turn used to pull the countries out of the USSR orbit. He made sure his own country would fall apart after his death which it did by making sure there be mechanisms for its dissolution.
Russia has a large advantage in Greater Eurasia. Many of the nations speak Russian. In fact, 17 nations speak Russian.
Though Russia won’t be first among equals, by status, with Putin as leader during these formative years, Russia will be first in influence.
Pepe introduces the concept of Greater Eurasia as a “multilateral, integrated partnership including a significative part of the Western extremity, based on an egalitarian system of economic, political and cultural links between diverse states” officially supported by Beijing playing the role of primus inter pares”.
But so described that concept is merely the projection of something that is viewed as being desirable … It is in no way representative of the geo-political reality at this particular moment.
Having said that what is the geo-political reality at this particular moment ?
The Western centric world institutions, created after the 2nd World War, did not adapt to a changing Geo-political reality. Western countries have been resisting the institutional reset that naturally should have followed the shifting of the center of gravity of the economy-world towards East-Asia. Under necessity the world is now starting to turn toward an alternative institutional setting to accomplish what the international institutions no longer can. Along the last decades we observed the first timid steps of the re-organization of the world, into Regional Economic Blocs (REBs) and the twenties, of this 21th century, will see an acceleration of that process.
Resisting a changing reality has always been a losing proposition. The geo-political reality has unfolded ever further away from a paralyzed Western centric world order. East-Asia is in an advanced stage of transformation and is becoming the dominant REB. Faced with the shift of the economy-world to East-Asia he US is retreating locally from this geo-political reality. As a consequence the Western centric world order is now completely out of order and the resulting political chaos is endangering world peace and the survival of humanity.
Societal evolution and changing geo-political contexts are natural processes that are out of humanity’s control. The fact is that the present geo-political order is no longer adapted to the present context but the interrelations of nations-states have still not matured to the point that negotiations between state actors could lead to a compromise on a new architecture. The necessity and the urgency to preserve world peace, and the sustainability of life in its natural habitat, are furthermore fostering a very particular geo-political context in which, in all logic :
1. a World War is excluded for reasons of non-survivability but tensions will nevertheless continue to simmer
2. the Western centric Int’l institutions are paralyzed and nations are forced to address their shortcomings at the regional level (Eurasian Union, Asean, EU, Africa, North-America, and so on).
3. for the reasons given here above humanity is confronted with the impossibility to elaborate and implement solutions at the scale of the world. But the multiple side-effects of Modernity are converging and soon, to survive, humanity will be forced to elaborate world-wide policies to be implemented regionally and locally. This is the predicament of humanity in this present era of Late-Modernity.
Answers are necessary to ensure the survival of humanity and so it will somehow find the way to — expand the role of the Regional Economic Blocks (REBs) — while starting Int’l conversations between REBs about what solutions to implement and the REBs will become the enforcers…
The concept of Greater Eurasia, as envisioned by Pepe, fails to address n#3 here above. Because of that his conclusions are overthinking the reality described in 1 and 2 and this is landing him outside of realism.
I’m not sure #1 necessarily applies. Yes, a world war will be sought to avoided, as its certainly not in the best long term interests of everyone involved (the global hegemon, in particular), but faced with ceding power to the uncertainties of this new Regional World Order, the now failing hegemon has indicated pretty clearly time and time again, that “all options are on the table.” Sure, some of that is kabuki theater (or poker, if you like), but it’s no longer apparent that clearer heads have any influence whatsoever inside the great Zionist beast; and that, combined with the world’s largest nuclear, chemical, and biological (NBC) arsenals by far and the now proven willingness to use them, introduce a massive wild card (a “Trump card”, if you will, if you like cheesy puns) into the equation that is sure to frustrate almost any rational analysis.
Therefore, as much as the world needs regional solutions to emerge to handle current global problems, the #1 issue to my mind is first dealing with the great slavering global hegemonic beast, who will certainly spare no efforts (as we are seeing) whatsoever to undo those efforts as they emerge. This is a truly existential crisis for the beast, so rationality will almost certainly be nowhere to be found.
Perhaps your 3 points are outside of realism. You say that a 3rd world war won’t happen because it is not survivable. I wish I could believe that. First, Professor Carroll Quigley’s massive history of the modern world, Tragedy and Hope, identifies the real rulers of the world as family banking dynasties from a host of countries who are near to completing their new world order feudal system. Their plan, their intention, is to have a 3rd world war! They are identified as the source of all major wars, and minor ones too. They intend to subjugate every nation and consolidate all resources under their control. A massively destructive war will end all resistance and also greatly ‘thin the herd’ making it easier to control humanity. Consider the conduct in the past of those who these real-world rulers chose as their front men. The second world war had barely ended and Churchill had convinced Truman they should now attack and destroy Russia! It was postponed at the last moment because Churchill could not guarantee it would not drag on for a long time. Have we already forgotten that the land of the free and home of the brave nuked two civilian cities in Japan as a warning to Russia? All those deaths meant nothing! Nothing! Only a handful of years past and they were back on target with the Joint Chiefs of Staff presenting their plan to JFK. Led by General Lyman Lemnitzer they proposed to stage airline hijackings and killings on the streets of U.S. cities to blame on Cuba, in Operation Northwoods. Part of this plan involved a nuclear attack on, if I recall, 13 cities in the Soviet Union, Russia. Thankfully, Kennedy said no. When the Soviet Union dissolved and the Harvard boys set about pillaging Russia economically, they didn’t care how many were killed as a result. They are still at it. Continually threatening Russia and now China and the entire world. Now they are moving into the Arctic to stir up trouble there. It only takes a spark to ignite the gasoline. The empire of kindness has developed nuclear weapons that can be dialed to adjust the yield. How kind of them. They have these weapons for a reason.
>, humanity will be forced to elaborate world-wide policies to be implemented regionally and locally.
How did you miss it? This is already occurring and is well underway through major U.N. programs: Agenda 2000 became Agenda 2050 which became Agenda 2030! All couched in comforting phrases about respecting the planet, it is a formula for a feudal system of enslavement on a global scale, implemented locally. This agenda covers just about every facet of human life. I believe this virus an the way it has been handled is playing into this agenda. It is a false flag operation and it appears to not be over. They are going to keep it going. The worldwide financial system of international bankers is a major weapon to force submission. Thus far it has slowed but has not stopped the development efforts of Russia and China. Their last resort will be the dial a nuke because they cannot permit an independent system, one that is mutually beneficial for sovereign states to threaten their agenda for total world control.
I have an even greater concern, that being the submission of Christ’s Church during this so-called pandemic. By Christ’s Church I mean the one and only Apostolic Church which has existed from the days of the Apostles, the Orthodox Church. During the most important feast of Pascha, our Churches were all closed to the public. No liturgies. No Eucharist. Two of the most vital elements of the Kingdom of God, to feed and heal the sick and broken and set them on the course of salvation, and it all stopped. If we submit so easily now, what will happen when persecution comes? When the antichrist appears? Both are coming! And if they keep this going through Christmas, will we still be shut down? Our witness to the world ended? Many will think this holds no importance whatsoever. I beg to differ. Nothing in this world is more important.
St. Paul in his discourse with philosophers in Athens, in part said this: (Acts 17:24-27 [ESV2011])
[24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, [25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. [26] And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, [27] that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Evil men driven by internal passions can have their plans. They have free will, in a manner of speaking. But God also has His plans. If the one place where His name is held up becomes so weak and feeble, if there is little to no salt and light the results for the race of men can be catastrophic. The moment of truth is near. If the Church in various places decides to submit to worldly authority or continue to do so, and like Sergius in Russia betrayed Christians as he said “to save the Church”, then it will be another antichrist who rises or the final incarnation of that evil being.
I appreciate your thoughts on the Church.
“Sergius in Russia betrayed Christians as he said “to save the Church.”
Tell me about this. I haven’t heard of it.
”Still, as Karaganov recognizes: ’Western democracies don’t know how to exist without an enemy’. Enter NATO’s routine secretary-general Stoltenberg’s platitudes on the Russian ’threat’.”
I wonder if Karaganov realizes how profoundly correct his own verdict is. Western democracies have no other modus operandi than exploitation, violence, arrogance, and greed. It’s not precisely how to befriend the outside world.
Now, I don’t believe for a second that people employed by NATO (or Western Officialdom more generally) don’t embrace the Western/Zionazi gospel in full, so at least Jens Stoltenberg can be said to be honest in raising his concerns about Russia. However, to get to the more significant aspects, we should ask ourselves: Is Russia threatening Norway?. And it’s plain to see that the answer is a resounding Yes. Norway’s prosperity is, apart from the proceeds of Western imperialism, very much attributable to North Sea oil, which is a resource facing depletion while Russia’s oil wealth is an entirely different matter. Hence Norway, in addition to losing a significant export revenue, will have to start importing oil. I have a sneaky feeling Jens Stoltenberg and NATO will be crucial in determining which suppliers are not to be considered unless, of course, there is a fascist putsch bringing about democracy in these places. Stoltenberg’s platitudes about gays and other Zionazi paraphernalia most likely amount to genuine concerns on his part, but they don’t address the less ”sexy” aspects of the Russian threat.
Pepe always excels as a promoter of hope. This is one of his best short articles. Yes, Russia has a superior role — and has had it for quite a while. Pepe has just identified it! The obvious is not always easily perceived… What an accomplishment for a journalist!
Thanks Pepe for the iconic picture of the “big three” though with the noticeable absence of Fidel Castro. I find this iconic 1956 picture of the non aligned movement leaders to be equal in stature to the picture of the Yalta three – Stalin, Roosevelt & Churchill. These men were great charismatic leaders. Yes they were mere mortals, full of mistakes, yet they offered hope & “liberty” to many. As for some of us in the South, we proudly remember , the Egyptian Patriot & the son of Africa Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The Grand Chessboard (aka); the hegemonic powers contest, might be impressive to its proponents (1%), but it offers nothing to the majority (99%). For centuries, the plight of the majority (99%) has worsened under the exploitation of alternative Hegemon’s .People aspire for a new dispensation, based on equitable distribution of resources. It has to be sensitive to life (both HUMAN & Animal). It has to promote concepts like;clean Earth, Organic Agriculture & Balanced Eco-systems. Finally it has to respect people’s history, culture, languages,religions, communities, families & Individual independence. We are currently witnessing unprecedented global reaction against a repulsive act of indifference to human life by the police in the USA. These riots are showing us that is is possible ” Human power ” to triumphs over the parasitic power of the Hegemon ideology.
As soon as the Hegemon would be attacked on his own soil things would change rapidly.
And in an event that the Hegemon would attack Russia or China both would attach the Hegemon directly.
And this would be the end of the “aspirations” of the Hegemon.
The Hegemon wasn’t involved directly in both WorldWars. Therefore, neither its populace nor its elite had been “shown” how it could be. No real experience on the US soil.
Peak oil was reached in 2015. The fracking phenomenon masked this for 5 years, but the industry always lost money, and fracking wells dry up much faster than regular wells. They are reaching their limit now. This explains the Empire’s moves against Iran and Venezuela. When desperate, the Empire will move on the easier target, Venezuela, first. The manufactured COVID crisis and the manufactured civil unrest are meant to divert attention away from the ongoing financial crisis which first showed itself with the repo crisis where the Fed used $90T (equals the world’s GDP) in derivatives to prop up the market. The Empire still has much life, because the global economic calamity will cause the wealthy people to flee to the only safe havens (perceived), the USD and the DJI. The economic capitol of the world will not shift to China until the 2030s.
These manufactured crises are also being used to shut down the world economy so that the Empire can allocate energy to economic blocks that it favors and let other areas run dry and wither away. The civil unrest against the police will be used to create a one world militarized police system which will be used to crush any opposition to the Empire.
The effects of bio-warfare, the Empire’s new preferred method of conducting war is a variable that is harder to predict, along with artificial intelligence and the Empire’s cyber-warfare plan to penetrate China’s technology to take control of their government. Genetic engineering will be used to create a race of perfect slaves.
The emperors delight in human suffering as demonstrated by their ultimate blood sacrifices like the world wars of the 20th Century. Their private blood rituals include the rape, torture and murder of children. This is reflected in the increase in human trafficking. Separating families at the border and the great migration out of the middle east to Europe have increased the opportunity for kidnapping. There are many people living in dungeons waiting for their organs to be harvested and their blood to be drunk by the super wealthy. Such are the ethics of the emperors regarding a third world war. Consideration should be given to the possibility that all Abrahamic religions are false.
Thank you Pepe for another relevant well-written article.
At the same time I was reading it, I was co-processing Patrick Watson’s excellent article, “Russia and Europe: Two Different Histories” at Strategic Culture: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/06/13/russia-and-europe-two-different-histories/ and find they dove-tailed quite nicely, and readers here, not aware of this author, site, may enjoy reading.
Russian Muscle and Intellectual Prowess combined with Chinese Business Acumen and Confucian Philosophy will be the winners of the 21st Century. The PNAC will eat Dog Poo.
Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia might be exceptions, so eastern Europe might be a mixed bag.
And speaking of mixed bags, which of the two sides would Karaganov consider Germany (i.e. not just the former GDR) to be within?
This only applies as far as the “liberasti” including those of HSE Moscow are still in control of Russia. Not only is Russia decided by states (Belarus, Ukr, Kazachstan), but also internally. The so called patriots and liberals in Russia are only a very crude division of the Russian society. Russia is still incredibly weak internally. It lacks many sovereign parameters: A truly sovereign CB, a truly sovereign socio-economic apparatus (there is no strategic thinking economic subject in the RF). a sovereign culture and education system. I think Russia has proved in the past 30 years, that it has lost the ability to be truly a “subject” between hegemons as Pepe writes. Its elites a mostly parasites, who are forced to make policies as they go along, despite their firm ongoing commitment to integrate into the West. Notice, I mean the socio-economic elites. Even the Putler has done everything in the beginning of his presidency to integrate into the West. There are still some patriotic nests of resistance and a generally patriotic population, but the reigns of power are firmly in the hands of a disgusting ineffective liberal elite.