Why are 8 of 11 US aircraft carrier strike groups always in home port?

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Why are 8 of 11 us aircraft carrier strike groups always in home port? What does it mean for NATO's planned war with China, using Taiwan as a proxy? China Rising Radio Sinoland 240406


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I regularly check the website called South Front (see below), and I suggest you do, too. Every week or so, they post an updated “US Carrier Strike Group Location Map”. It shows, with little pins, where all of the United States’ deep water aircraft carrier groups are. I check it every week and I can tell you I have never seen more than two to three actually out on the high seas. Even a month ago, Uncle Slaughter couldn’t even keep one around the Arabian Gulf.

Uncle Slaughter usually keeps one in the West Pacific between Japan and the Philippines, but all of the rest are in port. And there’s a reason for this. If you look at the map, the USS Ronald Reagan has not been out on the high seas since November 2023, the Nimitz since September 2023, the George H.W. Bush since July 2023, the Gerald R. Ford since January 2024, and the John Stennis since December 2019. Why is this? These aircraft carrier groups are not 100% seaworthy. Everybody, even in the mainstream media, makes fun of the Gerald R. Ford. It is a white elephant that cannot stand the test of real combat.

What is even more hilarious with respect to China is that on a typical US aircraft carrier, you have three kinds of airplanes. They are the F-18, which was launched in 1983, 40 years ago. You have the T-45, which came out in 1991, over 30 years ago. Then you have the more recent F-35, which is a laughingstock around the world, because it can’t fly. It is constantly being called back to the hangar since it can’t fly. It even has to be repainted every time it goes out, since the stealth coating on it wears off after each sortie. Not to mention they are crashing left and right. The F-35 is another white elephant that could not stand the test of real combat against a country like China or Russia.

The F-18 has a combat zone of 500km. That means that it can go out 500 klicks, then come back 500km for a total of 1,000. It has to be able to come back to the aircraft carrier to get refueled. The T-45 has a combat zone of 600km. When it’s able to fly, the F-35 has a combat zone of 750km.

Just this week the United States is begging Yemen for a diplomatic solution for their control of the Red Sea. This tells you how openly weak NATO really is.  NATO is reduced to plowing billions of dollars and euros of weapons into Ukraine to slow down the eventual victory of Russia there.

But here’s the deal. The Chinese have three short-range aircraft carrier killer missiles, for naval battle theatres. The YJ-83 can go 250km, which is perfect for Taiwan, since it is only 150km away from the Mainland’s coast. The YJ-62 has a 400-kilometer range, well beyond the Pacific side of Taiwan. The YJ-18 missile has a range of 540km. This means that with only these short-range aircraft carrier killer missiles, a US carrier cannot get any closer than about 600km away from the Chinese coast. Result: the F-18 and the T-45 airplanes are totally useless. Why? If the aircraft carrier comes within range of the YJ-18 missile, it is going to be sunk in a matter of minutes.

It is even worse than that. The Chinese have hundreds of aircraft carrier killer missiles of longer range. The DF-21D can take out an aircraft carrier 1,500km away, perfect for Yankee bases in the Philippines. The DF-26 goes 3,000km, perfect for Japan, 2,000 klicks away.

Not to mention that China has two hypersonic missile models. The DF-17 can go 3,000 klicks. The DF-27 can go 8,000km, all the way to Hawaii and take out whatever ships may be docked there. Not only can the DF-27 take out Pearl harbor, it can also take out Guam, a major American air base in the West Pacific, as well as the US base in Darwin, Australia. The DF-17 at 3,000km can take out Japan and Yankees in the Philippines. And of course, South Korea is just hundreds of kilometers away from mainland China, and Taiwan, only 150km.

China’s navy is bigger than the United States’, which surprises a lot of people. But it is true. It already has two active aircraft carriers and is launching a third one in 2024, the Year of the Dragon. Reports are that the People’s Liberation Army Navy has 59-79 submarines, with 16 of them nuclear-powered, many of which are loaded with aircraft carrier killer missiles. The US has 68 subs and Russia 64.

How many planes does China have in its military inventory? Two thousand. They only have to go as far as Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and South Korea, a maximum of 2,000km. The supply chain from Long Beach in California and Seattle in Washington State is 11,000km. It doesn’t do any good to store up matériel in Hawaii, Guam and Darwin, knowing China can take those out in several minutes.

Uncle Slaughter wants to be Globocop, with many hundreds of military bases occupying every continent. It has 5,500 military aircraft to China’s 2,000, but the prior’s are all across North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Oceania. Ditto the US’s subs off the coast of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, in the Black Sea and keeping an eye on so many other perceived enemies. China’s military posture is 100% defensive. It is only concerned with the South China Sea and the first tier of islands off its coast. NATO’s is 150% offensive across Planet Earth.


Above: Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii and Darwin, Australia only have to wait a few minutes for thousands of (hypersonic) missiles to rain down on their US bases. (North of Japan) When DPRK strikes, South Korea won’t know what hit them.


Only one in five American aircraft carrier groups are on the high seas at any given minute. NATO knows Baba Beijing is stocked to the hilt with “can’t defend against” hypersonic missiles. Yet, the United States is going to make sure that it goes to war with China over Taiwan, as a Ukraine-like proxy, because capitalism cannot survive without war. Democrats and Republicans, they’re just Party D and Party R of the Capitalist Party of the United States. You can say the same thing for the liberals and the conservatives in Europe – 100% Capitalist Party members. Western governments are totally owned and operated by Wall Street, the City of London, military, media and pharmament corporations. Their victims are Western citizens and the rest of the Global Majority.

I keep reminding everyone that China and North Korea (DPRK) have had a mutual defense treaty since 1961, recently renewed. Nobody fucks with North Korea, not even the United States. You can see how Uncle Slaughter keeps the DPRK at arm’s length. Why? DPRK has MIRV ICBMs (Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle Intercontinental Balllistic Missiles) loaded with nuclear warheads. It also has hypersonic missiles along with Russia and China. The United States and Europe don’t even have them yet. They’re still in the testing stage.

Thus, if the United States triggers a hot war with China, 1.2 million Marxist-Leninist-Communist-Socialist-Confucist North Korean soldiers, who love to kill capitalists are going to pour across the 38th parallel and do to the USA what they did to Douglas MacArthur in 1950 – kicked his ass all the way to Pusan, on the southern tip of the peninsula. North Korea has thousands of missiles and millions of artillery shells. What is the United States’ 30,000 troops stationed in South Korea going to do against that? In one week, DPRK would overrun South Korea. Ditto Japan. The United States has 50,000 troops stationed in Japan. North Korea can fire their missiles on Japan, just as China can.

Given all of this, a conventional hot war with China is a Western loser bad joke. Nevertheless, for the City of London, Wall Street and the Military Industrial Complex, this is all a gigantic profit point for Western capitalists. They are going to push the United States into war with China, regardless of the results and consequences. The United States even imagining trying to win against China (or Russia) doesn’t matter, because what really counts are the profits that are gained by the City of London, Wall Street and all of the military contractors.

In any case, what is especially scary is that after China takes back Taiwan into the motherland, is NATO insane enough to use nuclear arms in Taiwan, as a Hail Mary to save their asses? We already know how that would turn out. Nuclear winter and Homo Sapiens saying, “Sayonara dear world”.

We can even talk about West Asia=Middle East, with psychopathic Israel spearheading the NATO Holocaust there. I said in my book, 44 Days Backpacking in China (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/06/30/praise-for-the-china-trilogy-the-votes-are-in-it-r-o-c-k-s-what-are-you-waiting-for/) that the fate of the world will be decided by the fate of Jerusalem, and the unhinged, Talmud-Torah-driven Jewish State has 200 rogue, thermonuclear weapons. After seeing what they are doing to Palestinians, do you think they won’t use their nuclear arms in desperation to stave off losing? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.

The United States and NATO want to project an image of invincibility to the rest of humanity. Going back to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, all expansionist, hegemonic empires do. They want to project their delusional full spectrum dominance. However, during the Cold War, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were at a stalemate. The United States lost in Korea, lost in Vietnam, lost in Afghanistan, and are pathetic, occupying forces in Iraq and Syria. Hell, the West can’t even beat little Yemen. Just this week the United States is begging Yemen for a diplomatic solution for their control of the Red Sea. This tells you how openly weak NATO really is.

NATO is reduced to plowing billions of dollars and euros of weapons into Ukraine to slow down the eventual victory of Russia there. In desperation, will NATO go nuclear there, when the obvious is known to all of the world that it has lost against Russia? All NATO has done in Palestine is to create a holocaust against women, children, old people, starving them to death and destroying their entire infrastructure. They have gained absolutely nothing in terms of military victory.

NATO has always been very good at slaughtering old people, women, children and defeating much weaker opponents like Grenada, Panama and Libya.  Uncle Slaughter’s delusional psychopathy of controlling the world’s peoples and their resources lasted about ten years, from 1990 to 2000, when Wall Street and the City of London were raping and plundering what was left of the USSR, driving the people into destitution, starvation and misery.

The 21st century is very different. Since the year 2000, Russia now has what is ranked as by far the best military in the world. And I just read an article recently that China is ranked ahead of the United States in military might, this coming from a conservative think tank. Need I mention the military might of DPRK and Iran?

Great thinkers and leaders have long been pointing out the obvious, that capitalism cannot survive without war, expansionism, enslaving the weak and expropriating their natural resources. Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, Ho Chi Minh, Fidel Castro and Martin Luther King all pointed out this manifest historical truth.

This is why, in spite of the reality on the ground that I have described to you above, Wall Street, the City of London and NATO’s Military Industrial Complex will push Uncle Slaughter into a hot war with the People’s Republic of China, tragic to say.

Follow the money, my friends. KA-CHING!


Reference: Locations Of US Carrier Strike Groups – March 26, 2024 – South Front

https://southfront.press/locations-of-us-carrier-strike-groups-march-26-2024/

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ABOUT JEFF BROWN

Jeff J. Brown is a geopolitical analyst, journalist, lecturer and the author of The China Trilogy. It consists of 44 Days Backpacking in China - The Middle Kingdom in the 21st Century, with the United States, Europe and the Fate of the World in Its Looking Glass (2013); Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).
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What Did The U.S. Know Ahead of Moscow Terror Attack Claimed by ISIS-K? w/ Mark Sleboda

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Russia's Decisive Response to the Terrorist Attack - Escalations Destroy Ukraine | Larry C. Johnson

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Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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SCOTT RITTER: The CIA & the Russian Fascists Who Fight Russia

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Putin at a forum in Kazakhstan. Павел Бедняков, РИА «Новости», CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons


By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News

In the days leading to the Russian presidential election that concluded on Sunday, a network of three Russian paramilitary organizations working under the auspices of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, or GUR, launched a series of attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation.

The purpose of the attacks was clear — to disrupt the three-day Russian presidential election by creating an atmosphere of weakness and impotence around President Vladimir Putin designed to undermine his authority, legitimacy and appeal at the voting booth.

The operation was months in the planning, and involved the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), the Freedom of Russian Legion (LSR), and the Siberia Battalion. All three of these organizations are controlled by the GUR, whose spokesman announced the attacks.

Left unsaid is the degree to which the C.I.A. was involved in what amounts to an invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation by forces operating under the umbrella of what is openly acknowledged to be a proxy war between the United States and its NATO allies against Russia.

While Ukraine maintains the attacks by the RDK, LSR, and Siberia Battalion are the actions of “patriotic Russians” opposed to Putin, the involvement of the GUR in organizing, training, equipping, and directing these forces makes their attack on Russian soil a direct extension of the proxy war between Russia and the West.

Given the extensive involvement of the C.I.A. in the work of the GUR, it is highly unlikely that an action of this scope and scale could have been executed without the knowledge of the C.I.A. and in the attacks, including its goals and objectives.

Indeed, the presence of high-end U.S. military equipment, including M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), in the order of battle in the attack by Russian insurgent forces points to a direct U.S. role, as does the political nature of the mission of election disruption, which has been a long-term objective of the C.I.A. in Russia stretching back decades.

Relationship Begun in 2014 [or earlier, much earlier, ca 1945-7]


Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine in Kiev, 2013. (Dmitry Triku

Chief Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine in Kiev, HUR, 2013. (Dmitry Trikutko, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)


The C.I.A.’s relationship with the GUR is well-established, dating back to 2014, according to The Washington Post, when the C.I.A. worked with the GUR to establish a network of bases along the Ukrainian-Russian border from which to conduct intelligence operations against Russia, including missions that involved operations on Russian soil.

The C.I.A. intercepted Russian communications, captured Russian drones for follow-on technical exploitation, and oversaw the recruitment and operation of spy rings operating on Russian soil.

In the lead up to Russia’s initiation of the Special Military Operation (SMO) against Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, the C.I.A. expanded its relationship with the GUR to include specialized training provided by members of the Ground Division of the C.I.A.’s Special Activities Group, responsible for covert paramilitary operations.

The training was focused on unconventional and guerrilla warfare skills that would help facilitate the creation and sustainment of anti-Russian insurgencies carried out by “stay behind” teams operating on any Ukrainian territory that was occupied by Russian forces.

After the SMO began, ethnic Russians who had served since 2014 within the ranks of the neo-Nazi, Ukrainian nationalist, paramilitary organization known as the Azov Regiment organized themselves into a separate organization known as the Russian Volunteer Corps, or RDK.


TRAITORS—Members of the Russian Volunteer Corps on 24 May 2023. (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)


The RDK modeled itself after the Russian Liberation Army, an entity organized, trained, and equipped by the Nazi Germans during World War Two which was comprised of Russian prisoners of war. Russians today often refer to the RDK members as “Vlassovites,” after Russian General Andrei Vlasov, who was captured by the Germans and later defected to their cause.

Vlasov recruited Russian prisoners of war into what was known as the Russian Liberation Army, which eventually consisted of two divisions comprising some 30,000 troops. Most of Vlasov’s “army” were either killed in combat, or taken prisoner by the Soviet Union, where they were treated as traitors and punished accordingly (the enlisted sentenced to lengthy terms in the Gulag, and the leaders hanged.) The RDK was able to attract several hundred former Azov fighters and new recruits into its ranks.

A second ethnic Russian military unit, created in the aftermath of the SMO, is comprised primarily of Russian military defectors and prisoners of war. Known as the Freedom of Russia Legion (LSR), it consists of several hundred soldiers organized into two battalions. The LSR operates as part of the International Legion of the Ukrainian Territorial Army.


However, it is controlled by the GUR, according to GUR chief Kyrylo Budanov, as opposed to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

The third ethnic Russian military unit operating with Ukraine is the so-called Siberian Battalion, composed of ethnic Russians and non-Russian ethnicities from the Siberian territories of the Russian Federation.

The members of this formation are volunteers from Russian Siberia who are opposed to Putin’s government. Like the LSR, the Siberian Battalion operated as a GUR-controlled part of the Ukrainian Territorial Army and is said to consist of around 300 men, according to a report in Euronews

The incursion over the weekend by the GUR-controlled, anti-Putin, Russian forces is not the first instance of its kind. In March and April 2023, several small cross-border attacks were carried out by forces affiliated with the Russian Volunteer Corps RDK.

More telling was a larger attack made on May 22, 2023. The timing of this attack, which lasted less than a day, seemed to coincide with the fall of the hotly contested city of to the Russian private military company Wagner.

The capture of Bakhmut by Wagner signaled the beginning of a rapid deterioration in relations between the head of the Wagner Group, the one-time Putin loyalist, insider Yevgeny Prigozhin, and the Russian military leadership, in particular Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff General Valeri Gerasimov.


From left: Putin, Shoigu and Gerasimov during a 2019 military exercise.(Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)


On June 23, 2023, Prigozhin led thousands of his Wagner fighters in a rebellion which saw him occupy the Russian headquarters of the SMO in Rostov-on-Don, and march on Moscow. While the rebellion was quashed within 24 hours, many of the Wagner fighters said that they had participated only because they were told they would be deploying on to Russian soil, where Wagner was prohibited by law from operating, to defend against further incursions from the RDK.

Information that emerged after Prigozhin’s abortive rebellion showed that the Wagner leader had been in frequent contact with the Ukrainian GUR in the months leading up to his insurrection, and that the RDK attacks were part of a coordinated effort orchestrated by the GUR, designed to weaken and perhaps bring down Putin’s government.

The Biden administration acknowledged having detailed intelligence beforehand about Prigozhin’s revolt, and yet did not provide any warning to the Russian government, suggesting that the C.I.A. was at a minimum cognizant of the GUR operation and tacitly supported it.


A crowd in Rostov-on-Don watching a tank with flowers sticking out of its muzzle during the so-called Wagner Rebellion, June 24, 2023. (Fargoh, Wikimedia Commons, CC0)


The presence of U.S. weapons, including Humvee vehicles, in the possession of the RDK fighters on the weekend likewise hinted at a broader U.S. involvement in their training and equipping, involvement which, given the prohibition on the deployment of U.S. military forces in a training capacity on Ukrainian soil since the initiation of the SMO, pointed to the C.I.A.’s Ground Division as the facilitating unit.

The Russian government has assessed that the total strength of the GUR-controlled forces that attacked Russia in the leadup to the presidential election completed on Sunday numbered around 2,500 men, supported by at least 35 tanks and scores of armored vehicles, including a significant number of U.S.-supplied M-2 Bradley IFVs.

The scope and scale of the military operation, which included helicopter-borne forces inserted behind Russian lines, is such that it could not have been accomplished without the knowledge of the C.I.A. Moreover, the tactics and equipment used (helicopter raids, M-2 Bradley vehicles) strongly suggest a more direct role by the C.I.A. in both the planning and training of the mission and the troops involved.

The C.I.A.’s Ground Division is composed of veterans of the C.I.A.’s secret wars in both Syria and Afghanistan, where the C.I.A. trained secret armies to carry out their own secret wars in support of C.I.A. objectives.


Ukrainian special forces unit in Kabul during the 2021 Kabul airlift. (Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)


The discrediting of Putin’s government with an eye to his removal from power has been a goal of the C.I.A. since 2005, when the C.I.A., together with British intelligence, began actively working to create viable political opposition movements inside Russia.

While these efforts have largely failed (the recent death in a Russian prison of Alexei Navalny, believed to have been a creation of the C.I.A., underscores the scope and scale of this failure), the C.I.A.’s covert political warriors in the Political Action Group of the Special Activities Center continue to try to undermine Putin through various means.

Given the Russian government’s stated goal of producing a large turnout in the election as a way to certify Putin’s legitimacy, disrupting voter turnout by creating instability and a lack of confidence would be precisely the kind of cause and effect relationship the C.I.A. would seek to engender.

The fact that the RDK leadership openly bragged that their ongoing attacks were a) designed to disrupt the Russian presidential election and b) were planned months before the attack, is a strong indicator that, given the intimate nature of the C.I.A.-GUR relationship, that the C.I.A. was at a minimum knowledgeable of, and most likely a facilitator, of the GUR-led attacks using Ukrainian-controlled Russian insurgents.

To understand the gravity that surrounds the possibility — indeed, probability — that the C.I.A. was involved, however peripherally, in an attack on Russian soil designed to disrupt a Russian presidential election, one only need reflect on how the United States would react if Russian intelligence services collaborated with Mexican drug cartels to create a well-armed insurgent army composed of Mexican-Americans who attacked U.S. territory from across the U.S.-Mexican border in order to influence the outcome of November’s U.S. presidential election.

The United States would view it as an act of war and respond accordingly.

Manifest Danger of Nuclear Conflagration

The Biden administration is overseeing a Ukrainian policy that is rapidly collapsing around it.

America’s NATO allies, concerned by the lack of leadership from the Biden administration when it comes to Ukraine, are threatening to dispatch troops to Ukraine to bolster a flagging Ukrainian military. The Russian government has warned that any such move would be construed as an attack on Russia, and potentially create the conditions for a general nuclear war between Russia and the collective West.

Now, amid such a tense environment, it appears the C.I.A. has not only green-lighted an actual invasion of the Russian Federation, but more than likely was involved in its planning, preparation and execution.

Never in the history of the nuclear era has such danger of nuclear war been so manifest.

That the American people have allowed their government to create the conditions where foreign governments can determine their fate and the C.I.A. can carry out a secret war which could trigger a nuclear conflict, eviscerates the notion of democracy.

Government of the people, by the people, and for the people seems like a distant dream. In its stead the future of America appears to be in the hands of a rogue intelligence agency that long ago abandoned any pretense of accountability and operating under the rule of law.

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.


Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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The last stammering of Jewish fascism

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Thierry Meyssan
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"The two irreducible enemies: fascist Benjamin Netanyahu and democrat Benny Gantz"

The Biden administration watched with bated breath as Israel reacted to the attack by the Palestinian Resistance, including Hamas, known as the "Flood of Al-Aqsa" (October 7). Operation Iron Glaive began with a massive pounding of Gaza City on a scale unprecedented anywhere in the world, including the World Wars. From October 27 onwards, this was followed by ground intervention, looting and the torture of thousands of Gazan civilians. In five months, 37,534 civilians were killed or disappeared, including 13,430 children and 8,900 women, 364 medical personnel and 132 journalists. [1].

At first, Washington reacted by unwaveringly supporting "Israel’s right to defend itself", threatening to veto any ceasefire request and supplying as many bombs as necessary for the widespread destruction of the Palestinian enclave. It was unthinkable, in its eyes, to suffer yet another defeat, after those in Syria and Ukraine. However, Americans were watching the horrors live on their cell phones. Many high-ranking State Department officials wrote and spoke of their shame at supporting this butchery. Petitions were circulated. Prominent figures, both Jewish and Muslim, resigned.

In the midst of a presidential election campaign, Joe Biden’s team could no longer stain its hands with blood. It therefore began to put pressure on the Israeli war cabinet to negotiate the release of the hostages and conclude a ceasefire. However, Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition refused, playing on the trauma of its citizens to ensure that peace would only return once Hamas had been eradicated. Washington eventually realized that the events of October 7 were merely a pretext for Jabotinsky’s followers to do what they had always wanted to do: expel the Arabs from Palestine. He became more insistent, stressing that the Palestinians had a right to live, that the colonization of their land was illegal under international law, and that the Israeli-Palestinian question would be resolved by a "two-state solution" (and not by the binational state envisaged by Resolution 181 of 1947).

Revisionist Zionists" (i.e., followers of Jabotinsky [2]) responded by organizing the "Conference for the Victory of Israel" [3] on January 28, 2024. Headlining the event was Rabbi Uzi Sharbaf, sentenced in Israel to life imprisonment for his racist crimes against Arabs, but pardoned by his friends. Sharbaf did not hesitate to proclaim himself heir to the Lehi and Stern groups who fought against the Allies alongside duce Benito Mussolini.

The message was perfectly received in Washington and London: this tiny group intended to impose its will on the Anglo-Saxons and would not hesitate to attack them if they tried to prevent ethnic cleansing.

The White House immediately issued a ban on fundraising and transfers to them [4]. This ban was extended to all Western banks under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

In addition, on February 8, President Joe Biden signed a Memorandum on the conditions of US arms transfers [5]. Israel has until March 25 to guarantee in writing that it will not violate either International Humanitarian Law (but not International Law itself) or Human Rights (in the sense of the US Constitution).

For their part, the parliaments of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have begun debating the possibility of ceasing arms trading with Israel.

In Israel, the Jewish democratic opposition organized anti-Zionist demonstrations, which were not very well attended. Speakers emphasized the betrayal of the Prime Minister, who used the shock of October 7 not to save the hostages, but to realize his colonial dream.

Gantz (left) meeting Anthony Blinken (TGP screenshot)

The "revisionist Zionists" then launched a media offensive against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Since 1949, this UN agency has been providing education, food, healthcare and social services to 5.8 million stateless Palestinians in Palestine itself, as well as in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It has an annual budget of over $1 billion and employs over 30,000 people. Already in 2018, President Donald Trump had questioned the agency’s assistance to Palestinians and suspended US funding for it. His intention was to force the Palestinian factions back to the negotiating table. Five years on, the aim of the "revisionist Zionists" is very different. By attacking UNRWA, they intend to force Jordan, Lebanon and Syria to expel Palestinian refugees too. To this end, they accused 0.04% of its staff of having taken part in Operation Flood of Al-Aqsa, and blocked their bank accounts in Israel. UNRWA Director Philippe Lazzarini of Switzerland immediately suspended the 12 accused employees and ordered an internal investigation.

Of course, he never received the proof the Israelis claimed to have, but one donor after another, led by the United States and the European Union, suspended funding. Within days in Gaza, and weeks in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, the United Nations aid system collapsed.

As David Cameron, former British Prime Minister and current Foreign Secretary, visited Israel to discuss how to salvage what was left for the Palestinians, Amichai Chikli, Minister of the Diaspora, compared him to Neville Chamberlain signing the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler. "Hello to David Cameron, who wants to bring ’Peace to Our Time’ and give the Nazis, who committed the atrocities of October 7, a prize in the form of a Palestinian state as a sign of gratitude for the murder of babies in their cradles, the mass rapes and the abduction of mothers with their children," he declared. As at the "Israel Victory Conference", the "revisionist Zionists" threatened the Anglo-Saxons.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jewish supremacist coalition began to talk of a new phase of "Swords of Iron", this time against Rafah. Civilians, who had already fled Gaza, would have to flee again. However, since Tshal had built a road cutting the Gaza Strip in two, they would not be able to return to where they had come from. Preparing for the worst, Egypt set up a vast area of Sinai to temporarily house Gazans whose expulsion seemed inevitable [6].

Aware that they could only hold on to power in Tel Aviv thanks to the shock of October 7, the "revisionist Zionists" passed a law equating any reflection on the "Flood of Al-Aqsa" operation with a challenge to the Nazi Final Solution. It forbade any investigation into these events, on pain of 5 years’ imprisonment. Revisionists could therefore continue to attribute the attack solely to Hamas, even though Islamic Jihad and the PFLP had taken part. They could interpret it as an anti-Semitic demonstration, equating it with a gigantic pogrom and thus denying its objective of national liberation.

Knowing that many states were questioning their withdrawal from UNRWA funding, the revisionist Zionists continued their attacks on the agency. They claimed that Hamas headquarters was located in a tunnel beneath the agency’s headquarters. Philippe Lazzarini expressed his perplexity and recalled that Israel regularly came to search the agency’s facilities. But Gilad Erdan, Israel’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, tweeted: "It’s not that you don’t know, it’s that you don’t want to know. We have shown the terrorists tunnels under UNRWA schools and provided evidence that Hamas is exploiting UNRWA. We implored you to carry out a comprehensive search of all UNRWA facilities in Gaza. But not only did you refuse, you chose to bury your head in the sand. Assume your responsibilities and resign today. Every day, we find more proof that in Gaza, Hamas=the UN and vice-versa. You can’t trust everything the UN says, or everything they say about Gaza.

The Jewish supremacists formed an organization, Tzav 9 (by analogy with the general mobilization order "Tsav 8") to prevent UNRWA from continuing its aid to the Gazans. They stationed activists at the two entry points to the Gaza Strip to obstruct the passage of trucks. At the same time, an UNRWA truck driver was murdered in Gaza, forcing the agency to suspend its convoys. The convoys were eventually resumed, but only under Israeli military escort. It was at this point that the first attacks by starving crowds took place. USAID Director Samantha Power announced that she would be visiting the area to verify what was happening. Washington assumed that the attacks were not spontaneous, but encouraged by "revisionist Zionists". Only then did the massacre take place at the Naboulsi traffic circle (south of Gaza City): according to the IDF, 112 people were trampled to death during a food aid distribution. The Israeli soldiers only managed to extricate themselves by using their weapons. In reality, according to the medical staff and the United Church of Christ, 95% of the victims were killed by bullets. Washington issued a statement supporting Tel Aviv’s position, but according to Haaretz: "It is doubtful that the international community will buy these explanations" [7].

Washington responded by authorizing Jordan and France to drop food rations on Gaza’s beaches, and then by joining in these air operations. In addition, they began deploying their logistics to create a floating island that could serve as a landing stage for international humanitarian aid to Gaza (the Gazan coast is too shallow to accommodate large ships). In doing so, the Pentagon is taking up an idea put forward in 2017 by Israel Katz, current Minister of Foreign Affairs. The principle of a humanitarian naval corridor from Cyprus has already been agreed. It will be used by the United Arab Emirates and the European Union

While Israel accused, still without proof, now 450 UNRWA employees of being members of Hamas, UNRWA met and listened to a hundred Gazan civilians who had been taken prisoner by the IDF "for interrogation". It is preparing a report on the systematic torture they underwent. The whole world has seen the images of these men forced by Israeli soldiers to strip naked for interrogation.

Scorning the Anglo-Saxons, the "revisionist Zionists" resumed their colonization project. They entered the Gaza Strip, through the Eretz/Beit Hanoune crossing, to construct the first buildings of a new settlement, New Nisanit. They were able to erect two wooden buildings before being turned back by the IDF.

36 editors from leading Anglo-Saxon media signed a letter from the Committee to Protect Journalists denouncing the deaths of their employees in Gaza and reminding the Israeli government of its responsibility to ensure their safety [8].

However, while the Israeli government pretended to be surprised by these deaths, most of the Department of Information officers tendered their resignations en bloc. Minister Galit Distel-Etebaryan had already resigned on October 12 to protest against military censorship. Now the crisis was much more serious: those responsible for disinformation refused to continue lying, as the gap between their narrative and the truth continued to widen.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s only concession was to lift the ban on Ramadan celebrations at the Al-Aqsa mosque. After Arab deputies in the Knesset intervened with King Abdullah II of Jordan, who was solely responsible for the security of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy site, he finally authorized these gatherings for the first week, renewable every seven days.

Washington then decided to radically change its policy. Until then, it had considered that it could not afford to let Israel lose. It had therefore supported its crime. Now, it could no longer afford to let the Jewish fascists win. It’s important to understand that Washington didn’t change its mind when it saw the suffering of the Gazans, nor because of a sudden outburst of anti-fascism, but because of the threats of the "revisionist Zionists". Its positions are dictated exclusively by its desire to maintain its domination of the world. It could not contemplate another defeat for its Israeli allies, this time after those in Syria and Ukraine. But it could even less envisage losing to the "revisionist Zionists".

The Biden Administration has therefore invited General Benny Gantz, the former alternative Prime Minister and since October 12 Minister without Portfolio, to consult in the United States, despite the opposition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s a kind of backlash to the way the latter was invited to deliver a speech before Congress against the advice of President Barack Obama, in 2015. The United States is keen to show that it is in charge and no one else.

The United States feels compelled to act. Russia has invited sixty Palestinian political organizations to Moscow. It urged them to unite and convinced Hamas to accept the PLO charter, i.e. to recognize the State of Israel.

General Benny Gantz did not accept this invitation to seek outside help and overthrow the Prime Minister. He went to Washington to make sure that he could still save Israel and that his allies would not let him down. To their great surprise, he did not appear to them as a strategic alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu, but just as a general concerned not to massacre innocent people en masse.

On March 5, Benny Gantz was received by Vice President Kamala Harris, who delivered an uncompromising denunciation of the massacre perpetrated by Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. The US press pointed out that her initial speech had been written in even harsher terms. The important thing is that she played the role of "bad cop", while the State Department and Pentagon played the more understanding "good cop". He also met the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who thus anointed him in the name of "America" as Israel’s future Prime Minister. While there, he learned of the immediate retirement of Under-Secretary Victoria Nuland.

She is known in Europe for having overseen the overthrow of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, in 2014. She was also responsible for convincing German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande to sign the Minsk agreements in order to secure Russia’s withdrawal. We now know that the West had no intention of stopping the massacre of the Donbass inhabitants, but only of buying time to arm Ukraine.

However, Victoria Nuland is first and foremost the wife of historian Robert Kagan, who presided over the Project for a New American Century. It was in this capacity that they announced the September 11th attacks, the "New Pearl Harbor" that would reawaken the "American Empire" [9]. Both are disciples of the philosopher Leo Strauss, himself a disciple of Vladimir Jabotinsky and a leading figure in the neoconservative movement [10]. The number 2 at the Project for a New American Century was Elliott Abrams, the man who last year financed Benjamin Netanyahu’s election campaign and coup d’état [11].

In 2006, Victoria Nuland, then US ambassador to NATO, stopped the Israeli-Lebanese war, saving Israel from defeat at the hands of Hezbollah. She therefore knows Benjamin Netanyahu very well.

Her dismissal demonstrates the Biden Administration’s desire to clean up its own house, while doing the same for Israel.

On March 6, Benny Gantz stopped off in London on his way home. He was received by Security Adviser Tim Barrow, Prime Minister Rishi Suna and Foreign Secretary David Cameron. He stressed that Israel had the right to defend itself, but only in accordance with international law. For him, this was an obligatory stop, since Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a political secret society run by the British MI6 and followed for decades by King Charles III (then Prince of Wales).

During his State of the Union address on March 7, President Joe Biden said, "To Israel’s leaders, I say this: Humanitarian aid cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives must be a priority. As for the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution. I say this as a long-time ally of Israel, and as the only American president to have visited Israel in wartime. But there is no other way to guarantee Israel’s security and democracy. There is no other way to guarantee the Palestinians a life of peace and dignity. And there is no other way that guarantees peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia" [12].

During the Gazan massacre, many leaders in the wider Middle East who were sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood began to question Hamas. If it was understandable that, supposedly in the name of Islam, the Brotherhood had fought the Soviets, then the secularists Muamar Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad, how could it be explained that they had carried out an operation for which only a Muslim people would pay the price? First to react, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan revoked the Turkish citizenship of the Brotherhood’s Supreme Guide, the Egyptian Mahmud Huseyin, which he had granted him two years earlier.

This does not, of course, mean that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is abandoning the ideology of political Islam, but that he is attempting to dissociate it from Anglo-Saxon colonialism, as proposed by Brother Mahmoud Fathi.

For 75 years, the West has imposed its will on its former colonies in the "wider Middle East", either through jihadists or directly through its armies. By supporting for four months the massacres perpetrated by the Jewish fascists of the Jabotinsky-Netanyahu group, the West has lost its prestige. Whatever Israel does next, with Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid rather than Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s power, based on the myth that Jews are incompatible with fascism, has collapsed. From now on, it will be possible to exhume all the crimes committed by this tiny group, on behalf of the CIA, during the Cold War, in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.


Notes
[1
Bombs and Humanitarian Aid from the USA in Gaza”, by Manlio Dinucci , Global Research , Voltaire Network, 11 March 2024.

[2The veil is being torn: the hidden truths of Jabotinsky and Netanyahu”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 25 January 2024.

[3In Jerusalem, the "Conference for the Victory of Israel" threatens London and Washington”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 13 February 2024.

[8«Open letter on journalists in Gaza», Committee to Protect Journalists, February 29, 2024.

9/11 - the big lie, Thierry meyssan, Carnot (2002).

[10Russia declares war on the Straussians”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 5 March 2022.

[11The coup d’état of the Straussians in Israel”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Voltaire Network, 7 March 2023.

[12State of the Union Address”, by Joseph R. Biden Jr. , Voltaire Network, 7 March 2024.

Thierry Meyssan

Political consultant, President-founder of the Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network).

Latest work in English – Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump, Progressive Press, 2019.

—Thierry Meyssan


Neo-Nazi ideology has become one of the main protagonists of political and social life in Ukraine since the 2014 coup d'état. And that's a fact. 

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Pepe Escobar joins on NATO’s march to WW3 with Russia as Putin, China chart multipolar world

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Danny Haiphong interviews Pepe Escobar

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Danny Haiphong
Streamed live on Mar 8, 2024 #Putin; #NATO; #Russia
Journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar
(
https://t.me/rocknrollgeopolitics on Telegram and
(
/ realpepeescobar )
joins to discuss NATO's latest provocations toward Russia in the context of a flurry of meetings that occurred in Moscow in recent weeks outlining the trajectory of the multipolar world alongside rising China. As the dangers to the world increase, the utterly corrupt US-led NATOSTAN doubles and triples down on their abject warmongering and vassalage to Washington.


The Trilogy of Hope
Pepe Escobar


This turned out to be a trilogy of hope - and was edited as such, with great care, by the indispensable globalsouth.co.

I) The Global Majority Mixes in Multipolar Moscow

Takeaway from Moscow: Normal-o-philes and Russophiles of the world, UNITE

By Pepe Escobar at Strategic Culture Foundation.

These have been frantic, multipolar days at the capital of the multipolar world. I had the honor to personally tell Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that virtually the whole Global South seemed to be represented in an auditorium of the Lomonosov innovation cluster on a Monday afternoon – a sort of informal UN and in several aspects way more effective when it comes to respecting the UN charter. His eyes gleamed. Lavrov, more than most, understands the true power of the Global Majority.

“A child was born, now our task is to raise him.” Moscow establishes the International Russophile Movement


Moscow hosted a back-to-back multipolar conference plus the second meeting of the International Russophiles Movement (MIR, in its French acronym, which means “world” in Russian). Taken together, the discussions and networking have offered auspicious hints on the building of a truly representative international order – away from the agenda-imposed doom and gloom of single unipolar culture and Forever Wars.

The opening plenary session in the first day fell under the star power of Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – whose main message was crystal clear: “There can’t be freedom without free will”, which could easily become the new collective Global South motto. “Civilization-states” set the tone of the overall discussion – as they are meticulously designing the blueprints of economic, technological and cultural development in the post-Western hegemonic world.

Professor of International Relations Zhang Weiwei at Fudan University’s China Institute in Shanghai summarized the four crucial points when it comes to Beijing propelling its role as a “new independent pole.” That reads like a concise marker of where we are now:

  1. Under the unipolar order, everything from dollars to computer chips can be weaponized. Wars and color revolutions are the norm.
  2. China proposes a model of “Unite and Prosper” instead of a Western model of “Divide and Rule”.
  3. The West tried to isolate Russia, but the Global Majority sympathizes with Russia. Thus, the Collective West has been isolated by the Global Rest.

Fighting the “theo-political war”

I had the honor to moderate the awesome Global South session, which ran for over three hours – it could have been the whole day, actually – and featured several stunning presentations by a stellar cast of Africans, Latin Americans and Asians, from Palestine to Venezuela, including Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla.

That was the multipolar Global South in full flight – as my imperative was to open the floor to as many people as possible. Were the organizers to release a Greatest Hits of the presentations, that could easily become a global hit.

Mandla Mandela emphasized how it’s about time to move away from the unipolar system dominated by the Hegemon, “which continues to support Israel”.

Kemi Seba – who brilliantly personifies the African leadership of the future. In the plenary session, Seba introduced a key concept – which begs to be developed around the world: we are living under a “theo-political war”.

That neatly summarizes the Western simultaneous Hybrid War on Islam, Shi’ism, Christian Orthodoxy, in fact every religion, apart from the Woke Cult.

The next day, the second congress of the International Russophiles movement offered three debate sessions: the most relevant was on – what else – “Informational and Hybrid Warfare”.

I had the honor to share the stage with Maria Zakharova – and after my free jazz-style presentation, focused on over 40 years of practicing journalism across the planet and watching first-hand the utter degradation of the industry, we carried a hopefully useful dialogue on media and soft power.

In the evening, before everyone got down to party hard, a few of us were invited for an open, frank and enlightening working dinner with Foreign Minister Lavrov in one of the magnificent frescoed rooms of the Metropol Hotel, one the grand hotels of Europe since 1905.



A legend with a wicked sense of humor

What’s so striking when you are face to face with the most legendary diplomat in the world for quite some time, in a relaxed setting, is his genuine sadness when faced with the rage, intolerance and total absence of critical thought exhibited especially by the Europeans. That was much more relevant throughout our conversation than the fact that U.S.-Russia relations are at an all-time low.

Lavrov though remains highly driven because of the Global South/Global Majority – and the Russian presidency of the BRICS this year. He hugely praised Indian FM Jaishankar, and the comprehensive relations with China. He suggested the Russophiles Movement should take a global role, playfully suggesting we should all be part of a “Normal-o-philes” movement.

Well, Lavrov The Legend is also known for his wicked sense of humor. And humor is most effective when it is deadly serious. So here’s the key takeaway of these frantic days in Moscow: Normal-o-philes of the world, unite.

≈≈≈

From last year’s inauguration of the International Russophiles Movement (MIR):


The Glazyev Interview:

II) The Rocky Road to Dedollarization

March 1, 2024 By InEconomics 

An Interview with Sergei Glazyev, guru extraordinaire of multipolar geoeconomics… ‘the dogs bark — the Caravan of the Global Juggernaut moves on‘

By Pepe Escobar at Sputnik.

Very few people in Russia and across the Global South are as qualified as Sergei Glazyev, an academic with a prominent role within the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), to speak about the drive, the challenges and the pitfalls in the road towards de-dollarization.

BRICS 10 makes it clear that everyone needs to think seriously about the toxic effects of unilateral sanctions; and Professor Michael Hudson keeps reiterating current policies are not sustainable anymore, Glazyev graciously received me at his office at the EEC for an exclusive, extensive conversation, including fascinating off the record odds and ends.

These are the highlights – as Glazyev’s ideas are being re-examined, and there’s huge expectation for the green light from the Russian government for a new trade settlement model – which for the moment is in the final stages of fine-tuning.

Glazyev explained how his main idea was “elaborated a long time ago. The basic idea is that a new currency should be first of all introduced on the basis of international law, signed by the countries which are interested in the production of this new currency. Not via some kind of conference, like Bretton Woods, with no legitimacy. At the first stage, not all countries would be included. BRICS nations will be enough – plus the SCO. In Russia, we already have our own SWIFT – the SPFS. We have our currency exchange, we have correspondent relations between banks, consultation between Central Banks, here we are absolutely self-sufficient.”



All that leads to adopting a new international currency:
“We don’t really need to go large scale. BRICS is enough. The idea of the currency is that there are two baskets: one basket is national currencies of all countries involved in the process, like the SDR, but with more clear, understandable criteria. The second basket are commodities. If you have two baskets, and we create the new currency as an index of commodities and national currencies, and we have a mechanism for reserves, according to the mathematical model that will be very stable. Stable and convenient.”

Then it’s up to feasibility:
“To introduce this currency as an instrument for transactions would not be too difficult. With good infrastructure, and all Central Banks approving it, then it’s up to businesses to use this currency. It should be in digital form – which means it can be used without the banking system, so it will be at least ten times cheaper than present transactions through banks and currency exchanges.”

Xi and Putin shake
That Thorny Central Bank Question

“Q: Have you presented this idea to the Chinese?”

“We presented it to Chinese experts, our partners at Renmin University. We had good feedback – but I did not have the opportunity to present it on a political level. Here in Russia we promote the discussion via papers, conferences, seminars, but there’s still no political decision on introducing this mechanism even on the BRICS agenda. The proposal by our team of experts is to include it in the agenda of the BRICS summit next October in Kazan. The problem is the Russian Central Bank is not enthusiastic. The BRICS have only decided on an operating plan to use national currencies – which is also a quite clear idea, as national currencies are already used in our trade. Russian ruble is the main currency in the EAEU, trade with China is conducted in rubles and renminbi, trade with India and Iran and Turkiye also switched to national currencies. Each country has the infrastructure for it. If Central Banks introduce digital national currencies and allow them to be used in international trade, it’s also a good model. In this case crypto exchanges can easily balance payments – and it’s a very cheap mechanism. What is needed is an agreement from Central Banks to allow a certain amount of national currencies in digital form to participate in international transactions.”

Q: Would that be feasible already in 2024, if there is political will?”

“There are some start-ups already. By the way, they are in the West, and the digitalization is conducted by private companies, not Central Banks. So the demand is there. Our Central Bank needs to elaborate a proposal for the summit in Kazan. But this is only one part of the story. The second part is price. For the moment price is determined by Western speculation. We produce these commodities, we consume them, but we do not have our own price mechanism, which will balance supply and demand. During the Covid panic, the price for oil fell to nearly zero. It’s impossible to make any strategic planning for economic development if you do not control prices of basic commodities. Price formation with this new currency should get rid of Western exchanges of commodities. My idea is based on a mechanism that existed in the Soviet Union, in the Comecon. In that period we had long-term agreements not only with socialist countries, but also with Austria, and other Western countries, to supply gas for 10 years, 20 years, the basis of this price formula was the price for oil, and the price for gas.”

So what stands out is the effectiveness of a long-term, long view policy:
“We did create a long-term pattern. Here in the EEC we are looking at the idea of a common exchange market. We already prepared a draft, with some experiments. The first step is the creation of an information network, exchanges in different countries. It was rather successful. The second step will be to set up online communication between exchanges, and finally we move to a common mechanism of price formation, and open this mechanism for all other countries. The main problem is that the major producers of commodities, first of all the oil companies, they don’t like to trade through exchanges. They like to trade personally, so you need a political decision to make sure that at least half of production of commodities should go through exchanges. A mechanism where supply and demand balance each other. For the moment the price of oil in foreign markets is ‘secret’. It’s some type of colonial times thinking. ‘How to cheat’. We must create legislation to open all this information to the public.”

The NDB in Need of a Shake-up

Q: What are the main challenges within the BRICS structure in this next stage of trying to bypass the US dollar?”

“BRICS in fact is a club which doesn’t have a secretariat. I can tell it, from a person that has some experience in integration. We discussed the idea of a customs union here, on the post-Soviet territory, immediately after the collapse. We had a lot of declarations, even some agreements signed by heads of state, over a common economic space. But only after the establishment of a commission the real work started, in the year 2008. After 20 years of papers, conferences, nothing was done. You need someone who’s responsible. In BRICS there is such an organization – the NDB [New Development Bank]. If the heads of state decide to appoint the NDB as an institution which will elaborate the new model, the new currency, organize an international conference with the draft of an international treaty, this can work.

The problem is that the NDB works according to the dollar charter. They have to reorganize this institution in order to make it workable. Now it works like an ordinary international development bank under the American framework. The second option would be to do it without this bank, but that would be much more difficult. This bank has enough expertise.”

Q: Could an internal shake-up of the NDB be proposed by the Russian presidency of BRICS this year?”

“We are doing our best. I’m not sure the Ministry of Finance understands how serious this is. The President understands. I personally promoted this idea to him. But the chairman of the Central Bank, and ministers are still thinking in the old IMF paradigm.”


‘Religious Sects Don’t Create Innovation’

Glazyev had a serious discussion on sanctions with the NDB:
“I discussed this issue with Mrs. Rousseff [the former Brazilian President, currently presiding the NDB) at the St. Petersburg Forum. I gave her a paper about it. She was rather enthusiastic and invited us to come to the NDB. But afterwards there was no follow-up. Last year everything was very difficult.”

On BRICS, “the financial services working group is discussing reinsurance, credit rating, new currencies in fintech. That’s what should be in the agenda of the NDB. The best possibility would be a meeting in Moscow in March or April, to discuss in depth the whole range of issues of BRICS settlement mechanism, from most sophisticated to least sophisticated. It would be great if the NDB sign up for it, but as it stands there is a de facto gulf between the BRICS and the NDB.”

The key point, insists Glazyev, is that “Dilma should find time to organize these discussions at a high level. A political decision is needed.

Q: But wouldn’t that decision have to come from Putin himself?”

“It’s not so easy. We heard statements by at least three heads of the state: Russia, South Africa and Brazil. They publicly said ‘this is a good idea’. The problem, once again, is there is no task force yet. My idea, which we proposed before the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, is to create an international working group – to prepare in the next sessions the model, or the draft, of the treaty. How to switch to national currencies. That’s the official agenda now. And they have to report about that in Kazan [for the BRICS annual summit]. There are some consultations between the Central Banks and Ministers of Finance.”

Glazyev cut to the chase when it comes to the inertia of the system:
“The main problem for bureaucrats and experts is ‘why they don’t have ideas?’ Because they assume the current status quo is the best one. If there are no sanctions, everything will be good. The international financial architecture that was created by the United States and Europe is convenient. Everyone knows howto work in the system. So it’s impossible to move from this system to another system. For businesses it will be very difficult. For banks it will be difficult. People have been educated in the paradigm of financial equilibrium, totally libertarian. They don’t care that prices are manipulated by speculators, they don’t careabout volatility of national currencies, They think it’s natural (…) It’s a kind of religious sect. Religious sects don’t create innovation.”


Now to Get on That Hypersonic Bicycle

We’re back to the crucial issue of national currencies:
“Even five years ago, when I spoke about national currencies in trade, everybody said it was completely impossible. We have long-term contracts in dollars and euro. We have an established culture of transactions. When I was Minister of Foreign Trade, 30 years ago, at the time I tried to push all our trade in commodities into rubles. I argued with Yeltsin and others, ‘we have to trade in rubles, not in dollars’. That would automatically make the ruble a reserve currency. When Europe moved to the euro, I had a meeting with Mr. Prodi, and we agreed, ‘we will use euro as your currency, and you will use rubles’. Then Prodi came to me after consultations and said, ‘I talked to Mr. Kudrin [former Russian Finance Minister, 2000-2011], he didn’t ask me to make the ruble a reserve currency’. That was sabotage. It was stupidity.”

The problems actually run deep – and keep running:
“The problem was our regulators, educated by the IMF, and the second problem was corruption. If you trade oil and gas in dollars, a large part of profits is stolen, there are a lot of intermediate companies which manipulate prices. Prices are only the first step. The price for natural gas in the first deal is about 10 times less than the final demand. There are institutional barriers. A majority of countries do not allow our companies to sell oil and gas to the final customer. Like you cannot sell gas to households. Nevertheless, even in the open market, quite competitive, we have intermediates between producer and consumer – at least half of the revenues are stolen from government control. They don’t pay taxes.”

Yet fast solutions do exist:
“When we were sanctioned two years ago, transfer from US dollar and euro to national currencies took only a few months. It was very quick.”

On investments, Glazyev stressed success in localized trade, but capital flows are still not there:
“The Central Banks are not doing their job. The ruble-renminbi exchange is working well. But the ruble-rupee exchange doesn’t work. The banks that keep these rupees, they have a lot of money, accrue interest rates on these rupees, and they can play with them. I don’t know who’s responsible for this, our Central Bank or the Indian Central Bank.”

The succinct, key takeaway of Glazyev’s serious warnings is that it would be up to the NDB – prodded by the leadership of BRICS – to organize a conference of global experts and open it for public discussion.Glazyev evoked the metaphor of a bicycle that keeps rolling along – so why invent a new bicycle? Well, the – multipolar – time has come for a new hypersonic bicycle.


 III). Russia’s Renaissance: with the Youth

 

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