The Russian and Syrian air forces have not run any bombing missions over Aleppo for about a week and a half in an attempt to give the humanitarian corridors as much chance as possible to be utilized by both civilians and rebels who are willing to leave the area. Simultaneously,  Lavrov and Kerry had more discussions, with Lavrov reiterating the need for Washington to separate the unicorn “moderate rebels” from the terrorists – a project that will likely continue to fail since there aren’t any “moderate rebels” to speak of operating in East Aleppo. RT reported last week:

According to the Defense Ministry spokesman, 48 women and children left the rebel-held area on Monday. “Late Monday, October 24, 48 women and children accompanied by officers of the Russian reconciliation center and Syrian authorities left eastern Aleppo through [the] humanitarian corridor. They have been provided with the necessary medical aid, hot meals, and night accommodation,” Konashenkov added.

The spokesman added that civilians can use six humanitarian corridors to leave the city. They will then be treated at reception centers and offered first aid and hot food.

Last week, Damascus and Moscow stopped carrying out airstrikes in eastern Aleppo and opened a number of humanitarian corridors for those wishing to escape the areas of the city controlled by terrorists and rebels, in the hope that the temporary truce would lead to a complete ceasefire.

Despite the humanitarian pause having been prolonged several times, militants repeatedly sabotaged the ceasefire efforts, shelling humanitarian corridors and killing civilians.

As people remain trapped in eastern Aleppo, the Syrian branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on ground forces to facilitate safe passage for civilians out of the rebel-held areas. In a series of tweets, the NGO confirmed it has been on standby to assist the wounded since Thursday.

“Sadly, we couldn’t proceed with the evacuation as a lack of security guarantees on the ground meant we couldn’t ensure patients’ safety,” ICRC tweeted. “Our team on the ground in #Aleppo stands ready to help. For the sake of the people, let us respond before it’s too late.”

For the humanitarian pause to work, the U.S. must fulfill its promise and separate the so-called moderate rebels from hardcore jihadists in Aleppo, a Kremlin spokesperson reiterated on Monday. “All these days, checkpoints continued to be shelled, terrorist groups attacked main routes where humanitarian supplies could be delivered, primarily Castello,” Dmitry Peskov told journalists.

“All of this, of course, makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to form humanitarian convoys. Therefore, since the separation of terrorist groups from the so-called moderate opposition has not taken place, one can wonder whether it is possible at all,” he added.

On the diplomatic front, the need to separate the rebels from jihadists was discussed by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a phone conversation with his American counterpart John Kerry. “Sergey Lavrov pointed out that illegal armed formations holding the eastern part of Aleppo responded to the introduction by the Syrian authorities of the humanitarian pause by opening fire on civilians trying to leave the city, and new attacks,” the ministry statement reads.

It appears that the pause in bombing will continue indefinitely as Putin rejected requests by the Russian Ministry of Defense to resume air action over East Aleppo.  On Friday, Lt. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, head of operations in the Russian General Staff reported that Russia’s center for reconciliation in Syria is currently negotiating “with representatives of the public authorities of eastern Aleppo and several armed groups on the evacuation of the civilian population and withdrawal of militants from areas under their control.”

According to Sergey Lavrov, Russia and Iran welcomed Syria’s readiness to boost cooperation with the UN. “Russia and Iran welcome the Syrian government’s readiness to enhance cooperation with the UN in solving humanitarian issues, that was confirmed today,” the Russian minister said. “We believe that the UN representatives should act impartially, refrain from responding to provocations, and do everything possible to confront terrorists in Syria.

The Syrian foreign minister said the government does not maintain any contacts with the U.S.-led anti-terrorist coalition and questions its effectiveness. “There are no contacts between the Syrian government and the coalition led by the U.S.,” he said, adding that the coalition’s operation that has lasted more than two years yielded no results.

Damascus is certain that Washington is not eager to meet its commitments in regard to Syria, he added.

“The U.S. admits the roles of Russia and Iran (in resolution of the Syria crisis) but cannot cooperate with us,” Muallem said. “We have no trust in the United States. We are certain it will not meet its commitments.”

“We have suffered from the U.S.-led coalition’s operation as it does not fight against terrorists but destroys our infrastructure and recently it has destroyed lots of crucial bridges across the Euphrates River,” the Syrian foreign minister emphasized. “They want ISIS (the Islamic State terrorist organization banned in Russia) to leave Mosul for Raqqa. I am pleased to hear from Mr. Lavrov that we will join our efforts to prevent it.”

“There are no contacts between the Syrian government and the coalition led by the U.S.,” he said, adding that the coalition’s operation that has lasted more than two years yielded no results.

“Those who have been plotting against Syria for five years under U.S. guidance will go ahead with their campaign,” Muallem said. “Nonetheless, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday (at the Valdai International Discussion Forum in Sochi), our patience had limits. Their campaign will not affect us but we will not reduce efforts to fight terrorists.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov also stated last week that there is concern that jihadists will flee the U.S.-led attack on Mosul, Iraq and flow into Syria.  This possibility was discussed by veteran Middle East reporter, Robert Fisk, in a recent article for CounterPunch. Press TV had the following details on Lavrov’s statement:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned that Daesh terrorists are leaving the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in droves and heading to neighboring Syria, voicing Moscow’s eagerness to work with the Iraqi government to stop the exodus.

“The international anti-Daesh coalition has launched the operation to liberate Mosul. We are interested in working with our Iraqi colleagues to take measures to prevent terrorists moving from Mosul to Syria with their heavy arms, which of course will seriously worsen the situation in the Syrian republic,” Lavrov said at a joint press conference with his Iranian and Syrian counterparts Mohammad Javad Zarif and Walid al-Muallem respectively in Moscow on Friday.

He added, “We think that it is important not to let this happen. We will discuss it with the U.S. and other members of the coalition. We cannot let the terrorists leave Mosul into Syria with the aim to re-directing their activity.”

Last week, the Russian Defense Ministry asked the U..S-led military coalition not to “drive terrorists” from Iraq to Syria during the offensive to liberate Mosul.

And just to show Washington how fed up they are with the “ineffectiveness” of trying to cooperate with them, Russia is now sharing intelligence regarding Syria with Turkey.   According to TASS:

Russia has already started cooperating with Turkey on exchanging intelligence data needed for carrying out the Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria. According to Izvestia, the agreement was reached during last week’s talks between Russian and Turkish Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Experts believe that cooperating with Ankara on Syria may become more beneficial for Russia than cooperation with the US.

First Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Defense and Security at the Federation Council (upper house of parliament) Franz Klintsevich, said Turkey quietly joined the pool on intelligence sharing created by Russia, Syria, Iraq and Iran.

“We pass on to the Turkish side radio intercept, radar data and imagery intelligence data that may be of interest to them,” the senator said.

“In response, they also share data. The Turks have very efficient special services and a very good network of agents in Syria.”

Since Erdogan has shown himself to be completely untrustworthy and a bit unhinged, I’m wondering how wise of a move this will ultimately be, especially after the bizarre speech he just gave staking a Turkish claim in Iraq and Syria.

***************

NATO held a 2-day meeting last week in Brussels at which they decided to station even more NATO troops on Russia’s borders.  On October 26th, Reuters reported the following:

Britain said on Wednesday it will send fighter jets to Romania next year and the United States promised troops, tanks and artillery to Poland in NATO’s biggest military build-up on Russia’s borders since the Cold War.

Germany, Canada and other NATO allies also pledged forces at a defense ministers meeting in Brussels on the same day two Russian warships armed with cruise missiles entered the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Denmark, underscoring East-West tensions.

….NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the troop contributions to a new 4,000-strong force in the Baltic region and eastern Europe were a measured response to what the alliance believes are some 330,000 Russian troops stationed on Russia’s western flank near Moscow.

….NATO’s aim is to make good on a July promise by NATO leaders to deter Russia in Europe’s ex-Soviet states, after Moscow orchestrated the annexation of the Crimea peninsula in 2014.

NATO’s plan is to set up four battle groups with a total of some 4,000 troops from early next year, backed by a 40,000-strong rapid-reaction force, and if need be, follow-on forces.

As part of that, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced a “battle-ready battalion task force” of about 900 soldiers would be sent to eastern Poland, as well as another, separate force equipped with tanks and other heavy equipment to move across eastern Europe.

“It’s a major sign of the U.S. commitment to strengthening deterrence here,” Carter said.

Additionally, Norway has agreed to host U.S. troops – something they declined to do during the Cold War, despite being a founding member of NATO.   Needless to say, Russia is not happy.  RT reports:

Norway is to break a decades-old commitment not to host foreign troops on its soil by accommodating 330 U.S. Marines next year. Russia, the apparent target of the buildup, said it was puzzled by the move.

The Marines will be stationed at the Vaernes military base in central Norway from January, the Norwegian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Monday. The agreement for the deployment will be reviewed in the course of the year, it added.

“The United States is our most important ally and we have a near-bilateral relationship that we wish to develop,” Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Soereide said.

While Soereide didn’t specifically mention a Russian military threat on Monday, she had previously voiced sentiments about Russia currently prevalent within the alliance.

Moscow denies posing a threat to any NATO member.

Commenting on Norway’s decision, the Russian embassy in Oslo said it was puzzled by the step. “Taking into account multiple statements of Norwegian officials about the absence of threat from Russia to Norway, we would like to understand for what purposes is Norway so willing to increase its military potential, in particular through the stationing of American forces in Vaernes?” it told Reuters on Tuesday.

**************************

While Hillary Clinton’s pro-war record, Neocon sympathies and compensatory psychological issues have many people (myself included) extremely worried should she become the next president, analyst Alexander Mercouris argues, based on a close reading of Hillary’s words on the Syria issue during the last debate, along with recent media reports sourced by the U.S. military and intelligence head, she will not agree to implement a no-fly zone in Syria:

 ….The intensity of the media campaign against Russia is however creating something of a climate of fear, with most people unaware that the most dangerous moment of the crisis has in fact already passed. 

Much of this fear is centred on the personality of Hillary Clinton, now widely expected to be the next US President. 

Based on her record and her statements, she is widely supposed to be a hardline foreign policy hawk who has never seen a war she didn’t like or want to join, and who is widely expected to escalate dramatically the confrontation with Russia in Syria and elsewhere.

Many also point to Hillary Clinton’s known previous support for a no fly zone in Syria, and her comments on the campaign trail, which many see as suggesting that she plans one still.

Is all this however true?  Is the greatest moment of confrontation between the US and Russia in Syria still to come? Will things really get far more dangerous if Hillary Clinton becomes President?  Are we really looking at World War III?

In my opinion these fears are wrong.  The great confrontation has already taken place, and it took place this October.  A direct clash between the US and the Russian militaries in Syria was avoided, and there is now no possibility that it will happen.

….The reason none of these things will happen is because the US’s uniformed military opposes all of them.  In the face of the US military’s opposition none of them can happen.

The reason the US military opposes these schemes is because they would all require the US military to take on the very extensive and very sophisticated air defence system the Russians have set up in Syria.  The US military has made it absolutely clear that it is completely opposed to doing this.

In the days immediately following the US climbdown brave reports appeared in parts of the media which claimed the US military is confident of its ability to take on and defeat the Russian air defence system.   

It did not however take long for a report to appear in The Washington Post – obviously sourced from the US military – which made it clear that this is not the case. 

The Washington Post article, in addition to giving a comprehensive picture of the scale of the Russian air defence system in Syria, contains a frank admission that the US military is far from confident of its ability to defeat it

“While there is some disagreement among military experts as to the capability of the Russian systems, particularly the newly deployed S-300, “the reality is, we’re very concerned anytime those are emplaced,” a U.S. Defense official said. Neither its touted ability to counter U.S. stealth technology, or to target low-flying aircraft, has ever been tested by the United States.  “It’s not like we’ve had any shoot at an F-35,” the official said of the next-generation U.S. fighter jet. “We’re not sure if any of our aircraft can defeat the S-300.””

Whatever the precise purpose of the Russian military’s complaint about the alleged Belgian air raid on Hasajek, it does at least show that the Russians can now track US and NATO aircraft as they take off from their bases in Jordan, and almost certainly from Incirlik air base in Turkey as well. 

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has also admitted that the Russian air defence system is restricting the operations of the Israeli force, with the US based internet journal Al-Monitor reporting – based obviously on information provided by Israeli sources – that

“The S-300 and S-400 missile systems that Russia put in place cover all of Israel up to the southern Negev. Russian radar will immediately lock on Israeli jets taking off from any base, except for the Uvda air force base near the southern city of Eilat, and their flight patterns will be under constant surveillance. That is how the Russians keep an eye on the Israeli air force’s activities over “hotspots” along the borders between Syria and Lebanon. Should he want to, Putin can simply push a button and turn the lives of Israeli pilots and the commanders who sent them on offensive strikes in Syria into a living hell.”

(bold italics added)

Meanwhile we know US intelligence is advising the US government that the Russians not only have the capability to shoot down US aircraft, but are not bluffing when they say they will do so.   No less a person than Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, speaking to the Council of Foreign Relations on Tuesday 25th October 2016, has said as much

“I wouldn’t put it past them (NB: the Russians – AM) to shoot down an American aircraft if they felt that was threatening to their forces on the ground.  The system they have there is very advanced, very capable and I don’t think they’d do it – deploy it – if they didn’t have some intention to use it.”

The Washington Post article confirms that the US military was always reluctant to impose a no fly zone over Syria because of Syria’s sophisticated air defences. 

In the face of the vastly more sophisticated air defence system the Russians have created in Syria the option of declaring a no fly zone over Syria or of undertaking any of the other US military options that have been talked about in Syria for all practical purposes no longer exists.

….Whilst Hillary Clinton could in theory try to order the US military to take military action and risk confrontation with the Russians in Syria against its wishes, in practical political terms doing this is all but impossible since it would leave her catastrophically exposed in the very likely event that something went badly wrong.  In addition Hillary Clinton would almost certainly face a massive groundswell of opposition from Congress and the nation, which would surely dwarf the one that caused Obama to back off his proposed missile strikes against Syria in 2013, if she tried to do such a completely reckless thing. Hillary Clinton, whatever her faults, is far too experienced a politician to take on these well-nigh unbelievable risks.   

Mercouris obviously believes that Clinton will ultimately be a rational actor.  Let’s pray that he is correct.

*******************

On the ground independent reporter, Graham Phillips, details Ukraine’s recent uptick in shellings of the Donbass:

Reports from the DPR about ceasefire violations have been in the thousands, by the week, in October. However, numbers are numbers, and it’s sadly the case that it takes victims for shelling to really make news, get attention. You will doubtless be aware that on October 27th, the city of Makeevka (by Donetsk) was hit by Ukrainian shelling, with two killed as a result, some photos of that here –

Edward Basurin, the DPR Defence spokesman, named Thursday 27th as ‘Black Thursday’, with a total of three killed, across the DPR, and 10 wounded. 

Patrick Lancaster, in Donetsk, reports heavy shelling audible this night.Let’s wait until morning, and hope for no more victims.

Phillips also discusses conditions in the LPR.  To read the full report, go to:

https://thetruthspeaker.co/2016/10/28/updates-from-the-dlpr-4-shelling-in-the-dpr-and-lpr/

St. Basil’s Cathedral, Red Square, Moscow
(Photo by Natylie S. Baldwin)

By Natylie Baldwin, Consortium News

In February, the Obama administration announced that it was quadrupling funding for a major increase in NATO troops and weaponry in the countries of Eastern Europe on the border with Russia. Diplomatic relations have faltered between the two countries over Syria.

And the corporate media in the U.S. and U.K. have again stepped up their demonization of all things Vladimir Putin – he’s corrupt, he personally orders hits on people, is facilitating war crimes in Aleppo, and wants to invade Europe. The media also pushes the idea that Russia is an uncivilized and backwards cesspit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over Germany.

Considering that Russia is a nuclear superpower, the largest country geographically in the world, and is the sixth largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity (and projected to be number six in 2021 in terms of GDP), the U.S. relationship with Russia is one of the most important and delicate.

In order to have any chance of conducting this relationship in a rational manner, an accurate and nuanced understanding of the country itself and the history of post-Soviet U.S.-Russia relations is essential. This requires cutting through the misinformation and distortion that saturates much of our mainstream news and political discourse.

Continue reading at:

Russia’s Very Different Reality

After announcing the cutoff of official diplomacy with Russia regarding Syria, major media reported Washington insiders as stating that several options were being considered in response to the continued advances by the Syrian Arab Army, with Russian air support, to liberate eastern Aleppo from the Al Nusra and Al Nusra-affiliated terrorists who currently occupy it.   These options, as reported last week by RT, partly based on a Washington Post report, included covert military strikes against the SAA:

Top Washington officials are set to discuss striking positions of the Syrian military without a UN Security Council resolution. Bombing air force runways with missiles fired from coalition planes and ships is being considered, according to a report.

Following yesterday’s Russian warning that Russia stood ready to shoot down US aircraft or missiles attacking Syria, the US has confirmed all plans for military action against Syria have been dropped.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest confirmed this speaking to reporters on Thursday 6th October 2016.

“The president has discussed in some details why military action against the Assad regime to try to address the situation in Aleppo is unlikely to accomplish the goals that many envisioned now in terms of reducing the violence there.  It is much more likely to lead to a bunch of unintended consequences that are clearly not in our national interest.”

The US will never admit that it was the Russian warning that deterred it from carrying out air and missile strikes, and it is still pretending that the option of military strikes is still on the table.  In Josh Earnest’s words

“I’m not going to take any options off the table. I am not going to be in a position [we’re] taking options off the table for the commander-in-chief.”

However these are face-saving words. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNAPeEDujwE&list=TLBeYHZZGsYUQwOTEwMjAxNg

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Brzezinski)

There has been talk among some geopolitical analysts over the past few months about the latest article by former National Security Adviser (under President Carter), Zbigniew Brzezinski.  As some readers may recall from my past writings on Zbig, he was supposed to be the Democratic Party’s answer to Henry Kissinger – i.e. a psychopath who added a pseudo-intellectual veneer to his imperial war crimes by writing books and journal articles in which he pontificated on grand chessboards and other clever literary devices used to render the deaths of millions and the destruction of whole societies resulting from his policies as mere abstractions.  The human effects were deserving of little thought as he shuttled among writing sessions, high powered meetings in which lives were rearranged, and conferences where he got feted by various Washington sycophants.

The article is called “Toward a Global Realignment” and was published this past April in The American Interest.  Zbig sets the tone in his opening paragraph by declaring:

Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signalling the coming of a new global realignment.

First of all, Zbig uses an interesting choice of words.  Verities.  The dictionary definition of this high-falutin term is:

The state or quality of being true; accordance with fact or reality.  

I shall return to the irony inherent in Zbig’s use of this term in a moment.

According to Zbig’s article, Verity #1 is that the U.S. is still the most powerful “entity” in the world politically, economically and militarily.  But he acknowledges it is no longer the global imperial power – or the lone superpower.  However, no other major power (here he implicitly acknowledges that there exist a few others) is a global imperial or lone superpower either.

This is, indeed, a significant admission by Zbig – one that implies a more chastened outlook with respect to the U.S.’s penchant for acting like a bull in a China shop in the rest of the world since 1945 and, particularly, since the end of the Cold War when Zbig’s ambitions for American hegemony seemed to be fueled by the equivalent of an eternal supply of cocaine and Viagra.

Verity #3 acknowledges China’s steady rise on its way to being a “co-equal” and a potential rival with the U.S.:

…for the time being it [China] is careful not to pose an outright challenge to America.  Militarily, it seems to be seeking a breakthrough in a new generation of weapons while patiently enhancing its still very limited naval power.

Fair enough.  But its Verities #2, 4, and 5 that are problematic and reveal Zbig’s deep-rooted prejudices and analytical blind spots.

Verity #2 postulates that Russia is in the final “convulsive” phase of its imperial devolution.  It’s unclear what this even means as the imperial devolution was pretty much completed when Gorbachev voluntarily withdrew Soviet forces from Eastern Europe and allowed the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.  Subsequently, Russia was plundered by a handful of elite bureaucrats who became the original oligarchs – as the blueprints for that plunder were largely provided by the ivy league “advisers” from the U.S., as detailed by Naomi Klein in The Shock Doctrine and Janine Wedel in The Nation magazine.  Russia was on the verge of being a failed state when Vladimir Putin took over the presidency in 2000.

Russia is always portrayed by Zbig as a menacing threat that is uniquely evil and malicious, such as when it manages to get back onto its feet and dust itself off as it has done gradually under Putin’s leadership, or as a potential one as Zbig feared in The Grand Chessboard , his ode to American imperialism published in 1997, when Russia was on its back and down for the count.

Zbig seems to be incapable of trying to understand Russia on its own terms – what the world, shaped by its unique geography and history, may look like to Russians and how that may contribute rationally to their actions and policy preferences.  An analyst doesn’t have to like or agree with the Russian mindset or policy, but a competent geopolitical analyst who specializes in Eurasia (much less one who fancies himself a great one as Zbig does) should be able to do this as it would add valuable insight and provide for more accurate predictions of Russia’s behavior.

Other than grasping that Eurasia is an important area of the world in terms of geography and resources, Zbig has done a rather poor job of predicting the dynamics that appear to be playing out in the past few years in the region.  His tired misrepresentations of Russia’s actions in relation to its neighbors over the past 8 years makes one wonder if Zbig has ceased to simply be a purveyor of propaganda on behalf of his own agenda, and has actually started to believe his own hogwash.   As a case in point, Zbig states the following in his second verity:

…currently it [Russia] is pointlessly alienating some of its former subjects in the Islamic southwest of its once extensive empire, as well as Ukraine, Belarus, and Georgia, not to mention the Baltic States.

I’ve written extensively on Zbig’s lies and misrepresentations with respect to both the Ukraine crisis and the Russia-Georgia war of 2008.  Zbig doesn’t explain how Russia is alienating Belarus.  And it’s also unclear what credible designs Russia could have on the Baltic states, which – no offense to anyone living in the Baltic states – are suffering from poor economic performance, high rates of youth unemployment, significant emigration and have no real resources to speak of.

Later in the article, Zbig makes another nonsensical statement with respect to Russia and Putin:

A constructive U.S. policy must be patiently guided by a long-range vision.  It must seek outcomes that promote the gradual realization in Russia (probably post-Putin) that its only place as an influential world power is ultimately within Europe.

First of all, Putin has stated that Russia is a European nation.  He has also made many attempts to reach a diplomatic accommodation with Europe in connection with both security and economic issues. It is Europe, often under pressure from Washington, that effectively tells Putin to talk to the hand.   If it wasn’t for Washington’s strong-arming the EU into the sanctions in retaliation for an understandable response to a provocative coup in Ukraine, Russia’s economic relations with Europe would have continued apace and its pivot to Asia would not have been as quick or robust.

Furthermore, given Zbig’s notorious Russophobia and his Grand Chessboard theory, it is implausible that he wants to see a Russia integrated with Europe in any substantive way because it would represent an independent entity that would be too competitive with the U.S.

Zbig also repeats a belief often heard among mainstream analysts that China and Russia will not be able to have any effective partnership in the long run due to China’s potential future designs on Russian territory:

Russia’s own future depends on its ability to become a major and influential nation-state that is part of a unifying Europe.  Not to do so could have dramatically negative consequences for Russia’s ability to withstand growing territorial-demographic pressure from China, which is increasingly inclined as its power grows to recall the “unequal” treaties Moscow imposed on Beijing in times past.

There is no substantive evidence that China would do anything of the sort in connection with Russia – a nuclear superpower and, as Obama begrudgingly admitted recently, the world’s second most powerful military.  There is simply no reason to believe that China’s leadership is that stupid or crazy.

Of course, Russia and China (and also India) want a prominent role in their own backyard.  I see no reason to believe that there may not be bumps in the road in sorting out the regional balance of power in the future.  However, just because Washington sees foreign relations as a zero-sum game, does not mean that other countries and their leadership see it the same way.

As journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar has written about extensively, China has an ambitious plan known as “One Belt, One Road” which envisions a new silk road by land and sea, connecting Asia with Europe in a mutually beneficial program of trade and travel.   Several corridors of this project are in progress.  It has been announced this year that the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, aka EEU) will work cooperatively with the New Silk Road project.

Currently, the relationship between Russia and China is not an all-out alliance but it is a strategic partnership that is growing in terms of economics, military and even intelligence sharing.

Oil also features prominently in the increasingly symbiotic dynamics between the two countries.  As Tao Wang explained recently at the East Asia Forum:

The catalyst for better relations was the crisis in Ukraine, which estranged Russia from the West. Moscow faced substantial capital outflows and uncertainty around its energy exports to the European Union. China became the only option. Moscow has since opened up to energy investment from China, removing a number of key restrictions on investing in oil and gas resources on Russian soil.

Increasing oil imports from Russia seems to make good sense to the Chinese leadership now that their territorial dispute with multiple countries in the South China Sea is intensifying.

….China and Russia are still complementary economies. One is rich in resources and high military technology, while the other is good at mass manufacturing and rich in cash. This complementarity is well demonstrated by their partnership in Central Asia, where China provides investment in resource-rich yet unpredictable countries while Russia ensures the stability of ruling regimes. Facing increasing pressure from both east and west, it is unlikely that either China or Russia will seek to change this partnership any time soon, though the countries’ willingness and ability may not always match.

….Energy ties between China and Russia reflect mutual demands for cooperation in political, security and economic dimensions. They cannot be viewed as driven by only one of them.

While China will likely do what it can diplomatically to avoid outright provocation or confrontation with Washington, it is unlikely it will trust Washington enough to believe there is any chance for a meaningful partnership as the Chinese leadership have, no doubt, taken note of Washington’s unwillingness to abide by its agreements (see the Native Americans, Russia, and Qaddafi as a few examples).  Zbig’s idea that Washington could somehow implement a divide-and-conquer strategy with China against Russia is a pipe dream. The train has left the station in terms of Eurasia largely controlling its own destiny in the future and Zbig seems to be in denial.

Moving on to Verity #4.  This states that Europe is “not now and is not likely to become a global power.  But it can play a constructive role in taking the lead in regard to transnational threats to global wellbeing and even human survival.  Additionally, Europe is politically and culturally aligned with and supportive of core U.S. interests in the Middle East, and European steadfastness within NATO is essential to an eventually constructive resolution of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.”

In other words, Europe can continue to follow Washington’s orders whether those orders are really in Europe’s long-term interests or not.  And it is not at all clear that they are.  Europe has too often gone along with, or not put up enough resistance to, Washington’s militarist foreign policy since the 1990’s.  Today it is dealing with the worst refugee crisis since WWII – a refugee crisis that is largely the result of people fleeing Washington’s wars and regime change operations.  A recent Pew survey found that most Europeans do not view Russia as a threat, but instead view the immigration crisis and economic problems as major threats.

If it wasn’t for EU leaders who kowtow to Washington policy and mainstream European media that largely follows the lead of the American corporate media, average Europeans may very well recognize that they have more in common culturally, historically and geographically with their next door neighbor to the east than they have with the descendants of the Puritan misfits half a world away.   Indeed, in order to prevent an independent Europe that might decide that its rational interests were not always identical to Washington’s, the EU project was supported and encouraged by the CIA and the Euro was the brainchild of academic Robert Mundell who created it, not to help Europe, but to serve as a foil on government regulation of business and independent monetary or fiscal policy.

In order to understand where one is going, it’s important to understand where one has been and how it got to where it is presently.  Needless to say, the reader doesn’t get any of this contextual background from Zbig on why Europe’s prospects for becoming an independent global power don’t look too impressive at the moment.

Verity #5 states that the current strain of Islamic terrorism by Wahhabi whackjobs represents a “political awakening” – albeit violent – in reaction to historical brutal repressions by the western powers.  Again, some history is in order here.  Zbig has always had a soft spot for violent Islamic fundamentalists as he famously bragged in a 1998 interview about using them to provoke the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 so he could “give them their own Vietnam” quagmire.

Zbig also landed by helicopter in Afghanistan that year to give the jihadists a pep talk in their war against the Soviet Union – a war that led to the deaths of approximately a million Afghan civilians and turned a nation that had rights for women and little religious fanaticism into a Taliban stronghold.

All in a day’s work for Zbig who will then write articles feigning concern for Muslims and their genuine historical grievances when he really just sees them as pawns on The Chessboard to use to further American empire or to maintain what is left of it – and all the more gratifying if they can be used to stick it to Russia in some way.

Given Zbig’s continued vilification of Russia and self-serving dishonesty, weariness is in order on his latest effort.