Russia has become the world’s pivotal nation.

Eric Zuesse

(PHOTO BY: Dr. Ernest Gunasekara-Rockwell, Public Domain)

The U.S. Government and its news-media portray international relations not as being U.N.-centric but as being U.S.-centric; but, right now, international relations are actually Russia-centric.

The Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning U.S. President Barack Obama gave the clearest (though, carefully, ONLY implicit) expression of this U.S.-centric world above all other nations — supreme over the entire planet — when he told America’s future military leaders, on 28 May 2014:

The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. … It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world.

That neoconservative President was telling America’s future military leaders that all nations except America are “dispensable.” Military people know what that term means — it means what they are being paid to do (destroy those other nations), and Obama there was clearly alleging that Russia is America’s chief enemy (perhaps along with China).

(Of course, the neoconservative Obama was saying this in the context that his bloody February 2014 coup against Ukraine — which transformed Ukraine from being neutralist to now being rabidly anti-Russian and so starting in 2014 the war in Ukraine, which Russia finally responded militarily to on 24 February 2022 — had instead been a ‘democratic revolution’ in that country, which Obama’s military audience might then have to fight in order to sustain.)

In that viewpoint, which Obama expressed, the U.N., which President Truman had shaped to be a mere talking-forum and not to be the democratic federation of all of the world’s Governments as his predecessor President FDR had invented and intended it to be, is nothing, and the U.S.-made “international rules-based order” (whose “rules” are to come from the U.S. Government) replaces the U.N.’s international laws. In the eyes of Obama and other neoconservatives, Russia and China aren’t merely economic competitors to the U.S., but America’s military are assigned by their Commander-in-Chief to help America’s billionaires to take them over — to regime-change these countries (since those two nations and the other BRICS nations “compete with us and … seek a greater say in global forums”).

On 16 October 2014, I headlined “Obama Misrepresents the Russian Economy”, and documented the blatant falsity of many statements about Russia by him, such as his “Russia doesn’t make anything. Immigrants aren’t rushing to Moscow in search of opportunity. The life expectancy of the Russian male is around 60 years old. The population is shrinking.” All of that was blatantly false and deceived Americans.

On 14 November 2023, I headlined “America and its allies are CLEARLY declining powers”, and documented that in terms of Gross Domestic Product at Purchasing Power Parity (which has become the standard way of comparing national economies), the world during 1990 to 2022 rose 5.58 times, Russia rose 5.33 times, the U.S. rose 4.24 times, the EU rose 3.90 times, and China rose 21.83 times. The reason for Russia’s sub-par performance during that period was that in the 1990s (the period’s first ten years) the U.S. controlled Russia, and Harvard’s economics Department was brought in to ‘advise’ Yeltsin’s Government on how to convert to a capitalist economy by cutting America’s billionaires in on and making ‘partners’ of Russians that they and Yeltsin’s people would select to skim Russia's economy, so that Russia’s economy crashed during those years. Putin came into power when Yeltsin quit on the first day of the new Millennium, he took control away from the billionaires and their U.S. partners, and Russia’s economy started taking off like a rocket within three years and has kept doing so ever since — benefitting the Russian people enormously.

On 6 December 2023, I headlined what would have come as shocking news to my fellow Americans if the U.S.-and-allied ’news’-media hadn’t been hiding it all along, “America: A record of Economic Failure for the Past 25 Years”, and documented that between the first day of 1998 and the last day of 2022 (this 25-year period during which Putin has been in power):

China’s economy grew 6.4 times (“x6.4”) over those 25 years, Russia’s grew 5.9 times over those 25 years, India’s grew 2.96 times over those 25 years, U.S.’s grew 1.36 times over those 25 years, EU’s grew 1.40 times during those 25 years, Japan’s grew 1.17 times over those 25 years, and South Korea’s grew 2.37 times over those 25 years.

Here is the performance of the entire world over those 25 years:
tradingeconomics.com/world/gdp-per-capita-ppp-us-dollar-wb-data.html 25-yr=22/7=x3.14

So: x3.14 is the global average performance over the most-recent 25-year period..

In other words: whereas India performed slighly worse than the global average, the U.S., EU, Japan, and South Korea, performed considerably worse than the global average during those 25 years.

So, while Putin has been in power in Russia (2000-2022), its economy has been performing almost as well as China’s. The U.S. regime and its allies want to get rid of Putin and of Xi because Russia and China under the present leadership have soared way past the U.S. and its colonies (‘allies’) — and the leaders of the U.S. and its allies want to do to Russia and to China what they already have done to Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, and Libya, and what they’ve been trying to do to Iran and Venezuela: take them over and destroy them for the benefit of U.S.-and-allied billionaires. (After all: war is profitable for billionaires.)

On 11 December 2023, Alexander Mercouris, who is probably the most knowledgeable and trustworthy public commentator on international relations, headlined his 21-minute video commentary jocularly “Isolated Putin” (meant to ridicule Britain’s so-called “Independent” newspaper for its December 5th ‘news’-report titled “Isolated Putin visits UAE and Saudi Arabia as rest of world discusses climate action at Cop28”), and Mercouris described in detail the current evidence that now very clearly Russia is the world’s pivotal nation. Everyone should see that video, but, of course, U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media will instead hide it. The NATO PR agency Atlantic Council had headlined on 30 March 2023, “Russia faces long economic decline as isolated Putin turns to China”. So, the “Independent” newspaper didn’t invent that phrase, “Isolated Putin.”

Just as the U.S.-and-allied ‘news’-media hide from the public that the February 2014 Maidan ‘democratic revolution’ in Ukraine was actually Obama’s coup there and started Ukraine’s war, they likewise hide that ever since 1980, America’s economic growth has lagged the global average, and that starting in 2015, China has had the world’s largest economy, and that Russia’s is growing almost as fast as China’s is. That’s a lot of truth to hide from the public in a ‘democracy’.

ADDENDUM

Why U.S. Economy Plunged but U.S. Billionaires Boomed, after 2019

Mordor does not care about its citizens. That's because Americans really lack political representation.

On February 8th, Gallup headlined “Half in U.S. Say They Are Worse Off, Highest Since 2009”, and reported that, “35% of Americans say they are better off now than they were a year ago, while 50% are worse off.” However, what’s even more significant is that ever since the start of 2020, when covid-19 struck in January of 2020, the percentage saying yes to Gallup’s “you [are] financially worse off now” than a year ago, has steadily risen from an all-time low of 20% saying that in January 2020, to a near all-time high of 50% saying that in January 2023. In other words: except for the all-time high of 55% saying yes to that question during 2008 when America’’s economy crashed, Americans today think that they are worse-off now than they were a year ago — they’re saying it at a near record-high level — and their economic decline since the January 2020 hit by covid-19 (and continuing since Biden’s becoming President in January 2021) has, itself, continued that economic plunge unabated, now, for all of these three years, 2020-2022, with the percentage saying yes to “you [are] financially worse off now” rising steadily thoughout that time.

During these same three years, while the American public sank, America’s nearly a thousand billionaires boomed. On 21 November 2022, Inequality Dot Org bannered “Billionaire Wealth Slips, But Still 50 Percent Gain Since Pandemic Start”, and reported that, “As of Monday, November 21, there are 728 billionaires with combined wealth of $4.48 trillion, an increase of $1.5 trillion compared to mid-March 2020, drawing on Forbes’ billionaire database. Combined U.S. billionaire wealth prior to the pandemic was just under $3 trillion.” In other words: it rose 50% during those three years.

So: the more that the American public have lost, the more that America’s billionaires have gained. On 22 March 2022, Henley & Partners headlined “US Tops Total Private Wealth Held Worldwide” and reported that, “The total private wealth held in the country currently amounts to USD 68.8 trillion. The US also experienced the greatest high-net-worth population growth of the world's 10 wealthiest countries by 'total wealth' (the W10) last year, at 10%. China, while 2nd in the W10, has only a third of the US's private wealth at USD 23.3 trillion, and its high-net-worth population grew by a comparatively low 4%.” While America continues to achieve enormous growth in the wealth of its “high-net-worth population” (just a few thousand people), China is not. This means that economic inequality is decreasing in China but soaring in America.

However, since there is a lot of corruption in the world and especially amongst “high-net-worth” individuals who hide from the public as much of their wealth as possible — and there are entire industries that serve them to help do that — these estimates entail a lot of guesswork, and might be way off the mark.

For example, as I reported on 16 October 2015, under the headline “The Saudi Dynasty, Key U.S. Ally, Tops the World in Barbarism”:

The richest person in the world isn’t anyone in the Forbes list, which excludes calculations for any heads-of-state, but is instead King Salman of Saudi Arabia, whose net worth is in the trillions of dollars. He virtually owns the Saudi Government, which owns the world’s largest oil company, Aramco, among other assets. Aramco alone is worth“anywhere between US$1.25 trillion[7] and US$7 trillion,[8] making it the world’s most valuable company.” The company’s website says: “1980: Saudi Arabian government acquires 100 percent participation interest in Aramco,”most of which it had already owned. The Saud family’s partners since 1933 had been Chevron Corporation, or Standard Oil of California, which built Aramco. It was a Rockefeller company then; but no one can say who controls it today. As of 2013 (see p. 56 there), the only two investors that owned more than 0.002 or .02% of Chevron, each owned around 6% of it: Blackrock, Inc., and State Street Corp., and they essentially jointly controlled that company, regarding anything on which the two agreed. But the controlling stockholder of Blackrock in 2013 was PNC Financial Services, at 20.8%. PNC is jointly controlled by Wellington Management, Blackrock and the Vanguard Group, each at more than 5%. Wellington, the main stockholder, is jointly controlled by Blackrock, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Royce & Associates, T. Rowe Price, and Wellington Management itself. Some companies, such as Wellington Management, simply hide their owners. All of this is called ‘democracy.’ (Or, at least, it’s “capitalism” of the fascist sort.)

The Henley & Partners estimates are based upon an estimate that America has 810 billionaires. However, Forbesreports that “America still leads the world, with 735 billionaires worth a collective $4.7 trillion”, and so the validity of any such estimate should be considered only approximate — and highly inaccurate. That $4.7 trillion might actually be less than the net worth of King Saud alone, who isn’t even shown in any ranking of billionaires, much less of trillionaires (of whom he might be the only one).

The U.S. economy is geared to be extraordinarly advantageous to billionaires, because it’s an extraordinarily corrupt country at the very top. For example: CNBC, on 3 November 2022, just before the mid-term elections, headlined “American billionaires spent a record $880 million on the U.S. midterm elections”, but ‘justified’ that because “Billionaires are funding ideologies and parties on both sides.” (In other words: the corruption is okay because it is bipartisan.) Of course, no billionaire donates to progressive candidates, in either Party; so, this ‘justification’ is a lie, because there are some progressives among the general public but they’re not at all represented by any nominee of either of the two corrupt Parties: all of the authentically good candidates end up being under-funded and so losing in any run for a national political office in America. 57.16% of the money donated to U.S. political campaigns comes from the wealthiest 0.01%, or the richest one in ten thousand, Americans. It’s well over half coming from one hundredth of one hundredth of the population, just the super-richest — and no billionaire (at least) wants a progressive in the Government..

As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said, on 28 July 2015, when asked about corruption in America:

It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we've just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over. ... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell.

And the worse that this corruption gets, the more rapidly it gets even worse than it already is. Pretending that this corruptness by the super-rich is a good thing, Bloomberg News headlined on 22 November 2022, “A Powerful New Tool Transforms How Billionaires Give Fortunes Away: Ray Dalio and the Koch family have pioneered philanthropy through the 501(c)(4). More than just a charity, it can avoid punishing taxes, retain business control and even influence politics.” (Notice that “just a charity” phrase, disparaging “charity,” versus the phrase “avoid punishing,” which conveys a positive image to this tax-dodging technique. And that deception already comes just after having used the fraudulent word “philanthropy” to refer to such schemes for tax-shifting away from the classes and inceasingly transferring taxes onto the masses.) It reported that this was “giving billionaires a tax-advantaged way to exert secret influence over elected officials at the highest levels. C4s can spend unlimited amounts on political lobbying — and large sums on election campaigns.” But, already, one billionaire, George Soros, had, just at that time — according to the CNBC article just mentioned here, been — “The top donor so far is George Soros, who has contributed over $128 million to the midterms.” He gave 14% (one-seventh) of what all billionaires had given to politicians. (How ‘generous’ of him!) And that’s just of the KNOWN donations — none of the “dark money” donations were included in any of those totals. To call a country like this, a “democracy” (meaning one-person-one-vote), instead of an “aristocracy” (meaning one-dollar-one-vote), is only to insult the word “democracy,” by grossly mis-applying it, to its exact opposite: a nation that’s controlled by the super-rich.

The Bloomberg article acknowledges that there is an issue about billionaires’ political donations and “the influence they hold. In some countries, it’s more explicit — the close ties between Russia’s business elite and Vladimir Putin were put in the spotlight after the invasion of Ukraine.” (Supposedly, then, Russia is even more corrupt at the top than America is, Bloomberg ‘News’ is intimating.) However, that implication is deceitful: whereas billionaires have been required by Putin NOT to participate in funding political campaigns (and to be punished if they even try to), billionaires are ENCOURAGED in America to donate to political campaigns; so, that sly misdirection by Bloomberg — to imply that Russia is even more corrupt at the top than America is — is just a bald lie, a contradicton of the reality.

Furthermore: Transparency International, the organization that the U.S.-and-allied Governments cite as the authority on rating the corruptness-or-not of each of the world’s Governments, is actually a U.S.-Government front that’s designed to downrate the countries that the U.S. Government is targeting for takeover. Agents of U.S. billionaires had actually established Transparency International at the very same time as they did the Washington Consensus, as a means to rig the corruption-rankings of countries, so that the World Bank would be able to ‘justify’ charging higher interest rates to countries that America’s aristocracy aim to conquer (regardless of whether that conquest would be by subversion, by sanctions, by coup, or by military invasion). A good book about this is the Confessions of an Economic Hit Man(summarized here in a 6-minute video talk, by its author, John Perkins). All of this takeover of the U.S. Government by corruption was started, actually, by Harry S. Truman, on 25 July 1945, upon the advice of General Dwight Eisenhower, to ceate the military-industrial complex, and the nonstop string of coups and wars since that time. Whereas Ike knew and understood what he was doing, Truman wasn’t that intelligent, but both men — one right after the other — effectively ended democracy in America, and brought in the massive corruption (both liberal and conservative), which inexorably keeps getting worse in America, but greatly benefitting America’s billionaires, at the expense of the country-at-large — and of the entire world (such as in Guatemala, Iran, Iraq, Chile, Libya, Indonesia, Syria, Ukraine, etc.). It just keeps getting worse.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.