Moon of Alabama gives his analysis of the Crimea bridge attack here and also discusses the possible implications of the faltering Starlink system in Ukraine.
The most recent reporting from RT states that auto traffic is currently moving on the side of the Kerch bridge that is undamaged and rail service is expected to be back online this evening. Putin has ordered enhanced security in and around the bridge:
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a new order on Saturday demanding the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) enhance security of “the Kerch Strait transport corridor.” This comes after the Crimean Bridge was damaged in a truck explosion early on Saturday.
At least three people are believed to have died as a result of the truck explosion on the bridge. Additional ferry service is to be started to make up for the one side of the bridge that is closed to auto traffic due to damage. It is uncertain at this time how long it will take to repair.
Michael Hudson is a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is The Destiny of Civilization.
The reaction to the sabotage of three of the four Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in four places on Monday, September 26, has focused on speculations about who did it and whether NATO will make a serious attempt to discover the answer. Yet instead of panic, there has been a great sigh of diplomatic relief, even calm. Disabling these pipelines ends the uncertainty and worries on the part of US/NATO diplomats that nearly reached a crisis proportion the previous week, when large demonstrations took place in Germany calling for the sanctions to end and to commission Nord Stream 2 to resolve energy shortage.
The German public was coming to understand what it meant that their steel companies, fertilizer companies, glass companies and toilet-paper companies were shutting down. These companies were forecasting that they would have to go out of business entirely – or shift operations to the United States – if Germany did not withdraw from the trade and currency sanctions against Russia and permit gas and oil imports to resume, and presumably to fall back from their astronomical eight to tenfold increase.
Yet State Department hawk Victoria Nuland already had stated in January that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward” if Russia responded to NATO/Ukrainian accelerated military attacks on the Russian-speaking eastern oblasts. President Biden backed up U.S. insistence on February 7, promising that “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it. … I promise you, we will be able to do it.”
Most observers simply assumed that these statements reflected the obvious fact that German politicians were fully in the US/NATO pocket. They held fast in refusing to authorize Nord Stream 2, and Canada soon seized the Siemens dynamos needed to send gas through Nord Stream 1. That seemed to settle matters until German industry – and a rising number of voters – finally began to calculate just what blocking Russian gas would mean for Germany’s industrial firm.
Germany’s willingness to self-impose an economic depression was wavering – although not its politicians or the EU bureaucracy. If German policymakers were to put German business interests and living standards first, NATO’s common sanctions and New Cold War front would be broken. Italy and France might follow suit. That nightmare of European diplomatic independence made it urgent to take the anti-Russian sanctions out of the hands of democratic politics and settle matters by sabotaging the two pipelines. Despite being an act of violence, it has restored calm to international diplomatic relations between U.S. and German politicians.
There is no more uncertainty about whether or not Europe will break away from U.S. New Cold War aims by restoring mutual trade and investment with Russia. That option is now out. The threat of Europe beaking away from the US/NATO trade and financial sanctions against Russia has been solved, seemingly for the foreseeable future, as Russia has announced that as the gas pressure falls in three of the four pipelines, the infusion of salt water will irreversibly corrode the pipes. (Tagesspiegel, September 28.)
Where do the euro and dollar go from here?
Looking at how this trade “solution” will reshape the relationship between the U.S. dollar and the euro, one can understand why the seemingly obvious consequences of Germany, Italy and other European economies severing trade ties with Russia have not been discussed openly. The “sanctions debate” has been solved by a German and indeed Europe-wide economic crash. To Europe, the next decade will be a disaster. There may be recriminations against the price paid for letting its trade diplomacy be dictated by NATO, but there is nothing that it can do about it. Nobody (yet) expects it to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. What is expected is for its living standards to plunge.
Germany’s industrial exports were the major factor supporting the euro’s exchange rate. The great attraction to Germany in moving from the deutsche mark to the euro would avoid its export surplus from pushing up the D-mark’s exchange rate to a point where German products would be priced out of world markets. Expanding the currency to include Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and other countries running balance-of-payments deficit would prevent the currency from soaring. And that would protect the competitiveness of German industry.
After its introduction in 1999 at $1.12, the euro did indeed sink to $0.85 by July 2001, but recovered and indeed rose to $1.58 in April 2008. It has been drifting down steadily since then, and since February of this year the sanctions have driven the euro’s exchange rate below parity with the dollar to $0.97 this week. The major factor has been rising prices for imported gas and oil, and products such as aluminum and fertilizer requiring heavy energy inputs for their production. And as the euro’s exchange rate declines against the dollar, the cost of carrying its US-dollar debt – the normal condition for affiliates of U.S. multinationals – will rise, squeezing their profits.
This is not the kind of depression that “automatic stabilizers” can work “the magic of the marketplace” to restore economic balance. Energy dependency is structural. And the eurozone’s own economic rules limit its budget deficits to just 3% of GDP. This prevents its national governments supporting the economic by deficit spending. Higher energy and food prices – and dollar-debt service – will leave much less income to be spent on goods and services.
It seems curious that the U.S. stock market soared – 500 points for the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wednesday. Maybe it was simply the Plunge Protection Team intervening to try and reassure the world that everything was going to be all right. But economic reality raised its ugly head on Thursday, and the stock market gave back its phantom gains.
It is true that the end of German industrial competition with United States is ended on trade account. But on capital account, depreciation of the euro will reduce the value of U.S. investments in Europe and the dollar-value of any profits that these investments may still earn as the European economy shrinks. So reported earnings by U.S. multinationals will fall.
As a final kicker, Pepe Escobar pointed out on September 28 that “Germany is contractually obligated to purchase at least 40 billion cubic meters of Russian gas a year until 2030. … Gazprom is legally entitled to get paid even without shipping gas. That’s the spirit of a long-term contract. … Berlin does not get all the gas it needs but still needs to pay.” It looks like a long court battle before money will change hands – but Germany’s ability to pay will be steadily weakening.
For that matter, the ability of many countries’ ability to pay already is reaching the breaking point.
The effect of U.S. sanctions and New Cold War outside of Europe
International raw materials are still priced mainly in dollars, so the dollar’s rising exchange rate will raise import prices proportionally for most countries. This exchange-rate problem is intensified by the US/NATO sanctions forcing up world prices for gas, oil and grain. Many European and Global South countries already have reached the limit of their ability to service their dollar-denominated debts, and are still coping with the Covid pandemic. They cannot afford to import the energy and food that they need to live if they have to pay their foreign debts. The world economy is now exceeding its debt limits, so something has to give.
On Tuesday, September 27 when news of the Nord Stream gas attacks became known, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken shed crocodile tears and said that attacking Russian pipelines was “in no one’s interest.” But if that really were the case, no one would have attacked the gas lines.
I have no doubt that U.S. strategists have a game plan for how to proceed from here, and to do so that indeed is in what the neocons claim to be in the U.S. interest – that of maintaining a unipolar neoliberalized and financialized global economy for as long as they can.
They have long had a plan for countries that are unable to their foreign debts. The IMF will lend them the money, conditional upon the debtor country raising the foreign exchange to repay the (increasingly expensive) dollar loans by privatizing what remains of their public domain, natural-resource patrimony and other assets, mainly to U.S. financial investors and their allies.
Will it work? Or will debtor countries band together and work out ways to restore the seemingly lost world of affordable oil and gas prices, fertilizer prices, grain and other food prices, and metals or raw materials supplied by Russia, China and their allied Eurasian neighbors?
That is the next great worry for U.S. global strategists. It seems less easy to solve than was done by the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and 2. But the solution seems to be the usual U.S. approach: something military in nature, new color revolutions. The aim is to gain the same power over Global South and Eurasian countries that American diplomacy wielded over Germany and other European countries via NATO.
Unless an institutional alternative is created to the IMF, World Bank, International Court, World Trade Organization and the numerous UN agencies now biased by U.S. diplomats and their proxies, the coming decades will see the U.S. economic strategy of financial and military dominance unfold as Washington has planned.
The problem is that its plans for how the Ukraine war and anti-Russian sanctions have worked out so far have been just the reverse of what was announced. That may give some hope for the world’s future. The opposition and even contempt by U.S. diplomats to other countries acting in their own economic interest and social values is so strong that they are unwilling to think through just how these countries might develop their own alternative to the U.S. world plan.
The question is thus how successfully these other countries may develop their alternative new economic order, and how they can protect themselves from the fate that Europe has just imposed upon itself for the next decade.
The bridge was closed earlier after a fuel tank caught fire
The bridge that connects the Crimean Peninsula with mainland Russia has been damaged by a truck bombing, the National Anti-Terrorism Committee said on Saturday.
Officials said that the blast, which occurred shortly after 6am local time, caused a partial collapse of the road on the vehicle section. It also triggered a blaze on a freight train on the parallel rail section, with seven fuel tanks catching fire.
“The arch above the shipping section of the bridge has not been damaged,” the committee added.
An unverified video appears to show the moment of the blast.
Nikolay Lukashenko, the acting regional transport minister, told reporters that the authorities are considering launching a ferry service.
The 19-kilometer (11.8 mile) bridge, which runs across the Kerch Strait and connects Crimea with mainland Russia, consists of a railway section and a vehicle section. It became fully operational in 2020.
Anatoly Antonov is the Russian ambassador to the United States.
As Henry Kissinger wrote in 2014, “The demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one.”
I have commenced my work on this article for two reasons. Firstly, this October will mark sixty years since the Cuban Missile Crisis when the USSR and the United States were on the verge of a nuclear conflict. This is an occasion to look closer at the foreign policy lessons that the two great powers have learned from that dramatic time. I believe that any American will see eye-to-eye with me that we must not allow the explosive situation of the 1960s to repeat. It is important that not only Russia and the United States, but also other nuclear states, confirmed in a common statement that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.
Secondly, we are witnessing a surge of concern from the international community and U.S. experts about the possibility of a nuclear conflict between Moscow and Washington. This issue has become even more acute in recent days when senior officials of the U.S. administration began sending us direct signals warning against the use of nuclear weapons in the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. Moreover, threats against us have started to be heard from the official establishment.
Princeton University has even made predictions that millions of Americans and Russians would perish in the exchange of nuclear strikes. Sometimes it feels like we are returning to the years of McCarthyism in this issue. One hardly can forget former U.S. secretary of defense James Forrestal who jumped out of the window yelling “the Russians are coming.”
The U.S. media is abounding in publications by pseudo-experts who are ignorant of history and misinterpret the current state of affairs. They erroneously compare today’s situation with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The statements by certain politicians and the media that U.S.-Russian relations are living through an unprecedented crisis may well be accepted. Let me remind you that just a couple of years ago we talked about a difficult stage in the bilateral dialogue. However, no one could have even imagined that it would come to such a perilous point. Everything created over many years of hard work, including political, economic, cultural, scientific, and educational ties, has been written off to the dustbin of history.
We see a deplorable, deserted picture in arms control. The ABM and INF treaties have sunk into oblivion. The Open Skies Treaty has virtually ceased to exist. The New START Treaty is approaching the end of its duration and, as we have repeatedly said, is not fully implemented by the American side. The NPT is experiencing serious shocks. No one can foretell what will happen next.
I have to remind readers that all of this is a result of U.S. policy. Let me elaborate on my point. Washington withdrew from the treaties in order to gain security advantages, especially in confronting Russia. It is in a constant search for opportunities to achieve global military dominance.
Over previous decades, the NATO military machine has approached Russia’s borders in several “waves”—where a powerful striking fist was raised over my Motherland. How should we have reacted? We warned our colleagues that such steps were counterproductive, increased the risk of an arms race, and we could not ignore the aggravating threats along the perimeter of the Russian boundaries, especially our western boundaries. I remember long-hour gatherings at NATO headquarters where I had to participate repeatedly in discussions on the harmfulness of global missile defense, the importance of respecting international commitments on strategic stability, and the danger of deploying shorter- and intermediate-range missiles in Europe. Russian exhortations turned out to be in vain.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back was NATO’s attempt to launch the military-technical exploitation of Ukraine and cultivate in Kiev a regime desiring to wage a bloody war against Russia.
Today our country is accused of all sins. They claim that we have unleashed an armed conflict in Europe. I have to wonder: what did the United States do to ensure the implementation of the Minsk agreements? Why did Washington keep silent for eight years and not pull Kiev up when Ukrainians and Russians were killed in Donbas?! How could it ignore the terrible tragedy in Odessa when several dozen people were burned alive?! Where were the international humanitarian institutions?! Why did the administration prioritizing human rights allow such crimes?! We have repeatedly asked American politicians these questions. Nothing but beautiful slogans were the answer. Ukraine has continued to be pitted against Russia.
Today it is obvious that the United States is directly involved in the military actions of the Kiev regime. Washington is openly building up the supply of lethal weapons to Ukraine and provides it with intelligence. They jointly plan military operations against the Russian Armed Forces. Ukrainians are being trained to use NATO military hardware in a fight.
It feels like Russia is being tested to see how long it will remain patient and refrain from responding to blatantly adversarial actions and attacks. In fact, Washington is pushing the situation towards a direct confrontation of the major nuclear powers fraught with unpredictable consequences.
U.S. officials continue to escalate the situation, intimidating the American and international public with sham Russian “nuclear threats.” Such rhetoric twists the statements of the Russian leadership.
I would like to stress that there has been no change in the conditions when our country would use nuclear weapons. In this regard, we continue to strictly adhere to the 2014 Military Doctrine and 2020 Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence. Moscow has never mentioned an expansive interpretation of these documents which can be found in the public domain.
We are not threatening anyone. But we confirm that, as President Vladimir Putin said on September 21, Russia is ready to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity, and our people with all weapon systems we have. What is so aggressive about this statement? What is unacceptable? Would the United States not do the same if faced with an existential threat?
I would like to add that certain American politicians are under a delusion if they think that our readiness to defend our territory does not apply to Crimea or to territories that may become part of Russia on the basis of a free expression of popular will.
I would like to warn American military planners about the fallacy of their assumptions that a limited nuclear conflict is possible. They apparently hope that the United States would be able to take cover behind the ocean if such a conflict happens in Europe with British and French nuclear weapons. I would stress that this is an extremely dangerous “experiment.” It is safe to assume that any use of nuclear weapons could quickly lead to an escalation of a local or regional conflict into a global one.
I want to believe that, despite all the difficulties, we and the Americans have not yet approached a dangerous threshold of falling into the abyss of nuclear conflict. It is important to stop threatening us.
Today, it is difficult to predict how far Washington is ready to go in exacerbating relations with Russia. Will the U.S. ruling circles be able to give up their plans aimed at wearing out our country with the prospect of its dismemberment?
The recent Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit and the high-level week of the 77th UN General Assembly session have proved that a considerable part of the planet is not satisfied with the world order that was created after the collapse of the Soviet Union. We are witnessing the majority of the global community trying to find ways to establish an equitable system of international relations which would have neither first- nor second-tier states. We firmly support such a world order based on international law, the UN Charter, and the principle of the indivisibility of security.
Please pass this along to young people and anyone you know who is ignorant of or complacent about the threat of nuclear war.
The images posted here are for non-commercial and educational purposes.
An allied correspondent stands in a sea of rubble before the shell of a building that once was a movie theatre in Hiroshima on September 8, 45. Link here.Ruins of Nagasaki, Japan, 1945. From World Atlas.Piles of victims of the atomic blast in Hiroshima, Japan, 1945. UK ExpressFrom World AtlasA nuclear bomb victim lies in quarantine on the island of Ninoshima in Hiroshima, Japan, 9,000-meters from the epicentre on August 7, 1945, one day after the bombing by the United States. Picture: Yotsugi Kawahara. Link here.
