By Ian Proud, Website, 9/6/24

Ian Proud was a senior officer at the British Embassy in Moscow from July 2014 to February 2019, at a time when UK-Russia relations were particularly tense. He performed a number of roles in Moscow, including as Head of Chancery, Economic Counsellor – in charge of advising UK Ministers on economic sanctions – Chair of the Crisis Committee, Director of the Diplomatic Academy for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Vice Chair of the Board at the Anglo-American School. He oversaw the Embassy’s preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and rebuilt embassy staffing structures following the mass expulsion of staff that followed the March 2018 Salisbury nerve agent attack.

With Turkey – a key NATO member – having lodged an application to join, BRICS is set to get bigger, and this can only be a good sign for the collective strength of developing nations in a multipolar world.  It’s also a bad sign, longer term, for US political and economic dominance.

Two key moments in the acceleration of BRICS were 2014 when the Ukraine crisis started and 2022, when full blown war broke out.  The weaponisation of the global financial system by the west against Russia helped the core focus of BRICS coalesce around the need to create an alternative financial architecture for developing nations. A BRICS bank (now called the New Development Bank was established) to create an alternative to the World Bank. A Contingent Reserve Arrangement was established, providing an alternative to the IMF for countries who need access to a pool of reserves in the face of currency crises. As the Belgium-based Swift interbank communication service has become politicised, so BRICS Pay was created.

Throughout, a core aim is to reduce dependence on the US Dollar for global trade and, therefore foreign exchange reserves. Russia and China’s shift to trading oil in Yuan, Saudi Arabia’s abandonment of the Petrodollar Pact, and the UAE and India’s agreement on trading in rupees are good recent examples of countries choosing to de-dollarize.  While the dollar remains the pre-eminent global trading currency, we should expect to see its share of global trade decline slowly over the coming decade.  This will pose longer-term systemic risks to the USA’s ability to service its vast federal debt, as the cost of borrowing inexorably rises.  

BRICS is gathering momentum as the potential benefits of membership become clearer in the eyes of developing nations, and Turkey’s bold decision to apply for membership is a sign of that. While I was the economic counsellor at the British Embassy in Moscow, I watched in slow motion as dissatisfaction in developing countries grew about western domination of the international financial system. Take the International Monetary Fund. Today, 59.1% of the Fund’s voting shares are accounted for by countries with accounting for 13.7% of the World’s population. 57.7% of the bumper distribution of Special Drawing Rights during the COVID Pandemic went to the world’s wealthiest countries.

It’s not only that developing countries see that the western dominated financial bodies don’t represent their interests.  They have also became increasingly politicised; for example, under pressure from the US in 2015, the IMF changed its rules on debt servicing to allow Ukraine to avoid default, even though it was at that time refusing ever to service its debt obligations to Russia.  While IMF conditionality on its programmes is rigid, the rules can be changed quickly if the political imperative from Washington demands it.

Take the G7, which was the preeminent grouping of the world’s most affluent nations before BRICS found its feet. Following the outbreak of war in Ukraine, G7 countries coordinated over 20,000 economic sanctions against Russia. There is no plan in place for sanctions relief as and when an inevitable ceasefire in Ukraine starts and a peace process begins.  The G7 froze $300bn in Russian foreign exchange reserves; they have more recently established a funding vehicle in which the proceeds of those Russian assets held in Europe are used to fund weapons supplies to Ukraine. Bodies like the IMF, SWIFT and Euroclear have been decisively subjugated by the political interests of the G7.

The G20, was intended to be a more inclusive global grouping of the world’s leading 20 economies when it was set up to focus on international financial stability.  But it has also become increasingly dysfunctional as powerful G7 nations try repeatedly to politicise its agenda.

So, BRICS has emerged as a more appealing meeting point for developing countries. Its values of non-interference, equality and mutual benefit mean countries with troubled political relationships can come together to strengthen relations through economic ties.  Hence the China, Russia, India triangle, which over history has been beset by tension and conflict. Iran and Saudia Arabia joined BRICS in 2024, almost unthinkable a few short years ago, but made possible by a gradual thawing in their relations brokered by China in 2023. Pakistan is now looking to join BRICS, despite India’s prominent founding role in the group. This gradual rapprochement through trade should be applauded.When it was first convened in 2009, BRICS was seen as a developing nations’ counterbalance to the rich countries’ club of the G8 (now G7). Today, three of the BRICS founding members rank among the world’s top ten economies. Six are members of the G20 group.  The group accounts for 45% of the global population and 28% of its economic output now. Set free from the need to fit within a west-leaning normative set of rules and values, BRICS collaboration has been unleashed by putting the economics first, and letting the politics follow. It’s therefore no surprise that Turkey – which is also a G20 member – has turned to BRICS. After decades of trying to join the European Union, it’s clear that road is permanently blocked.

I don’t see Turkey’s future membership of BRICS and its NATO membership as mutually exclusive.  Indeed, straddling Europe and Asia, I think it’s very much to be encouraged that a prominent NATO member state should enjoy a less antagonistic relationship with the developing world. The very point of BRICS is that countries aren’t required to choose one side against another.  There is a long list of other countries who wish to join BRICS, including Mexico, Nigeria, Bahrain, Pakistan, Thailand and Vietnam. Before the end of this decade, BRICS will represent a majority of the global population.

The USA, the EU and the UK will continue to be powerful players, but their influence on developing countries and their dominance of the global financial system, seems set to wane as BRICS forges a more multipolar world over the longer term.

By John Varoli, Substack, 9/9/24

With less than two months until the U.S. presidential election on Nov 5, the ruling Party in the White House is stepping up its witch hunt for ‘Russian agents’ who toil around-the-clock on behalf of the Kremlin and its ‘candidate’, Donald Trump, who seek to subvert U.S. ‘democracy’ and inflict havoc on our trembling nation.

Last week, the U.S. government’s so-called ‘Justice Department’ unveiled official accusations against a number of Russian media companies whose content are deemed a threat to national security. (The Truth is indeed dangerous to those in power in Washington DC).

Singled out as the main threat to U.S. ‘democracy’ is the Moscow media company, RT, which for over a decade has been the bogeyman stalking the nightmares of the American ruling class.

Also, last week Dmitri Simes, an American citizen and a leading U.S. foreign policy expert, was officially accused of acting as a Russian agent and violating sanctions. His house in Virginia was ransacked by the Gestapo FBI and valuable art works were stolen. What was Simes’ crime? He hosts a talk show in Moscow where global affairs and U.S. foreign policy are discussed freely, without censorship. Dangerous!

This follows the Gestapo FBI ransacking Scott Ritter’s house in New York State on Aug 7 as payback for his criticizing U.S. foreign policy and calling for friendship with Russia and other dangerous ideas. An investigation is ongoing, and focuses on Ritter’s recent travel to Russia and allegedly serving the Kremlin for the $300 he received while writing articles for RT.

How fortunate for us Americans that the White House is vigilant, protecting us from dangerous information, saving us the anguish of thinking for ourselves. Today’s ‘progressives’ certainly know better than those ‘far-right’ Founding Fathers who were obsessed with extremist notions of “freedom of speech” and “freedom of the press”.

Those devious Russians are so sneaky that they can seize control of your mind and turn you into one of their agents without you ever suspecting a thing. The minds of most Americans are fragile — for example, one witty meme on social media planted by Russian agents can turn many of us into Kremlin bots.

Apparently, President Putin is building an army of Kremlin stooges inside the Land of the Free, and it could soon be marching across the American heartland to the sound of balalaika music, dancing the kazachok, vodka bottles in hand and calling for world peace. What horror!

Therefore, to lend a hand to the Gestapo FBI, I’ve compiled a Russian Agent Test. Take it and see whose side you’re on in this epic battle between Good and Evil.

1. Do you want world peace?
2. Are you against nuclear war?
3. Do you think it’s wrong to dominate other countries, steal their natural resources and carpet bomb them into submission?
4. Do you think friendship with Russia is in the interests of the American people?
5. Do you believe in justice and freedom for the people of Donbass?
6. Do you think that Ukraine is a dangerous totalitarian state?
7. Are you against sending more weapons and cash to Zelensky’s corrupt regime?
8. Do you think Russians are human and have human rights? 
9. Do you believe in Freedom of Speech?
10. Do you believe in Freedom of the Press?
11. Are you capable of thinking for yourself?
12. Have you ever read or watched RT content or any Russian media?
13. Do you like memes that mock Biden, Clinton, Harris, or Obama, and then share them with friends?

If you answered “Yes” to even one of these questions, then certainly you’re a ‘Russian agent.’ And you’re likely to be a person of interest to the Gestapo FBI.

Remember — the most important task before the American nation is to ‘protect our democracy’, and this demands zero tolerance toward anyone who thinks freely and critically. We will save ‘Democracy’ by seeking out and mercilessly destroying anyone who disagrees with our ruling class.

Center for Citizen Initiatives, 9/6/24

Dear CCI Friends,

We would like to share with our readership a recent interview with renowned scholar Dmitri Simes about the FBI raid on his home in the United States a short while ago.

Dr. Simes is a distinguished writer and thinker and was head of the Center for National Interest in Washington DC for over 30 years. This think tank was founded by former US President Richard Nixon following his detente with the Soviet Union and the signing of the ABM treaty.  It was part of the effort by President Nixon to promote better understanding and better relations between the US and Russia. 

Please review the interview and make your own judgment. In our hope for better US Russia relations, it is important that all voices be heard, dissent not be seen as a threat, and freedom of expression be honored. In this interview, you will have the opportunity to listen personally to what Dr. Simes has to say, and the challenges facing those who seek a better environment of peace and security between the US and Russia….

Respectfully,

Krishen, Paula and Pamela
Center for Citizen Initiatives

YouTube link here.

Russia Matters, 9/6/24

Russia’s budget deficit declined to just 331 billion rubles ($3.7 billion) or 0.2% of GDP for the first eight months of the year, according to Bloomberg.  Russia recorded a budget surplus of 767 billion rubles ($8.5 billion) in August, thanks to almost 1 trillion rubles of increased revenue from non oil-and-gas sectors compared to July, this news agency reported. The Russian government’s revenues from taxes on oil and gas surged too, totaling 778.6 billion rubles ($8.7 billion) last month, up by 21% from a year ago, according to Bloomberg. In good news for Russian consumers, consumer prices in the week through Sept. 2 fell 0.02%, according to data from the Federal Statistics Service release, this news agency reported. On the negative side, S&P Global’s Purchasing Managers’ Index for Russian manufacturing fell to 52.1 last month compared to 53.6 in July, according to MT.

By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 9/5/24

An Al Mayadeen investigation of July 19th laid bare the US Navy’s crushing defeat by Yemen’s AnsarAllah, in Washington’s initially-vaunted Operation Prosperity Guardian. Western media has finally acknowledged the Empire’s comprehensive trouncing by God’s Partisans, in an epic David vs Goliath triumph. Elsewhere, reporting on the much-hyped USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group’s return to base after months of relentless bombardment by the Resistance amply underlines how aircraft carriers – the core component of US hegemony for decades – are quite literally dead in the water.

The New York Times innocuously headlined USS Eisenhower’s humiliating retreat as, “the end of a strategic deployment”, while simultaneously hailing a heroic homecoming. The article records how as the grand vessel neared Virginia’s Norfolk Harbor, one of the world’s largest US naval installations, a plane carrying National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan touched down on its deck. He addressed “thousands” of returning sailors, “all eager to be home”, in what the outlet dubbed “an extraordinarily pumped ‘all hands’ call’.”

Recounting “how he would walk into the Oval Office and tell President Biden about the exploits of the Eisenhower and its strike group, shooting down all manner of Iranian-made drones and rescuing sailors attacked by the Houthis,” Sullivan volubly burnished the Navy’s courage and successes. “Man, what stories I got to tell: You guys played defense, you played offense,” he boasted. “When somebody comes at us, we come back harder at them.”

Similar bombast was present in remarks Sullivan made in an accompanying “exclusive” interview with The Times. He spoke of how in the immediate aftermath of “Oct. 7”, his White House national security team decided strident “military muscle movements that could show decisiveness” were absolutely vital. As such, Washington sought to “over-deliver on speed, and scope and scale of American power protection to reassure the Israelis, and to deter adversaries.” USS Eisenhower’s dispatch was considered the boldest “military muscle movement” possible.

Sullivan expressed delight with the results of Operation Prosperity Guardian, suggesting USS Eisenhower’s “fight” with AnsarAllah in the Red Sea “showed that [aircraft carriers] could still battle effectively at close ranges.” This appraisal was echoed by US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro. He dismissed “critics” who “predicted the end of the usefulness of carriers”, claiming Operation Prosperity Guardian was a “valuable lesson” demonstrating that US aircraft carrier naysayers had gotten it badly wrong.

‘Imperfect Result’

This is a truly bizarre analysis. Operation Prosperity Guardian can only be considered a deeply embarrassing cataclysm. As NBC reported following the effort’s launch, USS Eisenhower’s mere presence in the Mediterranean was initially calculated by White House apparatchiks to be a “blunt message” that would scare off Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Yemen’s AnsarAllah from striking the Zionist entity. However, the Resistance was not deterred one iota from its collective anti-genocide crusade. And now the flagship aircraft carrier has beaten a hasty retreat back to base.

The Times understatedly concedes the conclusion of the US Navy’s Red Sea “strategic deployment” was “obviously an imperfect result”. As the outlet acknowledges, the Zionist entity’s 21st century Holocaust in Gaza continues apace, “fighting between Hezbollah and Israel could spiral”, and AnsarAllah’s blockade not only endures, but may expand if and whenever the movement’s leaders deem it necessary. Meanwhile, official figures indicate vast numbers of difficult-to-reproduce missiles, costing millions each, were expended shooting down low-cost AnsarAllah drones throughout the failed operation.

A far more rational conclusion to draw from Operation Prosperity Guardian is that US aircraft carriers have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt to be a redundant relic of a bygone, unipolar age. The Empire’s bloated, exorbitantly expensive military machine built in recent decades, exclusively suited to one-sided gang-beatings of adversaries that can’t retaliate, is now unable to meet the challenges of modern warfare. By contrast, the Resistance have effortlessly innovated and equipped themselves for 21st century battle.

If the effusive endorsements of Operation Prosperity Guardian issued by Del Toro and Sullivan are truly sincere, then unambiguous, urgent takeouts from the fiasco evidently have not been heeded. Eerily, such cecity was precisely foreshadowed by the July 2002 Millennium Challenge. Largely forgotten today, it remains one of the grandest war games ever mounted by the Pentagon. Costing $250 million – almost $500 million in today’s money – it involved both live-action exercises and computer simulations. In all, 13,000 real-life US troops participated.

The Millennium Challenge’s simulated combatants were the US – “Blue” – and a fictitious West Asian state, led by a tyrannical maniac – “Red”. Under the war game’s auspices, a vast US expeditionary fleet headed to the Persian Gulf, in preparation for invading “Red”. The effort was widely considered to be an advance test of US military readiness for “intervening” in Iran and/or Iraq. Red was led by Paul Van Riper, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general.

Believing Blue would launch a surprise attack, Van Riper opted to strike first. A vast swarm of computer-generated small civilian boats and propeller planes at his disposal were dispatched on a kamikaze blitz against both US military bases in the region, and the advancing expeditionary force, while cruise missiles fired upon the flotilla from mobile launch points, on land and at sea. Before Blue even reached Red territory, its aircraft carrier and 16 accompanying vessels were sunk, with 20,000 fictional US soldiers killed.

‘Scripted Exercise’

The Empire had been comprehensively defeated by day two of the two-week-long simulation, in a worse drubbing than Pearl Harbor. So the Pentagon simplyrestarted the exercise, and began changing the rules, to rig US victory. A “control group” steadily imposed constraints on Van Riper. First, his military was forced to use unencrypted cellphones to coordinate and plan missions, to ensure Blue could closely monitor what its adversaries were saying. Red simply opted to use motorcycle messengers, and coded messages broadcast via local mosque minarets.

This was just one troublesome, unorthodox tactic Van Riper deployed to frustrate Blue’s incursion, which was blocked by the war game’s Pentagon-directed referees. Meanwhile, constraints and demands on Red’s operations grew ever-wilder. Van Riper was compelled to switch off his side’s air defences, and move Red forces away from simulated beaches and other areas where Blue’s marines and soldiers were scheduled to swoop in from aircraft carriers, allowing them to invade unmolested. The restrictions imposed became so onerous, and ludicrous, Van Riper quit in disgust.

Millennium Challenge was initially hyped by Pentagon chiefs as a resounding success, and validation of the Empire’s aircraft carrier-dependent war-fighting doctrine. So it was Van Riper embarrassingly blew the whistle, exposing the effort as a scam consciously contrived to produce a desired, bogus result. He expressed grave concerns about US forces being sent into battle based on strategies that either hadn’t been properly tested, or were outright proven to end in defeat:

“It was scripted to be whatever the control group wanted it to be….Instead of a free-play, two-sided game…it simply became a scripted exercise. They had a predetermined end, and they scripted the exercise to that end…Nothing was learned from this…A culture not willing to think hard and test itself does not augur well for the future.” 

Today, in light of AnsarAllah’s triumphant victory over the US Navy, Van Riper’s warnings reverberate as a prophet’s curse come true. But it seems that once again, the imperial braintrust has learned nothing from the experience. While one might be tempted to scoff at the Empire’s enduring hubristic delusions, when the reality of its decline is writ so large, we must remain vigilant. Washington’s inability to fight wars doesn’t mean it won’t keep provoking or launching them, with devastating consequences for the world.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/kY77p3Kpy3I?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Military veteran Lawrence Wilkerson has testified how, while chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell 2002 – 2005, he participated in a large number of war games exercises pitting the Empire against China, in defence of Taiwan. Every scenario ended in nuclear war, typically within a matter of days. One might expect this inevitable outcome would discourage any and all prospect of conflict with Beijing. Yet, fast forward to today, and US military chiefs openly discuss all-out conflict with China with alarming regularity. God help us all.