On June 27th, NATO continued on with its needlessly provocative actions by mounting war games in western Ukraine.   Press TV provides details:

The war games, dubbed Rapid Trident 2016, kicked off at 9 am local time on June 27 at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center (IPSC) in Yavoriv in western Ukraine, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said.

 

At least 2,000 troops from more than 14 NATO member states and their partners in eastern Europe are attending  the exercises, according to the ministry. The maneuvers will involve military equipment, including armored vehicles, military helicopters and aircraft. The first part of the annual military exercise will come to an end on July 8.

 

Conducted annually, Rapid Trident this year involves Ukraine, the United States, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Georgia, The United Kingdom, Moldova, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Turkey.

 

Fox News has additional details, including a quote from Russia’s ambassador to NATO in reply to the maneuvers:

 

“Those measures significantly erode the quality of regional security, in fact turning central and eastern Europe into an arena of military confrontation,” Russia’s ambassador to NATO Alexander Grushko said, adding that NATO’s decision “directly infringes on our legitimate security interests” and “won’t be left unanswered”.

 

The NATO allies also discussed establishing a Romanian-led multinational “framework brigade” of ground troops to help defend the Black Sea area.

 

Grushko also criticized NATO’s pledge to offer non-lethal assistance to Ukraine, saying it could encourage its reluctance to abide by the Minsk-2 peace agreement for eastern Ukraine. The deal has helped reduce hostilities in eastern Ukraine, but fighting has continued and a political settlement has stalled.

 

More than 9,300 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists [sic] in eastern Ukraine, which erupted in April 2014 weeks after Moscow’s invasion of Crimea.

 

Meanwhile, Turkey’s president Erdogan sent an apology letter to Russian President Putin with respect to the shooting down of a Russian SU-24 last November, an incident in which the pilot was shot to death after bailing from the plane.   Another Russian pilot was killed while trying to mount a rescue operation by helicopter.   A member of a reactionary Turkish militia who confessed to the shooting murder of the Russian SU-24 pilot has been arrested and is awaiting trial in Turkey.

 

After receiving the letter, Putin called Erdogan.  For an analysis of what was agreed to by Putin and Erdogan in the phone call, see:

 

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/what-putin-and-erdogan-agreed-ten-main-points/ri15325

 

Putin reportedly offered his condolences to Erdogan on the recent terror attacks at Turkey’s main airport.

 

Professor Paul Robinson, over at the Irrussianality blog, discusses a Canadian intelligence report that just came out, which acknowledges that Russia is not circling the drain but is actually holding up reasonably well.   Robinson notes:

 

‘Russia is doomed’ is a common refrain of newspaper articles and think tank reports. It is quite refreshing, therefore, to read something which while not entirely optimistic about Russia’s immediate future is nonetheless a little more circumspect. A new report issued by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), entitled 2018 Security Outlook: Risks and Threats, aims ‘to explore the drivers influencing the security risks and potential threats related to specific regions of the world and themes by the year 2018.’ According to the introduction, ‘five leading global thinkers were commissioned’ to write about China, the Middle East, Russia, weapons of mass destruction, and ‘state power and cyber power’. CSIS doesn’t reveal who these ‘leading global thinkers’ are, but the one responsible for the chapter on Russia has produced 15 pages of sober analysis without any of the hyperbole normally associated with the subject.

 

Russia analyst Alexander Mercouris, motivated by observations due to his attendance at the recently concluded St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, has written an interesting piece explaining Putin’s “grand strategy” for Russia’s future:  a greater Eurasian economic zone.  The Eurasian Economic Union, a free trade zone that includes Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan, will be working in tandem with China’s One Belt, One Road project, and the goal is to eventually get the EU to become a partner, creating a greater Eurasian economic zone with Russia serving as the bridge nation between the East and West.

 

Mercouris writes:

 

This is not only a strategy; it is a hugely ambitious – even grandiose – strategy.  It aims to link the two sides of the Eurasian continent into a single economic space with Russia at the centre, acting as the link and bridge.  It is a proposal not for a “Eurasia” but for a “Greater Eurasia”: a single colossal economic unit extending all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic.  Moreover it is quite clear this project is fully supported by the Chinese leadership, China of course being the eastern half of the project.  Indeed it is a certainty the Chinese had a hand in making it and that their Silk Road project is part of it.

 

Far from seeking the break-up of the EU as so many neocon writers in the West claim, what Putin wants is the EU to become a full partner in this project.  Far from being forced to choose between “Russia in Europe” and “Russia in Eurasia”, Putin sees no contradiction in working towards both.  Far from wanting to choose between the EU and China as Russia’s partner, Putin wants Russia to have a partnership with both of them, bringing the two together.

Read the full article here:

 

Putin’s Grand Strategy: The Greater Eurasia Project

(http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-doctors-warn-brexit-could-harm-patient-care-and-public-health-a7065571.html)

I have no opinion on Brexit and see it as an issue that is up to the British people to decide for themselves.  However, I do think the decision of the British to vote to leave the EU is understandable, whether one agrees with it or not.  Seeking to understand it is imperative as Glenn Greenwald writes in this fine analysis, excoriating many in the corporate media for their judgmentalism and refusal to understand, instead reducing a significant portion of the British public to caricatures of buffoons and racists.  Here are some highlights:

 

The decision by UK voters to leave the EU is such a glaring repudiation of the wisdom and relevance of elite political and media institutions that — for once — their failures have become a prominent part of the storyline.

 

Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting one’s own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility. Virtually every reaction that falls into the former category emphasizes the profound failures of Western establishment factions; these institutions have spawned pervasive misery and inequality, only to spew condescending scorn at their victims when they object….

 

…In sum, the West’s establishment credibility is dying, and their influence is precipitously eroding — all deservedly so. The frenetic pace of online media makes even the most recent events feel distant, like ancient history. That, in turn, makes it easy to lose sight of how many catastrophic and devastating failures Western elites have produced in a remarkably short period of time.

 

In 2003, U.S. and British elites joined together to advocate one of the most heinous and immoral aggressive wars in decades: the destruction of Iraq; that it turned out to be centrally based on falsehoods that were ratified by the most trusted institutions, as well as a complete policy failure even on its own terms, gutted public trust.

 

In 2008, their economic worldview and unrestrained corruption precipitated a global economic crisis that literally caused, and is still causing, billions of people to suffer — in response, they quickly protected the plutocrats who caused the crisis while leaving the victimized masses to cope with the generational fallout. Even now, Western elites continue to proselytize markets and impose free trade and globalization without the slightest concern for the vast inequality and destruction of economic security those policies generate.

 

In 2011, NATO bombed Libya by pretending it was motivated by humanitarianism, only to ignore that country once the fun military triumph was celebrated, thus leaving a vacuum of anarchy and militia rule for years that spread instability through the region and fueled the refugee crisis. The U.S. and its European allies continue to invade, occupy, and bomb predominantly Muslim countries while propping up their most brutal tyrants, then feign befuddlement about why anyone would want to attack them back, justifying erosions of basic liberties and more bombing campaigns and ratcheting up fear levels each time someone does. The rise of ISIS and the foothold it seized in Iraq and Libya were the direct byproducts of the West’s military actions (as even Tony Blair admitted regarding Iraq). Western societies continue to divert massive resources into military weaponry and prisons for their citizens, enriching the most powerful factions in the process, all while imposing harsh austerity on already suffering masses. In sum, Western elites thrive while everyone else loses hope.

 

These are not random, isolated mistakes. They are the byproduct of fundamental cultural pathologies within Western elite circles — a deep rot. Why should institutions that have repeatedly authored such travesties, and spread such misery, continue to command respect and credibility? They shouldn’t, and they’re not. As Chris Hayes warned in his 2012 book Twilight of the Elites, “Given both the scope and depth of this distrust [in elite institutions], it’s clear that we’re in the midst of something far grander and more perilous than just a crisis of government or a crisis of capitalism. We are in the midst of a broad and devastating crisis of authority.”…

 

…There is no one, unifying explanation for Brexit, or Trumpism, or the growing extremism of various stripes throughout the West, but this sense of angry impotence — an inability to see any option other than smashing those responsible for their plight — is undoubtedly a major factor. As Bevins put it, supporters of Trump, Brexit, and other anti-establishment movements “are motivated not so much by whether they think the projects will actually work, but more by their desire to say FUCK YOU” to those they believe (with very good reason) have failed them.

 

Obviously, those who are the target of this anti-establishment rage — political, economic, and media elites — are desperate to exonerate themselves, to demonstrate that they bear no responsibility for the suffering masses that are now refusing to be compliant and silent. The easiest course to achieve that goal is simply to demonize those with little power, wealth, or possibility as stupid and racist: This is only happening because they are primitive and ignorant and hateful, not because they have any legitimate grievances or because I or my friends or my elite institutions have done anything wrong. As Vice’s Michael Tracey put it:

 

Because that reaction is so self-protective and self-glorifying, many U.S. media elites — including those who knew almost nothing about Brexit until 48 hours ago — instantly adopted it as their preferred narrative for explaining what happened, just as they’ve done with Trump, Corbyn, Sanders, and any number of other instances where their entitlement to rule has been disregarded. They are so persuaded of their own natural superiority that any factions who refuse to see it and submit to it prove themselves, by definition, to be regressive, stunted, and amoral.

 

Indeed, media reaction to the Brexit vote – filled with unreflective rage, condescension, and contempt toward those who voted wrong – perfectly illustrates the dynamics that caused all of this in the first place. Media elites, by virtue of their position, adore the status quo. It rewards them, vests them with prestige and position, welcomes them into exclusive circles, allows them to be close to (if not themselves wielding) great power while traveling their country and the world, provides them with a platform, fills them with esteem and purpose. The same is true of academic elites, financial elites, and political elites. Elites love the status quo that has given them, and then protected, their elite position.

 

Because of how generally satisfied they are with their lot, they regard with affection and respect the internationalist institutions that safeguard the West’s prevailing order: the World Bank and IMF, NATO and the West’s military forces, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, the EU. While they express some piecemeal criticisms of each, they literally cannot comprehend how anyone would be fundamentally disillusioned by and angry with these institutions, let alone want to break from them. They are far removed from the suffering that causes those anti-establishment sentiments. So they search and search in vain for some rationale that could explain something like Brexit, or the establishment-condemning movements on the right and left, and can find only one way to process it:These people are not motivated by any legitimate grievances or economic suffering, but instead they are just broken, ungrateful, immoral, hateful, racist, and ignorant.

 

Read the full article here:

https://theintercept.com/2016/06/25/brexit-is-only-the-latest-proof-of-the-insularity-and-failure-of-western-establishment-institutions/

 

For an in-depth analysis on the myth of the European Union versus the reality, see:

The Left and the EU: Why Cling to This Reactionary Institution? by Joseph Richardson at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/22/the-left-and-the-eu-why-cling-to-this-reactionary-institution/

 

 

 

 

I had to implement the Google translate option in order to read the captions.   A few of my favorites to give you a sampling:

 

(Yuri Gagarin and Che Guevara, 1964; https://russiainphoto.ru/exhibitions/45/#12)

 

(Leo Tolstoy and his daughter, 1902; https://russiainphoto.ru/exhibitions/143/#6)

 

(Vladimir Lenin visiting Maxim Gorky in Capri, 1908; https://russiainphoto.ru/exhibitions/143/#15)

 

(Ballerina Tamara Karsavina, circa 1910-1914; https://russiainphoto.ru/exhibitions/143/#34)

 

(February Revolution, when soldiers and sailors sided with the rebels, 1917; https://russiainphoto.ru/exhibitions/63/#3)

 

(Emperor Nicholas II in exile, 1918; https://russiainphoto.ru/exhibitions/63/#16)

 

Read more about the project and view more photos at:

 

https://russiainphoto.ru/about/

 

 

(Extending American Power: http://www.cnas.org/extending-American-power#.V2SMFLt0eUk)

The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a think tank connected to the Democratic Party, particularly with Obama’s transition team at the beginning of his first term, published a 20-page policy paper last month called “Extending American Power.”

 

That this think tank is already close to the Democratic Party establishment is not the only salient fact in relation to this policy paper.  It is also relevant that this paper was signed off on, with an introduction co-authored by, Robert Kagan.  For those who may need a refresher, Kagan is the philosophical standard bearer of Neoconservative thought in western corporate media (New Republic and The Washington Post) as well as co-founder of Project for a New American Century (PNAC) which pushed for the invasion of Iraq in the 1990’s and early 2000’s.  Kagan believes that the U.S. has a right and duty to be the policeman of the world and to expend whatever resources are necessary to do so under the guise of spreading (imposing) Washington’s definition of democracy by manipulation and force.  It is imperialism with a more palatable cover, using terms like human rights and democracy to get average Americans to swallow it.  Despite the fact that these democracy-spreading regime change attempts have produced death, chaos and blowback wherever they’ve been tried, such as Iraq, Kagan continues to advocate them with only the minor cosmetic change of now calling himself a “liberal interventionist” rather than a Neocon.  It should also be noted that Kagan is married to Victoria Nuland, who, in her job as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, played a leading role in the 2014 coup in Ukraine.

 

The Neocons have now successfully inserted themselves into the Democratic Party where they’ve often teamed up opportunistically with the resident hawks there, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and his protégé, Madeline Albright.  Indeed, Albright served on the Board of Directors of CNAS only a few years ago.

 

The policy paper is therefore what one would likely expect from the Neocon godfather who has endorsed Hillary Clinton explicitly for her Neocon foreign policy.  In 2014, Kagan said the following to the New York Times:

 

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.”

 

In the paper’s introduction, the authors express their desire to influence a new presidential administration directly: “…with a mandate to examine the degree to which the United States can and should play a leadership role internationally, and with an eye toward policymaking in a new administration.”

The paper sets up its analysis of each of the three geographic areas of the world that it considers to be of critical importance, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, with a distorted history in which America’s policies are noble and successful.

 

For example, with respect to Asia, the authors state:  “U.S. leadership has been indispensable in ensuring a stable balance of power in Asia the past 70 years.”

 

Suffice it to say, the people of Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor and North Korea might beg to differ with this account.

 

Moving on to the Middle East, the U.S.-created disasters in Iraq and Libya barely get a mention and only in passing when speaking of ISIS.  The origins of ISIS – from the chaos of the Iraq invasion and its aftermath is omitted.

 

Instead, we get an explanation of ISIS only as being the fault of Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad whose “brutal repression of Syria’s majority Sunni population that has created both the massive exodus and the increase in support for jihadist groups like ISIS.”

 

In addition to this false narrative of the relationship between ISIS and Assad, regime change in Syria is still called for:  “Any such political solution [in Syria] must include the departure of Al-Assad.”  For all the platitudes about democracy, the Syrian people are not to be consulted about this proclamation from Washington.

 

Furthermore, the authors call for a no-fly zone.  This, despite the fact that American military leaders have acknowledged that such a policy would be a humanitarian disaster and that it would put the U.S. toe to toe against the world’s other nuclear superpower.  Russia currently has the S400 system in place in Syria, effectively creating its own de facto no-fly zone.

 

None of this has stopped 50 employees in the State Department (the department of diplomacy) from expressing their opposition to president Obama’s demurrer at going all in militarily in Syria as the WSJ reported last week, speculating that this is designed to grease the skids for what the Neocon/Liberal Interventionist-infested State Department hopes will be a more hawkish occupant in the White House in January 2017:

 

The internal cable may be an attempt to shape the foreign policy outlook for the next administration, the official familiar with the document said. President Barack Obama has balked at taking military action against Mr. Assad, while the Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton has promised a more hawkish stance against the Syrian leader. Republican candidate Donald Trump has said he would hit Islamic State hard but has also said he would be prepared to work with Russia and Syria.

 

Secretary of State, John Kerry, is reportedly in solidarity with this position.  This should put to rest any notions that have been bandied about that Kerry is a force for restraint in our foreign policy as his reckless and shrill comments back in 2013 evidence.   Interesting insight into this is provided by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, who attended a meeting recently with Obama in which Kerry was present.  When the discussion turned to Syria, Kerry made it clear through his body language and gestures that he disagreed with Obama’s more moderate approach to Syria, according to Wilkerson.

 

Adding to these reckless calls, Michele Flournoy, who is associated with CNAS and is rumored to be on the short list for consideration as Secretary of Defense in a Hillary Clinton administration, advocated regime change and sending U.S. forces into Syria to push Assad’s forces out of southern Syria in a recent interview with Defense One magazine.

 

The Russian presence in Syria is, of course, characterized as pernicious in the CNAS report as well as in the aforementioned State Department memo, even though Russia is the only foreign actor operating legally in Syria at the request of the recognized government in Damascus.  A no-fly zone implemented in Syria by the U.S., on the other hand, would violate international law.

 

Speaking of international law, one of the themes throughout the paper is that the U.S.’s leadership in the world is justified, in part, to uphold “a stable rules-based international order.”  Again, Washington’s illegal aggressions, such as the invasion of Iraq and the bombing of numerous other countries, go unmentioned.

 

Aggression is the operative term, however, for Russia in this report:  at one point, the authors praise German Chancellor Angela Merkel for holding together the sanctions “in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

 

Perhaps this is a reference to those numerous invasions of Ukraine we all heard about from NATO leaders in 2014; those times when the Russian military invaded, then retreated, then invaded again – just to be weird (hey, they’re Russian); numerous invasions that the OSCE always managed to miss when they were monitoring the border.

 

Weapons transfers to the Kiev regime under the guise of defense are a possibility as the authors state:  “The United States must provide Ukrainian armed forces with the training and equipment necessary to resist Russian-backed forces and Russian forces operating on Ukrainian territory.”

 

Of course, any military “equipment” or weapons could be just as easily put to offensive use as defensive (to “resist”).  It is telling that the Minsk agreement is not mentioned once, as though it doesn’t even exist – like so many other inconvenient facts for the authors of this report.

 

Unsubstantiated assertions that Russia is a threat to the Baltic nations are trotted out to justify more of the current provocative actions by NATO: “The Baltics in particular are vulnerable to both direct attack and the more complicated “hybrid” warfare [never defined] that Russia has displayed in Ukraine.”

 

The solution, according to the authors, is more of the same sort of policies that have contributed to current tensions – the most dangerous in decades:  “…establish a more robust U.S. force presence in appropriate central and eastern European countries, which should include a mix of permanently stationed forces, rotationally deployed forces, prepositioned equipment, access arrangements and a more robust schedule of military training and exercises.”

 

As Russia expert Stephen F. Cohen pointed out in a recent interview with John Batchelor, unlike the first Cold War, which had military dividing lines between NATO and the Soviet Union in Berlin, the current military lines are right on Russia’s borders – just kilometers away from St. Petersburg.  NATO, controlled by Washington, is recklessly backing Russia into a corner with nowhere to retreat to.

 

To continue facilitating this grand strategy of American power and indispensability to the entire globe, the authors propose even more spending on the military and national security state:  “An urgent first step is to significantly increase U.S. national security and defense spending and eliminate the budgetary straitjacket of the Budget Control Act.”

 

Military spending is already 54% of our discretionary budget, totaling $598 billion.* (This does not include the separate “Overseas Contingency Operations” budget worth another $64 billion or the “black budget” estimated at an additional $52 billion for classified operations). This would make it more than during the first Cold War when the U.S. was taking on a much larger “enemy” with a bigger military and an official policy of supporting communist revolution.  But, somehow, now, when we spend 8 times more than Russia and have over 700 hundred military bases around the globe, the still-largest economy (except for perhaps China), we need to spend even more to take on a couple of “regional powers” and relatively low-tech terrorists.  Really?

 

The American people in general do not seem to buy into this premise as reflected in a poll released in March of this year, showing that the majority of Democrats and independents supported cutting the military budget by $20 billion – $36 billion, while half of Republicans supported significant cuts.

 

It might be instructive at this point to look into who the major funders are of this illustrious establishment think tank.  The list is available here.  Unsurprisingly, one will find defense contractors, along with the fossil fuel industry, comprise the majority.

 

It’s disconcerting to know that the fate of the world may rest in the hands of those beholden to a combination of die-hard ideologues and war profiteers.

 

 

*Figures are for 2015

 

 

In this article, long-time peace activist, Kathy Kelly, explains why she decided to join a  citizen diplomacy delegation to Russia, led by Sharon Tennison and the Center for Citizen Initiatives.  The delegation is currently in Crimea, after having spent several days in Moscow.   They will also be visiting Krasnodar and St. Petersburg. The delegation’s other members include retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern and Col. Ann Wright.

 

It’s important for U.S. people to learn more, from ordinary Russian people, about their responses to troop build-up and new bases on their borders, threatening military exercises, and antagonistic arsenals of nuclear weapons on high alert. As President Vladimir Putin begins summoning a new Russian National Guard that could include 400,000 troops, it’s also important to hear how Russian people feel about this development.

Rather than foster cartoon[ish] versions of foreign policy, the media should help people recognize complexity in Russian society and include awareness of desires to live in peace on the part of most people in both countries.

U.S. people committed to peace making might help ordinary Russians sense the complexity of U.S. society and better understand how U.S. military spending and build up toward war adversely affects civil society in the U.S.

 

Read the full article here:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/20/why-go-to-russia/