Turkey’s shooting down of the Russian anti-ISIL aircraft was an unprecedentedly direct aggression against Moscow that trumps even the tense and hostile militarism of the Old Cold War era. The world stands on edge in the immediate aftermath of this attack, with tabloid-esque commentators warning that the beginning of World War III awaits. President Putin, for his part, has been much more measured in responding to the incident, but still couldn’t contain his shock at having received this “stab in the back delivered by accomplices of the terrorists.”

A female Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighter works on her laptop after arriving in the northern Iraqi city of Dohuk on 14 May 2013, after leaving Turkey as part of a peace drive with Ankara. The Kurds are recognized as among the bravest and best fighters in the region.

The question now comes down to how Russia will respond to what happened, but perhaps even more important for observers to ponder is why the US is unofficially distancing itself from its ally’s aggression. Despite both NATO and Obama giving full backing to Turkey’s fateful decision, Reuters has quoted an anonymous American military official that purposely leaked that the Russian plane was downed while over Syrian airspace, basing the assessment on heat signature detection. This raises questions about why the US is playing both sides of the fence – on one hand, publicly supporting Turkey, while on the other, strategically releasing information that conflicts with Turkey’s official depiction of events.

The Setup:

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his dichotomy is suggestive of a Machiavellian plan whereby the US manipulates both Turkey and Russia into behaving according to what it has already forecast as their most likely responses, knowing full well that these could be guided into supporting grander American strategic interests. For starters, the US likely intimated to Erdogan that not only does he have the ‘legal’ right to shoot down any Russian aircraft he chooses, but that the US would actually prefer for him to take this course of action sooner than later. This is reminiscently similar to how the US put Sakkashvili up to bombing Tskhinval and invading South Ossetia – it may not have directly issued an official, on-paper order for this to occur, but it left no ambiguity as to how it wanted its proxy to act in each situation.

According To Plan:

For the most part, this explains the public pronouncements of NATO and the US’ support for Turkey’s actions, and it also goes a long way in soothing Erdogan’s nerves and reassuring him that he did the right thing. The predicted aftereffect of the plane’s downing was an immediate deterioration of Russian-Turkish relations, with the full consequences potentially affecting the diplomatic, military, economic, and energy spheres. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cancelled his upcoming trip to Turkey and advised Russian tourists to refrain from visiting the country due to the terrorism level being similar to Egypt’s. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has spoken about the possibility of barring Turkish companies from the Russian market and cancelling planned nuclear and gas projects with the country.

All of these prospective actions are fully justifiable and grounded in the self-respect that Russia feels in not aiding what has proven itself to be a militantly hostile state no matter the economic stakes involved, but at the same time, one can’t help but wonder whether this is exactly what the US wanted. There’s no doubt that Russia would react this way, as even a cursory glance of its potential ‘response toolkit’ indicates that these are the most likely to be taken amidst any deterioration of relations. Therefore, it can’t be discounted that the US put Erdogan up to shooting down the Russian jet precisely to provoke the predictable Russian response in threatening to cancel its forthcoming energy projects with Turkey, the core of the strategic partnership between the two. If this is the case, and it certainly seems likely, then it shows exactly how far the US is willing to go to make sure that Russian energy (and subsequently, all of the soft power and multipolar advantages that come with it) doesn’t enter the Balkans through the Turkish Stream megaproject, likely because it understands the transformative impact that this would eventually have on the entire region.

The Curveball:

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hus far, everything seems reasonable and well within the realm of predictability, but the curveball comes with the Reuters revelation that an unnamed American military source is essentially saying that the Russian position is justified. Unexpectedly, it now seems as though the US is also playing to Russia’s side to an extent, and this raises questions about what it really wants. After all, it’s been proven beyond any doubt that American-supplied TOW anti-tank missiles were used to down the Russian rescue helicopter that attempted to retrieve the two pilots. With this indisputable evidence of indirect American aggression against Russia, it certainly is a curious fact that the US establishment would purposely leak a statement saying that Turkey downed the Russian plane in Syrian airspace, and basically take Russia’s side on this behind the scenes.

Playing The Kurdish Card:

Explaining this diplomatic twist requires knowledge about the popular response that Russian citizens and global supporters worldwide are requesting to Turkey’s aggression. They quite reasonably propose that Russia intensify its arms shipments to anti-ISIL Kurdish fighters, with the wink-and-a-nod approval that some of them would be siphoned off to the PKK and be used against the Turkish military. This is an effective and pragmatic plan, and in reality, it actually doesn’t even require a policy shift from Moscow because support is already being rendered to some Kurdish groups as part of their joint cooperation in the anti-ISIL struggle. The Kurdish Insurgency hasn’t gone away since Erdogan unwittingly unearthed it this summer as an electioneering tool, and the fact that it’s still going strong even after the elections has scared him so much that he might have been the one who ordered the recent assassination attempt against pro-Kurdish HDP co-chairman Selahattin Demirtas. Thus, if Russia chooses to inflict an asymmetrical response to Turkey by beefing up its indirect support for the PKK and other Turkish-based anti-government Kurds or disrupting Blue Stream gas supplies in order to provoke an intensified rebellion, then it could certainly inflict a heavy amount of strategic damage to Erdogan and increase the likelihood either of a military coup in Turkey (explained more in detail as part of a different article accessible here) and/or the creation of an independent Kurdistan.

Much of Turkey’s air force equipment has been supplied by the US and the rest of the NATO bloc. The planes have been mostly used to attack Kurdish fighters engaged in combatting ISIL.

That being said, the US has traditionally been the out-of-regional power that has the greatest interest in Kurdistan, seeing the possible state as a ‘geopolitical Israel’ from which it can simultaneously exert influence on the rump portions of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The strategic trajectory of a theorized Kurdish state has been complicated by the anti-ISIL campaign, however, since many Kurds have shown themselves to be pragmatic in cooperating with Russia and Iran against this shared threat. The positive multipolar cooperation that each of these countries has engaged in with the Kurds challenges the US’ planned hegemony over them and their territory, and it thus means that any forthcoming independent Kurdish political entity could theoretically go either towards the multipolar or the unipolar camps. At this point in time, and given all of the dynamic military and diplomatic developments of the past couple of months, the loyalty of a future Kurdish state (no matter if its boundaries are confined only to present-day Turkey and/or Iraq) is totally up for grabs, and it’s impossible to accurately forecast which way it will go.
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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he strategic ambiguity that this entails means a few things to the US and Russia. For the US, it indicates that the time is now for it to bunker down and support Kurdistan’s independence before it loses the strategic initiative to Russia, which might be moving in this direction (whether formally or informally) out of grand geopolitical spite for Turkey. Moscow, as was just mentioned, seems inclined to hit Ankara where it hurts most, and that’s through supporting the Kurdish Insurgency in one way or another. However, it’s not yet known how far this would go, and whether Russia would pursue this strategy as a form of short-term vengeance or if it would resolutely go as far in recognizing Kurdish Independence if it could ever be de-facto actualized. Of course, Russia wouldn’t do anything that could endanger the territorial integrity of its Syrian, Iraqi, and Iranian allies, but if the Turkish-based Kurds contained their ambitions solely within the borders of Russia’s historical rival, then it might be able to rectify itself with this reality, especially if they even refrain from legal independence and instead seek a sort of broadly de-facto independent federative or autonomous status within a unified Turkey (which could only realistically be brought about by an intensified insurgency and/or a coup in Ankara).

Joining Hands For Kurdistan:

Having explained all of this, it’s now clear that a remarkable convergence of strategic interests has developed between the US and Russia focusing on Turkish-administered Kurdistan. Understanding the changing calculations that Russia may now be having towards this topic as a response to Turkey’s aggression against it, one can’t necessarily preclude the possibility that the Reuters leak was actually a strategic overture to Russia. Washington might be sending a signal that it wants to speak to Moscow about ways to cooperate in this regard, knowing that each of them possibly have an interest now in seeing the proto-state rise to the fore of the global arena. A shared understanding has likely developed by now that a New Cold War competition for Kurdistan’s loyalty could be fought after the entity is legally formalized (whether as an independent state or a de-facto independent sub-state entity modeled off of the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq), and that the two Great Powers need to put aside some of their differences in joining hands to see this happen first.

Such a strong signal could have been discretely and secretly communicated to Russia via secure diplomatic and intelligence channels, but the reason it was so publicly broadcast via Reuters, the global newswire service, is because the US also wants to send a signal to Turkey as well. Despite taking its side on the matter before the global eye, the US is also “stabbing its ally in the back”, to channel President Putin, by purposely leaking the information that the Russian jet was shot down over Syrian airspace. It’s not news that the US has been unhappy with Erdogan for not behaving more submissively in the past and refusing to blindly go along with the previous plans to invade Syria (rendered useless after Russia’s anti-terrorist military intervention there), so it might be trying to convey the message it’s had enough of his games and is now playing their own in return. Of course, the US has always been manipulating Turkey ever since it joined NATO and allowed the Americans to operate out of Incirlik airbase, but this time, the treachery is being taken to a higher level by implicitly throwing out suggestions to Russia, Turkey’s new foe (and only because the US manipulated Turkey into taking aggressive action against it), that it might want to team up in undermining Ankara’s control over its volatile southeast.

Concluding Thoughts:

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t can safely be assumed that the US influenced Turkey into shooting down the Russian jet over Syrian airspace, predicting quite accurately that this would immediately lead to the deterioration of ties between the two states. An elementary forecast of the specific counter-measures that Russia may take stipulates that these will likely relate to the diplomatic, economic, and energy sectors, which is just what the US wants. Because of Turkey’s aggression against Russia, the strategic partnership between the two is now broken (although not necessarily irreversibly), and Ankara has become the fourth and perhaps most geopolitically significant member of the anti-Russian Intermarum coalition. Furthermore, Turkish Stream looks to be indefinitely put on hold, thus delaying Russia’s game-changing pivot to the Balkans. While the ‘unintended’ consequence of the crisis has been Russia’s foreseeable and absolutely legitimate decision to deploy the S-400 SAM system to Syria, this in a way also plays to the manipulated Turkish-Russian rivalry that the US wanted to produce in order to solidify the completion of the Intermarum project and simultaneously counter Russia’s growing influence in the Mideast.

The reaction that no one could have predicted, however, is the US purposely leaking comments to Reuters that support the Russian version of events, namely, that the anti-terrorist jet was shot down while flying over Syrian airspace. This completely conflicts with what the US and NATO have said in public, but it shows that the US has had enough time to game out the plane-shooting scenario well in advance, and that it’s playing a sinister divide-and-conquer game against Turkey and Russia. Put in the position where its decision makers are scrambling for responses to the unprecedented aggression against them, Russia can now more easily be led into supporting the Kurdish struggle for sovereignty (whether formally independent or de-facto so) in Turkey, which coincides with one of the US’ premier geopolitical projects.

From an American perspective, a divided Turkey is doubly useful for its grand strategic designs, as the large pro-NATO Turkish military would remain mostly intact, while the US could gain a major base for force projection (both hard and soft) right in between some of the most important states in the region. It can’t, however, go fully forward with this project unless it has the support of the diplomatic leader of the multipolar world, Russia, otherwise Kurdistan will be just as illegitimate as Kosovo is and might not even come to geopolitical fruition if Moscow and Tehran work to stop it.

Seen from the Russian standpoint, the US’ intimations actually seem quite attractive. An increase of Russian support to anti-ISIL Kurdish fighters would be a plausibly deniable but strategically obvious way to funnel weapons and equipment to anti-Turkish PKK insurgents. Weakening Turkey from within would be a strong asymmetrical response to a country that has lately been a major thorn in Moscow’s side, and it might create the conditions either for a military coup against Erdogan, a divide between him and Davutoglu (which could be used to Russia’s diplomatic advantage so long as the constitution remains unchanged and Davutoglu legally remains more powerful than Erdogan), or a weakening of Erdogan and a tempering of his anti-Russian and anti-Syrian positions.

Importantly, the emergence of an independent or semi-independent Kurdish entity in Turkey could create a tempting piece of geopolitical real estate in the New Cold War, but of course, it would then be contested between the multipolar and unipolar worlds. Still, however, it would represent a positive multipolar development in the Mideast, since under the present state of affairs, the entirety of Turkish territory is under unipolar control. If a large chunk of it suddenly became the object of competition between both blocs, then it would definitely signify a strategic advancement at the expense of unipolarity. Of equal importance, this would also significantly impact on the Turkish state and whatever government is in power by that time, and it could possibly make it more amenable to returning to the previously pragmatic relationship with Russia and perhaps even resurrecting Turkish Stream.

Therefore, Russia surprisingly has nothing to lose and everything to gain by covertly supporting the Kurdish cause in Turkey, no matter if it’s full-out independence or relatively more restrained autonomy, and even if this objective is shared by the US and done in semi-coordination with it. Turkey would immediately be put on the defensive (although it could try desperately responding by supporting Tatar terrorists in Crimea), the multipolar world have a chance at competing for the loyalty of an ultra-strategically positioned entity, and the consequences that this has for the Turkish government (whether it remains the same or is changed via a [military] coup) could recreate the political conditions for Turkish Stream’s feasibility.

Andrew Korybko is an American political commentator currently working for the Sputnik agency, and for ORIENTAL REVIEW.

The paradox of the current global crisis is that for the last five years, all relatively responsible and independent nations have made tremendous efforts to save the United States from the financial, economic, military, and political disaster that looms ahead. And this is all despite Washington’s equally systematic moves to destabilize the world order, rightly known as the Pax Americana (“American peace”).

Since policy is not a zero-sum game, i.e., one participant’s loss does not necessarily entail a gain for another, this paradox has a logical explanation. A crisis erupts within any system when there is a discrepancy between its internal structure and the sum total of available resources (that is, those resources will eventually prove inadequate for the system to function normally and in the usual way).

There are at least three basic options for addressing this situation:

1. Through reform, in which the system’s internal structure evolves in such a way as to better correspond to the available resources [and goals].
2. Through the system’s collapse, in which case the same result is achieved via revolution.
3. Through preservation, in which the inputs threatening the system are eliminated by force, and the relationships within the system are carefully preserved on an inequitable relationship basis (whether between classes, social strata, castes, or nations).

The preservation method was attempted by the Ming and Qing dynasties in China, as well as the Tokugawa Shogunate in Japan. It was utilized successfully (in the 19th century) prior to the era of capitalist globalization. But neither of those Eastern civilizations (although fairly robust internally) survived their collision with the technologically more advanced (and hence more militarily and politically powerful) European civilization. Japan found its answer on the path of modernization (reform) back in the second half of the 19th century, China spent a century immersed in the quagmire of semi-colonial dependence and bloody civil wars, until the new leadership of [Mao] and later Deng Xiaoping was able to articulate its own vision of modernizing reforms.

This point leads us to the conclusion that a system can be preserved only if it is safeguarded from any unwanted external influences, i.e., if it controls the globalized world.

The contradiction between the concept of escaping the crisis, which has been adopted by the US elite, and the alternative concept – proposed by Russia and backed by China, then by the BRICS nations and now a large part of the world – lay in the fact that the politicians in Washington were working from the premise that they are able to fully control the globalized world and guide its development in the direction they wish. Therefore, faced with dwindling resources to sustain the mechanisms that perpetuate their global hegemony, they tried to resolve the problem by forcefully suppressing potential opponents in order to reallocate global resources in their favor.

If successful, the United States would be able to reenact the events of the late 1980s – early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union and the global socialist system under its control allowed the West to escape its crisis. At this new stage, it has become a question of no longer simply reallocating resources in favor of the West as a collective whole, but solely in favor of the United States. This move offered the system a respite that could be used to create a regime for preserving inequitable relationships, during which the American elite’s definitive control over the resources of power, raw materials, finance, and industrial resources safeguarded them from the danger of the system’s internal implosion, while the elimination of alternative power centers shielded the system from external breaches, rendering it eternal (at least for a historically foreseeable period of time).

The alternative approach postulated that the system’s total resources might be depleted before the United States can manage to generate the mechanisms to perpetuate its global hegemony. In turn, this will lead to strain (and overstrain) on the forces that ensure the imperial suppression of those nations existing on the global periphery, all in the interests of the Washington-based center, which will later bring about the inevitable collapse of the system.

Two hundred, or even one hundred years ago, politicians would have acted on the principle of “what is falling, that one should also push” and prepared to divvy up the legacy of yet another crumbling empire. However, the globalization of not only the world’s industry and trade (that was achieved by the end of the 19th century), but also global finance, caused the collapse of the American empire through a policy that was extremely dangerous and costly for the whole world. To put it bluntly, the United States could bury civilization under its own wreckage.

Consequently, the Russian-Chinese approach has made a point of offering Washington a compromise option that endorses the gradual, evolutionary erosion of American hegemony, plus the incremental reform of international financial, economic, military, and political relations on the basis of the existing system of international law.

America’s elite have been offered a “soft landing” that would preserve much of their influence and assets, while gradually adapting the system to better correspond to the present facts of life (bringing it into line with the available reserve of resources), taking into account the interests of humanity, and not only of its “top echelon” as exemplified by the “300 families” who are actually dwindling to no more than thirty.

In the end, it is always better to negotiate than to build a new world upon the ashes of the old. Especially since there has been a global precedent for similar agreements.

The global plutocracy’s shield: at US taxpayers expense.

Up until 2015, America’s elite (or at least the ones who determine US policy) had been assured that they possessed sufficient financial, economic, military, and political strength to cripple the rest of the world, while still preserving Washington’s hegemony by depriving everyone, including (at the final stage) even the American people of any real political sovereignty or economic rights.

European bureaucrats were important allies for that elite – i.e., the cosmopolitan, comprador-bourgeoisie sector of the EU elite, whose welfare hinged on the further integration of transatlantic (i.e., under US control) EU entities (in which the premise of Atlantic solidarity has become geopolitical dogma) and NATO, although this is in conflict with the interests of the EU member states.

However, the crisis in Ukraine, which has dragged on much longer than originally planned, Russia’s impressive surge of military and political energy as it moved to resolve the Syrian crisis (something for which the US did not have an appropriate response) and, most important, the progressive creation of alternative financial and economic entities that call into question the dollar’s position as the de facto world currency, have forced a sector of America’s elite that is amenable to compromise to rouse itself (over the last 15 years that sector has been effectively excluded from participation in any strategic decisions).

The latest statements by Kerry  and Obama which seesaw from a willingness to consider a mutually acceptable compromise on all contentious issues (even Kiev was given instructions “to implement Minsk “) to a determination to continue the policy of confrontation – are evidence of the escalating battle being fought within the Washington establishment.

It is impossible to predict the outcome of this struggle – too many high-status politicians and influential families have tied their futures to an agenda that preserves imperial domination for that to be renounced painlessly. In reality, multibillion-dollar positions and entire political dynasties are at stake.

However, we can say with absolute certainty that there is a certain window of opportunity during which any decision can be made. And a window of opportunity is closing that would allow the US to make a soft landing with a few trade-offs. The Washington elite cannot escape the fact that they are up against far more serious problems than those of 10-15 years ago. Right now the big question is about how they are going to land, and although that landing will already be harder than it would have been and will come with costs, the situation is not yet a disaster.

But the US needs to think fast. Their resources are shrinking much faster than the authors of the plan for imperial preservation had expected. To their loss of control over the BRICS countries can be added the incipient, but still fairly rapid loss of control over EU policy as well as the onset of geopolitical maneuvering among the monarchies of the Middle East. The financial and economic entities created and set in motion by the BRICS nations are developing in accordance with their own logic, and Moscow and Beijing are not able to delay their development overlong while waiting for the US to suddenly discover a capacity to negotiate.

The point of no return will pass once and for all sometime in 2016, and America’s elite will no longer be able to choose between the provisions of compromise and collapse. The only thing that they will then be able to do is to slam the door loudly, trying to drag the rest of the world after them into the abyss.

Rostislav Ischenko is the President of the Centre for System Analysis and Forecasting (Kiev) currently living in Moscow.

Source in Russian: Politexpert

Adapted and translated by ORIENTAL REVIEW.

The US’ Pivot to Asia (P2A) is obviously aimed against China, and Washington’s ultimate plan has always been to assemble a coalition of countries that can contain the global supergiant. As the Pivot enters its fourth year soon, the contours of the Chinese Containment Coalition (CCC) are beginning to take shape, and it’s become evident that it’s going to be centered on the Philippines.
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The island chain’s geopolitical connectivity potential can easily be harnessed to link together the CCC’s various players, and it’s also subservient enough to the US to the degree that it has ignored the exceptionally dangerous consequences of potentially hosting multilateral forward operating bases against China. As apocalyptic as the US’ end game scenario may be for regional multipolarity, it’s not at all assured to succeed, as there are quite a few contingencies that could develop between all of its assorted partners in preventing them from linking up in the Philippines and actualizing the Asian NATO. The article is thus divided into two parts; the first one describes the forecasted composition of the Asian NATO and explains the bilateral relationships that make it possible, while the second one investigates the multitude of factors that could impede its formation and/or lead to its eventual unravelling.

The Asian NATO

Prior to commencing the study, one must first understand exactly what is meant by the “Asian NATO”. The author explored the genesis of this concept in his earlier work on how The US Is Juggling Chaos And Coordination To Contain China, and it boils down to formalizing the CCC in order to simultaneously split ASEAN between anti-Chinese states (like the Philippines) and those that behave pragmatically towards it (like Cambodia), and create a formalized mechanism for the US to coordinate further anti-Chinese moves in the region. The Philippines are the logical staging ground for this endeavor owing to its de-facto mutual defense guarantee with the US and the overlapping strategic partnerships that it has with Japan and soon Vietnam (which are its first and second respectively, not counting the ‘special relationship’ with its former American colonizer).

Baits and Lures

The overall idea is for the island chain to act as a geographic facilitator in linking together both of its strategic partners under American guidance in order to enhance their combined ability to coordinate anti-Chinese actions in the East and South China island disputes. Additionally, because of the Philippines own spat with China, it could also be used as a ‘sacrificial lamb’ in provoking a small-scale military engagement with China (one in which the US would purposely refrain from participating in) in order to test the People’s Liberation Army-Navy’s responses and assist with the crafting of more effective anti-Chinese tactical maneuvers by the Asian NATO. Or, in a variation of this scenario, it could become the Asian application of the Reverse Brzezinski policy of luring China into a strategic military trap by using its small and provocative neighboring maritime state as bait. Unlike Ukraine, which has no formalized mutual defense relationship with the US, the Philippines could call upon the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement in order to turn even the tiniest exchange of fire into a global hot spot of brinksmanship between the US and China, thus giving it a freakishly disproportionate weight in international affairs.

The ‘Backwards L’

Japan:

Shinzo Abe, chauvinistic and militaristic leader of Japan, and eager player in the American maneuver to encircle China and rearm Japan. Abe stands out among the corrupt, pathetically servile politicians of postwar Japan, which is something of an accomplishment.

The function of a Japan-Philippines-Vietnam axis is to create a ‘backwards L’ of military containment in order to ‘box’ China inside mainland Asia, with the Philippines being the fulcrum of this entity. Japan is the most active Lead From Behind proponent of this policy, taking the initiative (under American instruction) to authorize both the sales of weapons and the deployment of troops abroad. Considering the strategic partnership between them and how each has their own island disputes with China, it’s logical to conclude that Japan will seek to make the Philippines the central focus of both anti-Chinese policy manifestations. The Diplomat reported at the end of June that this certainly seems to be in the cards, with Tokyo preparing to sell Manilla a slew of naval and air units in exchange for a “Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)” that could allow it to deploy its first foreign forces since World War II. One should also be reminded that both sides held their second-ever naval drills this summer together with the US, showing that there’s actual substance to their strategic partnership and that it’s not just rhetorically based.

Vietnam:

The other end of the ‘backwards L’, Vietnam, is also increasing its interactions with the Philippines, as the slated strategic partnership attests. Last May, military units from the two sides symbolicallyenjoyed a game of football together on one of the South China Sea’s disputed islands (the second time they have done so), showing that each of them is serious about working together to confront China in this region. The aforecited article also details some of the bilateral military cooperation between both sides, with each country’s navy calling port at the other and even holding informal discussions on setting up joint patrols in the area. It’s highly predicted that the signing of a strategic partnership between them will lead to an acceleration of military cooperation, and furthermore, will even put Vietnam and Japan’s militaries into direct contact with the other via the Philippines’ geographic intermediary function, which also accomplishes a contingent goal of the US’ P2A by having both CCC anchors enhance their full spectrum bilateral relations (especially in the military field).

Incorporating South Korea

In essence, there are actually two CCC axes that the US is building and wants to unite, and these are the ones between Vietnam-The Philippines (already discussed) and Japan-South Korea. To say a few words about the latter, it’s still not entirely certain that Seoul will commit to joining the CCC. For example, even though it’s part of a trilateral information sharing mechanism between it, Japan, and the US ostensibly against North Korea (which could realistically be turned against China in the future), it’s also being wooed by China through the recently inked Free Trade Agreement and has been ambivalent about hosting the US’ THAAD “missile defense” units (potentially even going it alone to produce its own domestic version instead).

Still, this hasn’t halted the country’s interest in cooperating with the Philippines, the magnetic center of geopolitical attraction to all members of the CCC community. The country’s Defense Minister visitedthe island nation earlier this month to discuss future military collaboration (as of now, just weapons sales and technical assistance), but such a big step could also help further last year’s proposal for the two countries to enter into a strategic partnership with one another. While South Korea doesn’t have any island disputes with China and behaves moderately friendly towards it in a military sense (not counting the anti-Chinese agenda of the thousands of US troops that are based there), if it got caught up in the CCC’s intrigue inside the Philippines, bilateral relations could certainly suffer as a result of the heightened and warranted suspicions that China would inevitably have towards its maritime neighbor.

With or without South Korea’s incorporation (which is still questionable), however, the central axis of Japan-Philippines-Vietnam still represents a formidable threat to China, but the auxiliary participation of the peninsular state would definitely contribute to its enhanced effectiveness, and it’s worthy to monitor any forthcoming decisions that its leadership takes in this regard.

The Greater CCC

India:

On the topic of auxiliary members in the CCC, one must inevitably consider India’s inclusion and the anticipated role that Australia will also play. Looking at the first, New Delhi under Prime Minister Modi has been increasingly assertive of its foreign interests, and this includes the evolution of its “Look East” policy to one of “Act East”. One of the highlights of the US’ new National Security Strategy is to assist India in the application of this new policy, with the understood overtone that it’ll be directed against China in Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. As India finally grows out of its South Asian neighborhood and begins exploring its role in the global context, it’s entirely possible that it could take on the role of anti-Chinese vanguard if certain American-hoped-for conditions are met, specifically the intensification of Indian-Filipino military relations that seem to be directed against China. If the Philippines go as far as establishing a strategic partnership with India that draws the country into contact with the nascent Asian NATO that’s forming there, then it would confirm Beijing’s suspicions that India does in fact intend to challenge it in the region, likely on the US’ Lead From Behind behalf.

Australia:

The second auxiliary anchor, Australia, has an entirely self-interested reason to get involved, and this is to counter its regional Indonesian rival and open up a second front of pressure that could possibly be applied against it in the future. The two countries have been competing with one another for some time, and Australia bases all of its regional policies around the issue of how they relate to this rivalry. Thus, the twin military exercises that it plans to hold with the Philippines this year (built on the basis of a 1995 defense cooperation memorandum) aren’t so much directed against China as they are against Indonesia, at least in Australia’s strategic calculations. The island-continent just signed a free trade agreement with China earlier this summer, so it would be entirely schizophrenic for it to totally turn against its largest economic partner at this moment. Rather, it’s paying superficial homage to the US’ CCC in order to please its ‘big brother’ while simultaneously maneuvering itself into a more beneficial position vis-à-vis Indonesia, which incidentally, also satisfies another American goal pertaining to the P2A.

To explain, the US wants to ensure that Indonesia does not become too pragmatically friendly in its relations with China, preferring instead for the country to remain the ‘Asian Yugoslavia’ as long as possible in the context of this New Cold War. To prevent Indonesia from acting out of line with American grand strategic interests, the US is using Australia to ‘box’ the country in, following the ‘backwards L’ template that it’s directed against China. Australian-Filipino military cooperation is the northern point of this construction, with the fulcrum being Australia’s political influence over former colony and LNG-rich Papua New Guinea and the de-facto protectorate that it’ll likely form over Bougainville Island after the mineral-rich province predictably votes for independence sometime before the referendum scheduled by 2020. Pertaining to Papua New Guinea’s LNG potential, between Total and Exxon’s investments, it has the capability of producing 13 million tons of LNG per year, or about 1/6 the output of Qatar, and about Bougainville, if it restarts operation of the world’s largest copper mine in Panguna and returnsoperating rights to Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, then Canberra would inevitably gain a strategic foothold over its government. Concurrent to its influence on the eastern part of the New Guinea island and its surroundings, Australia could also become a de-facto state sponsor of the West Papua independence movement (“Indonesia’s Katanga” in terms of its mineral wealth), which while havingstrong arguments in its favor and a lengthy list of documented and legitimate grievances, could see its cause hijacked by abroad for geopolitical ends and marketed as an “Asian Darfur”.
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Rounding out the ‘backwards L’ of Indonesian containment, over 1,000 US Marines are now routinely rotated out of the North Australian city of Darwin, thus adding a third lever of external pressure against the archipelago’s authorities. If one adds in the US’ regime change attempt in Malaysia (meticulouslyexposed by Tony Cartalucci), then an actual containment square emerges, whereby the country is faced with potentially hostile elements in its northwest (a Color Revolution government in Malaysia), northeast (the CCC/Asian NATO that could also turn against Indonesia), southeast (foreign influence over the Papuas), and southwest (American Marines in Darwin, Australian control over Christmas and Cocos Islands and American military interest there). Therefore, it’s becoming apparent that the containment of Indonesia is inseparable from the containment of China, as the former is entering into effect via moves euphemistically made in advancement of the latter, and this underreported element of the P2A certainly deserves further analytical attention from other researchers.

To be continued…