As confirmed to Asia Times by diplomatic sources, a top summit featuring Germany, Russia, France and Turkey is on the way. Call it an expanded Eurovision – with Turkey included due to (wobbling) NATO membership.

 

Ostensibly, the summit would be on Syria – according to the Kremlin. That does not cut it – as Syria is already being discussed in detail in Astana by Russia, Iran and Turkey.

 

….The fact is multinational sherpas are already working on it. In parallel, the finance ministers of Turkey and France not only agreed to confront sanctions on Turkey, but to come up with further bilateral economic cooperation. Sun King Macron is dying for his star turn at The Tariffed to go platinum. 

 

….The Nord Stream 2 angle proved that Putin and Merkel broadly agree on Baltic geoeconomics. They also agree on preserving the JCPOA, also known as the Iran nuclear deal. And yet Merkel adds a conditionality that comes straight from the Beltway: Germany is “following Iran’s activities with concern, be it the missile program or the situation in Syria.” You can take the girl out of exceptional tariffs, but you can’t take exceptionalism out of the girl.

 

….And then there’s Sanctioned superstar Erdogan and his unpredictable outbursts: The hammer of the gods / We’ll drive our ships to new lands / To fight the horde, and sing and cry / Valhalla, I am coming!

 

What’s certain for now is that an IMF bailout of Turkey simply won’t happen; Erdogan can’t possibly sell it to his local audience. Options on the horizon come down to Qatar – $15 billion in investments already committed – and China ready to deepen Turkey’s connectivity to the New Silk Roads/Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).   

 

During the Obama administration, Cold War 2.0 was launched on Russia by transposing the old Iron Curtain across the intermarium, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. A post-Maidan anti-Russian Ukraine – which borders the Black Sea – is a central part of the strategy.

 

Yet now Turkey provides Moscow with the perfect opening to smash the geopolitical chessboard and destroy the concerted offensive – which includes key elements from relentless NATO expansion to sanctions as no holds barred economic war. 

Read the full article here

Meanwhile, Forbes columnist Steve Hanke wrote a piece suggesting the benefits of a gold bloc for U.S.-sanctioned countries Iran, Turkey and Russia.   Hanke explained how the institution of a currency board backed by gold would work:

In 1997, Bob Mundell predicted that “Gold will be part of the structure of the international monetary system in the twenty-first century.” As has often been the case, Mundell’s prediction might just be prescient. Indeed, Iran, Russia, and Turkey could, and just might, make Mundell’s prediction a reality. One foolproof way to do that is via gold-based currency boards. Currency boards have existed in more than 70 countries, and a number are in operation today. Countries with such monetary institutions have experienced more fiscal discipline, superior price stability, and higher growth rates than comparable countries with central banks.

A currency board is a monetary institution that only issues notes and coins. These monetary liabilities are freely convertible into a reserve currency (also called the anchor currency) at a fixed rate on demand. The reserve currency is a convertible foreign currency or a commodity chosen for its expected stability. For reserves, such a currency board holds low-risk, interest-earning securities and other assets payable in the reserve currency.

By law, a currency board is required to maintain a fixed exchange rate with the reserve currency and hold foreign reserves equal to 100% of the monetary base. This prevents the currency board from increasing or decreasing the monetary base at its own discretion. A currency board system is passive and is characterized by automaticity.

Currency boards have existed in some 70 countries. The first was installed in the British Indian Ocean colony of Mauritius in 1849. No currency board has failed. Yes, no failures. Argentina’s Convertibility system (1991-2001) was not a currency board.

Hanke goes on to provide a successful example of such a currency board – during Russia’s civil war between 1918 and 1920:

Currency boards’ perfect record includes the National Emission Caisse, established in northern Russia in 1918 during Russia’s civil war. The Caisse issued “British ruble” notes, backed by pounds sterling and convertible into pounds at a fixed rate. The father of the British ruble was none other than John Maynard Keynes, a British Treasury official at the time.

Despite the civil war, the British ruble never deviated from its fixed exchange rate with the pound. In contrast to other Russian rubles, the British ruble was a reliable store of value. Naturally, the British ruble drove other rubles out of circulation. Unfortunately, its life was brief: The National Emission Caisse ceased operation in 1920 after allied troops withdrew from Russia.

Any readers who are more well-versed in economics than me can feel free to share their opinions in the comments section about this.

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Dimitri Alexander Simes has written an interesting article for The National Interest on what young Russian adults’ opinions are of Putin, his governance of Russia, what they’d like to see changed and how likely they are to engage in significant protest.  Simes draws on opinion polls by the independent (translation:  western funded) Levada Center, Russian state polls, analyses by other Russia experts and his own interviews with young adult Russians.   An excerpt of Simes’ findings:

Surveys of public opinion indicate that Putin enjoys strong support among Russia’s youth. In December 2017, the Levada Center, the country’s foremost independent polling agency, found that 86 percent of Russians between the ages of eighteen to twenty-four approved of the Russian president. Similarly, a poll conducted by the state funded Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) after the Presidential election in March 2018 showed that 67.9 percent of Russian voters aged eighteen to thirty-four cast their ballots for Putin. Like members of older generations, many young Russians credit the Kremlin leader for restoring the country’s geopolitical status after the fall of the Soviet Union. “Thanks to [Putin] Russia overcame the consequences from the collapse of the USSR and rose to a new level,” stated Ekaterina Nikitina, a journalism student.

However, these numbers should not be taken as a sign that Putin’s policies go unchallenged by the Russian youth. Most of the young Russians that I spoke with heavily criticized their country’s president. A major complaint is that Putin’s unwillingness to step aside prevented a transition of power. “A President should not turn into a Tsar, and the country under [Putin] is moving towards the time when there was a Tsar,” said Mikhail Sein, a video-blogger and journalist. Another area of concern among those interviewed is that the Russian president is evolving into an ever more reactionary figure. Anastasia Labunets, a social activist for the Communist Party, bemoaned that Putin “began as a moderate liberal reformer and gave big hopes, but became a typical authoritarian leader in the end.” Finally, the Kremlin’s recent moves in the social sphere inspired chagrin. Referring to Putin’s broken promise to not raise the pension age, Sofia Malakhova, a book illustrator, asked “How can one feel about a person who directly stated that under his rule the pension age would not be raised?”

It also the case that Putin’s personal popularity does not translate to satisfaction with the Russian political system as a whole. Early last year, the Higher School of Economics, one of Russia’s leading universities, conducted a survey of over six thousand students from 109 different universities. The researchers found that young Russians have a low level of trust for most government officials. A list of the top eleven professions that Russian students most distrust includes Members of the Duma (66 percent), members of regional parliaments (65 percent), mayors (62 percent), and governors (61 percent).

The same study pointed to a widespread feeling amongst the Russian youth that there are serious problems in the country and that meaningful change is necessary. Of those surveyed, 69 percent are worried about the uncertainty of their Russia’s future and 75 percent supported political reforms in addition to economic ones. At the same time, 48 percent of the respondents opposed changes that would fundamentally alter the existing system. The rising generation of Russians, although dissatisfied with many facets of the status quo, lacks major revolutionary aspirations.

….While some of the young Russians that I talked to were very politically engaged, most confined their political activity to checking the news. A similar conclusion is reached by the study from the Higher School of Economics, which shows that 64 percent of Russian students would not be willing to take part in a demonstration and that 72 percent deem protests as an ineffective means to achieve political change.

When reading that last paragraph, I couldn’t help but think that I’ve pretty much lost faith in protests as an effective means of change here in the U.S.  It seems to have turned into a feel-good spectacle that doesn’t translate into much concrete progress.  Government officials seem to  just go on their merry way and do what they want, regardless of opinion polls or protests suggesting they want something very different than what they’re getting.  Perhaps Russian youth do want to see positive changes but are still trying to figure out how to make it happen without wasting time and energy on ineffective methods and not wanting to make the same “mistakes” that previous Russians made with revolutions that resulted in some progress but at the cost of much blood, horror and upheaval.   Lots of thoughtful people everywhere are still trying to figure out this conundrum.

As for my own experience talking to young people in Russia, I was impressed by their engagement with the world and their concern about how to achieve peace, create a system of economic justice, and protecting the environment.  However, I must acknowledge that the youth I heard from were from fairly well-off families who were sending their kids to private schools, and kids that lived in medium to large cities.  I get the sense that the young adults that Simes spoke to were of the urban variety as well.  It would be nice to hear what Russian youth from small towns, rural areas or poorer backgrounds think.

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The National Security Archive (project of George Washington University) just released formerly classified government documents revealing that, during the height of the Cold War, Washington’s nuclear war plan included instructions to implement an attack that would render both the Soviet Union and China as no longer viable societies:

U.S. nuclear war plans during the Johnson administration included the option of a retaliatory strike against nuclear, conventional military, and urban-industrial targets with the purpose of removing the Soviet Union “from the category of a major industrial power” and destroying it as a “viable” society.  This is one disclosure from a Joint Staff review of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) obtained via a Mandatory Declassification Review request by the George Washington University-based National Security Archive and posted on our site today.

The document, the Joint Staff’s review of SIOP guidance in June 1964, showed continued acceptance by policymakers of the cataclysmic nuclear strike options that had been integral to the plan since its inception. Accordingly, the SIOP set high damage requirements—95 percent for the top priority nuclear targets—ensuring that it remained an “overkill” plan, referring to its massively destructive effects.  Prepared and continually updated by the Joint Strategic Target Planning Staff, the SIOP has been characterized by some as a “doomsday machine.”[1]

U.S. nuclear war planning drew on Cold War assumptions about the danger of a Soviet surprise attack against the United States.[2] The possibility that deterrence could fail and that U.S.-Soviet conflict could break out made U.S. defense officials seek attack options “capable of execution under all reasonably foreseeable conditions under which hostilities may begin.”[3]  For such purposes, the SIOP included a retaliatory option in the event of a Soviet surprise attack and a preemptive option in the case of intelligence warning of an imminent Soviet attack

The U.S. government has never declassified any version of the SIOP, forcing researchers to rely on ancillary documentation to shed useful light on elements of the plan.  The Joint Staff review posted today [8/24/2018] is the latest such evidence.

For more details click here

I found it interesting that within one week I saw write-ups of different sorts about the value and effect of sanctions by two Russia analysts I respect.

The first is a book review by Paul Robinson posted at his Irrussianality website.   Based on his write-up, I’m glad that Robinson made me aware of  Russia’s Response to Sanctions: How Western Economic Statecraft is Reshaping Political Economy in Russia by Richard Connolly.

As Robinson points out, an academic attempted a serious look at western sanctions against Russia since 2014 and how Russia has responded to them.   Connolly, a professor at the University of Birmingham, also has taken the time to try to understand – at least, to some degree, how Russia’s economy actually works – thus providing a better contextual understanding of the actual effect of the sanctions, which are likely not the effects intended by Washington policymakers who, as I’ve harped on previously, are dangerously ignorant of the nation to which they’re forming policy and approaches to.  As Robinson notes:

According to the University of Birmingham’s Richard Connolly, however, ‘do sanctions work?’ is the wrong question, or at least it’s a question that can’t be answered until other questions have been answered, most notably ‘what is the effect of sanctions on the targeted country?’ And to answer that question you have to consider other ones, such as ‘how exactly do sanctions impact the targeted country?’ That in turn requires one to investigate in depth the political and economic structure of the target to understand how it operates and how it responds to external pressure. Every country is different, and operates according to a set of ‘intricate relations’ between the state, its citizens, and the various institutions within it. As yet, however, studies of the sanctions imposed on Russia have not sought to take these into account, leading to simplistic analyses. As Connolly says in his new book Russia’s Response to Sanctions, ‘Policymakers and other public figures prone to making hyperbolic statements about the state of the Russian economy today, and then using those statements as a basis for formulating policy and attitudes towards the country, often appear to do so without the aid of even a rudimentary understanding of Russia and its economy.’

Ya think?

Robinson gives us a look into how Connolly provides interesting insight into aspects of Russian political economy, particularly rent sharing, that are critical to anyone who wants to understand Russian political economy in general as well as those formulating policies that will determine future relations:

According to Connolly, the key feature of Russia’s economy is that profits earned in those parts of the economy which are globally competitive (primarily, though not exclusively, energy industries, and which Connolly calls Sector A) are redistributed by the state to support industries which are not globally competitive (Sector B) through direct subsidies, preferential access to credit, and so on, in other words through what economists call ‘rent sharing’. This sustains a fairly large domestic industrial base (contrary to criticisms that Russia doesn’t produce anything), but one which exports very little and focuses on the domestic market. It also ties the state (as the rent redistributor) and domestic producers together in complex networks of dependency, while making the state the primary actor in the economy (thus making it more accurate to talk of Russian political economy than just economy).

Although, as is pointed out, this has costs in terms of efficiency and innovation, it has had its advantages in terms of dealing effectively with the West’s tendency to use its economic might in a punitive fashion:

Connolly argues that the Russian state has responded in three main ways to sanctions: 1) securitization of the economy; 2) import substitution/localization, 3) diversifying its external economic links.

The first of these means that the Russian government has increasingly looked at the economy through the lens of national security, and been willing to experience some economic costs in order to enhance that security. Securitization has also inclined it further towards the other two measures (import substitution and diversification) in order to decrease Russian dependency on the West.

In his sections on the energy, defence, and financial industries, Connolly shows how import substitution and diversification have worked in practice. In the oil and gas industries, for instance, Russia has been highly dependent on imports of foreign technology to assist in the more difficult resource extraction projects. To address this deficiency, Connolly reports that ‘the government allocated considerable financial resources to support the development of energy extraction equipment in Russia’, as well to projects such as the Zvezda shipbuilding complex in the Far East. At the same time, it began to purchase more and more technology from China and other non-Western sources. The strategy was thus not ‘deglobalization’ but ‘reglobalization’.

Similar patterns can be observed in the defence and financial sectors. For instance, to compensate for the loss of Ukraine as a supplier of crucial components, large sums of money were invested in creating alternative Russian sources of supply. At the same time, Russia increased defence cooperation with China. Likewise, in response to Western financial sanctions, the Russian state moved to provide direct support to Russian banks and to help large cooperations like Rosneft pay their foreign loans. It also developed alternatives to the SWIFT electronic payment system and Western credit rating agencies and introduced the Mir credit card to replace VISA and Mastercard, while seeking out new sources of capital in non-Western states.

According to Robinson, Connolly effectively argues that, in spite of some short-term discomfort, Russia has been able to successfully counter the worst possible effects of western sanctions and even encourage the stimulation of alternative economic investment that will strengthen agriculture and some industry and finance.

After explaining how Russia has actually responded to western sanctions, Connolly turns to the question of how effective those sanctions have been in terms of what their presumed intent was – to cause significant economic harm to Russia, with the idea that this would encourage political revolt that would endanger Putin’s government.   The answer, not surprising to anyone who has followed this blog, is that Washington has once again – in its hubris and ignorance – been hoisted on its own petard:

First, it has created a system that ‘is less vulnerable to external pressure’ than that which existed before, in that it is more independent from the West. Second, it has accelerated a shift in Russia’s place in the global economy towards the East. This obviously has political ramifications which Connolly does not explore. Somewhat perversely, Western sanctions have reduced, not increased, Western leverage over Russia. This is probably permanent.

On that note, Nicolai Petro recently published an op-ed in The National Interest in which he discusses how the excessive use of sanctions to punish nations who don’t do what they’re told by Washington and it’s merry band of sycophants, has been largely ineffective in changing behavior more to Washington’s liking as it tends to rally the citizens of the target country around their leader and harden their resolve.

According to Petro, since sanctions are largely ineffective, Washington’s overuse of them must be rooted in something else.

The best way to think about the role of sanctions in American foreign policy is to regard it as an addiction.

Think about it. The inability to change the behavior of even the most rinky-dink nations must be enormously frustrating to those at the helm of the world’s lone superpower. This leads, not surprisingly, to the search for ways to assuage this sense of failure and reassure Americans of their perpetual global dominance. Sanctions fit the bill perfectly. First, because they can be sold as an alternative to war. Opponents of sanctions can thus be portrayed as either warmongers or pacifists, depending on their political profile. Second, since no meaningful measures of success or failure are ever discussed, success is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Thus, whatever happens can be attributed to sanctions —if it suits the government. Politicians can hardly be faulted for the eagerness with which they embrace sanctions. They offer the perfect escape from the real, but tedious, world of diplomatic negotiation.

Eventually, however, the political “high” provided by sanctions wears off. The nastiness of the world intrudes, and once again politicians become desperate for another fix. Friends try to warn Americans that Washington’s increasingly erratic behavior is beginning to hurt them as well, but how can they understand the burdens that America must bear as Leader of the Free World? Eventually, as Americans’ view of the world shrinks to the confines of the Washington Beltway, nothing but their own media-driven reality matters. Sanctions now provide the only semblance of calm, the only relief that politicians can rely on, and so resort to them becomes habitual.

Read the complete op-ed here

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A few weeks ago, Kentucky senator Rand Paul took a trip to Russia and met with members of the Russian legislative body as well as Mikhail Gorbachev and others.  During that visit, he invited Russian lawmakers to visit with their counterparts in Washington.  Reportedly, the Russians accepted the invitation but I’m not aware that a date has been confirmed as to their visit.

Paul wrote an article for The Atlantic recently about the aspect of his trip involving his visit with Gorbachev.   In the following excerpt, he tells of the former Russian leader’s epiphany about the dangers of nuclear weapons and why the pursuit of nuclear disarmament was so important to him:

On my recent trip to Russia, I spent an hour with Mikhail Gorbachev. I told him that in the West we are grateful that he and President Ronald Reagan defied Cold War orthodoxy to significantly reduce our countries’ nuclear arms. And I asked him whether there was a moment in his life when he’d realized that he might shape history.

He paused a moment and then recounted how as a young man, he had watched a film on the devastation that would occur with nuclear war. He and the other young officials in the room looked at each other in shock as the film concluded.

Gorbachev recalled the scene: “Even though I am not a believer, I responded, ‘Oh my God!’” From that moment, Gorbachev said, he decided to use every opportunity that came his way to prevent a nuclear holocaust.

Even more recently, Paul spoke to the Foreign Relations Committee about what he thinks could be offered as “a carrot” in negotiations with Russia – namely, agreeing that Ukraine and Georgia will not join NATO.  Here is a short video of what he said from CSPAN:

Former USAID project officer and “adviser” on economic development in the former Soviet Union (which is likely not to his credit) Josh Cohen has written about the leaked memo of what Putin planned to discuss with Trump at their Helsinki meeting last month.  Cohen acknowledges that Putin’s reflected desire to extend the START treaty that expires in 2021, take steps to reaffirm the 1987 INR Treaty, and implement risk reduction measures between NATO and Russia in Eastern Europe where their respective militaries have had run-ins, is a very good sign for negotiating the most important security aspects of U.S.-Russia relations.

After all, if everyone dies in a nuclear war, no one will be left to give a damn who lost the 2016 election.

Apparently, something close to this sentiment is shared by many of my fellow Americans according to a recent Gallup poll.

**An upcoming post will feature a review of Tony Kevin’s Return to Moscow.

Alexander Mercouris cuts through the hyperbole and provides a detailed analysis of what actually went on at the Helsinki Summit between Putin and Trump.  Some pertinent excerpts include the following regarding rumors of a “grand bargain” to sell out Iran in Syria to appease Israel, the Gulf states and Washington, which was always a fairy tale:

On the subject of Syria, in the weeks leading up to the summit there were some media reports suggesting that Donald Trump was coming under pressure from Israel, the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates to agree a deal at the summit with Putin whereby Russia would be granted sanctions relief and possibly even recognition of Crimea, US troops in Syria would be withdrawn, and in return the Russians would agree that Iranian forces would be expelled from Syria.

The Russians were clearly worried by these reports.  Not only did they go out of their way to deny them, but Putin and Lavrov held talks in Moscow on 12th July 2018 with Ali Akbar Velayati, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s Special Adviser on International Relations, in order to reassure the Iranians that they were not true.

….Contrary to what some people are saying, I think it is most unlikely that Putin would have given Netanyahu any assurances that Russia would act to rein in Iranian activities in Syria.If Netanyahu asked Putin for such assurances (which I also think unlikely) Putin would almost certainly have told him what the Russians always say when faced with requests for such assurances: Iran and Syria are sovereign states and Russia cannot interfere in arrangements two sovereign states make with each other.

I suspect that the source of some of the stories about a ‘grand bargain’ between Putin and Trump involving the role of the Iranians in Syria is the regular discussions the Russians have with the Israelis, the Iranians and the Syrians whereby the Russians routinely pass on to the Iranians and the Syrians Israeli concerns about the presence of Iranian forces in Syria in particular locations as well as Israeli concerns about specific actions which the Iranians take.

….The Russians are not engaged here in discussions over some sort of ‘grand bargain’ to remove all Iranian troops from Syria, which as I have said they would see as counterproductive and impossible.  Rather they are engaged in the classic diplomatic exercise of conflict prevention: keeping the Israelis, the Iranians and the Syrians informed about each other’s moves and red lines in order to prevent an uncontrolled escalation of the conflict between them, which might risk an all-out war, which nobody wants, and which the Russians are doing their best to prevent.

Recent reports of an understanding between the Israelis, the Iranians and the Syrians supposedly brokered by the Russians whereby Iranian forces agreed not to participate in the Syrian army’s ongoing military operations in south west Syria close to the Israeli occupied Golan Heights are a case in point.

The Iranians and the Syrians  agreed to this, not because the Russians forced them to but because it is in their interest to.  The Syrian army does not need Iranian help to defeat the Jihadis in southwest Syria so keeping the Iranians away from the area allows the Syrians to clear the area of the Jihadis without risking a military confrontation with Israel.

As I have stated previously, Russia will continue to leave the door open to Washington for cooperation in areas of mutual interest, while continuing to balance beneficial relations with those in its backyard, including Israel, Iran, and China – the latter two of which offer many potential benefits in the coordinated New Silk Roads and related trade relations.  Russia will not agree to sell out Iran or China for any deal with Washington which has little of concrete value to offer while having demonstrated repeatedly that it breaks agreements whenever it decides.

Neither will Russia agree to further Israel’s interests at the expense of its own or those of another nation with which it has good relations.   Russia is too sophisticated of a diplomatic player to fall into such traps that would ultimately do nothing to further its long-term interests.

Further on in Mercouris’ analysis, he explains what the point of this summit really was and how many of the knuckleheads who pass for journalists and political analysts in the mainstream media were simply feeding into the clueless memes about Russia and Trump in their predictions and coverage.  I will quote him generously in his apt explanation:

A fundamental prerequisite for any successful negotiation is for the two parties to the negotiation to know each other’s minds so that a modicum of trust and understanding – essential if any agreement is to be reached – can be established between them.

As a businessman Trump knows this very well.  He therefore needed to meet with Putin in a lengthy one-to-one encounter in order to get to know Putin properly so as to see whether Putin is in fact the sort of person he can negotiate and eventually do a deal with.

That is the reason why Trump insisted that his first meeting with Putin should take the form of a one-to-one encounter.

That by the way is absolutely standard practice in negotiations – both commercial negotiations and diplomatic negotiations – with leaders of negotiating teams often meeting privately in one-to-one meetings in order to get to know each other better to see whether a deal between them is even possible.  Once a proper relationship between them is established the full negotiating teams can be brought into the negotiations in what in diplomacy are called ‘plenary sessions’.  Needless to say it is during the plenary sessions – with each side’s experts present – that the details are discussed and ironed out.

Not only is this standard practice in negotiations – Putin does it all the time – but it is simply not true as some people are suggesting that there was no one else present in the room when Putin and Trump met with each other.

Both Putin and Trump obviously had interpreters present.  Trump doesn’t speak Russian and Putin speaks English badly.  The job of the interpreters – who are full time state officials – is not just to interpret what the leaders say to each other but also to prepare a written transcript (a “stenographic record”) of what they said.

Once this transcript is written up – something which normally takes no more than a few days – it is circulated to senior officials including in the U.S. case to the U.S. President’s two most important foreign policy advisers, Bolton and Pompeo.  By now it is highly likely that Bolton and Pompeo have already seen and read through the transcript, and that they therefore know exactly what Putin and Trump said to each other.

Since the one-to-one meeting was first and foremost a “get-to-know” you session, no binding agreements would have been reached during it, and neither Putin nor Trump – each in their own way an experienced negotiator – would ever have imagined that they would be.

Russians were not impressed by the summit or its potential to improve relations between the two nations in the future.  According to the Moscow Times reporting on a state-sponsored poll of Russians about the summit and US-Russia relations, half of Russians were pessimistic about the future of bilateral relations while a large majority believes the U.S. is aggressive and untrustworthy:

Ahead of the summit, 52 percent of Russians told the state-run VTsIOM polling agency that they believed the political meeting would fail to improve bilateral ties.

Forty-eight percent of Russians surveyed two days after Putin sat down with Trump at the summit said they expected U.S.-Russia relations to stay the same, while 38 percent said they were optimistic about an improved relationship.

An overwhelming majority of respondents agreed with the assessment that the U.S. is an “aggressive” country that “meddles in the affairs of other states” and “isn’t trustworthy.”

Meanwhile, according to a poll by The Hill/HarrisX , 61% of Americans think it is in the U.S.’s interests to have better relations with Russia and 54% support Trump’s proposal to have a follow-up summit with Putin in Washington later this year.   However, the White House has just announced that the meeting will be postponed until 2019, after Mueller completes his investigation.

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Former weapons inspector Scott Ritter provided an excellent overview of the recent indictment of GRU agents accused of being responsible for the “hack” of the DNC emails and John Podesta’s emails at TruthDig.

He points out how an indictment isn’t proof of a prosecutor’s case, only a listing and narrative of the accusations with enough information to argue probable cause – a far cry from evidence sufficient to convince beyond a reasonable doubt.  There is the old adage that a competent prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich and Ritter elaborates on how that adage is relevant to this particular indictment, which Mueller likely assumes – like the previous indictment of the employees of the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency – will never actually go to court where the claims would have to be proved and the evidence presented in open court with the accused having the opportunity to respond:

There is one major problem with the indictment, however: It doesn’t prove that which it asserts. True, it provides a compelling narrative that reads like a spy novel, and there is no doubt in my mind that many of the technical details related to the timing and functioning of the malware described within are accurate. But the leap of logic that takes the reader from the inner workings of the servers of the Democratic Party to the offices of Russian intelligence officers in Moscow is not backed up by anything that demonstrates how these connections were made.

That’s the point of an indictment, however—it doesn’t exist to provide evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, but rather to provide only enough information to demonstrate probable cause. No one would, or could, be convicted at trial from the information contained in the indictment alone. For that to happen, the government would have to produce the specific evidence linking the hacks to the named Russians, and provide details on how this evidence was collected, and by whom. In short, the government would have to be willing to reveal some of the most sensitive sources and methods of intelligence collection by the U.S. intelligence community and expose, and therefore ruin, the careers of those who collected this information. This is something the government has never been willing to do, and there is much doubt that if, for some odd reason, the Russians agreed to send one or more of these named intelligence officers to the United States to answer the indictment, this indictment would ever go to trial. It simply couldn’t survive the discovery to which any competent defense would subject the government’s assertions.

Robert Mueller knew this when he drafted the indictment, and Rob Rosenstein knew this when he presented it to the public. The assertions set forth in the indictment, while cloaked in the trappings of American justice, have nothing to do with actual justice or the rule of law; they cannot, and will never, be proved in a court of law. However, by releasing them in a manner that suggests that the government is willing to proceed to trial, a perception is created that implies that they can withstand the scrutiny necessary to prevail at trial.

And as we know, perception is its own reality.

Despite Rosenstein’s assertions to the contrary, the decision to release the indictment of the 12 named Russian military intelligence officers was an act of partisan warfare designed to tip the scale of public opinion against the supporters of President Trump, and in favor of those who oppose him politically, Democrat and Republican alike. Based upon the media coverage since Rosenstein’s press conference, it appears that in this he has been wildly successful.

But is the indictment factually correct? The biggest clue that Mueller and Rosenstein have crafted a criminal espionage narrative from whole cloth comes from none other than the very intelligence agency whose work would preclude Rosenstein’s indictment from ever going to trial: the National Security Agency. In June 2017 the online investigative journal The Intercept referenced a highly classified document from the NSA titled “Spear-Phishing Campaign TTPs Used Against U.S. And Foreign Government Political Entities.” It’s a highly technical document, derived from collection sources and methods the NSA has classified at the Top Secret/SI (i.e., Special Intelligence) level. This document was meant for internal consumption, not public release. As such, the drafters could be honest about what they knew and what they didn’t know—unlike those in the Mueller investigation who drafted the aforementioned indictment.

A cursory comparison of the leaked NSA document and the indictment presented by Rosenstein suggests that the events described in Count 11 of the indictment pertaining to an effort to penetrate state and county election offices responsible for administering the 2016 U.S. presidential election are precisely the events captured in the NSA document. While the indictment links the identity of a named Russian intelligence officer, Anatoliy Sergeyevich Kovalev, to specific actions detailed therein, the NSA document is much more circumspect. In a diagram supporting the text report, the NSA document specifically states that the organizational ties between the unnamed operators involved in the actions described and an organizational entity, Unit 74455, affiliated with Russian military intelligence is a product of the judgment of an analyst and not fact.

If we take this piece of information to its logical conclusion, then the Mueller indictment has taken detailed data related to hacking operations directed against various American political entities and shoehorned it into what amounts to little more than the organizational chart of a military intelligence unit assessed—but not known—to have overseen the operations described. This is a far cry from the kind of incontrovertible proof that Mueller’s team suggests exists to support its indictment of the 12 named Russian intelligence officers.

If this is indeed the case, then the indictment, as presented, is a politically motivated fraud. Mueller doesn’t know the identities of those involved in the hacking operations he describes—because the intelligence analysts who put the case together don’t know those names. If this case were to go to trial, the indictment would be dismissed in the preliminary hearing phase for insufficient evidence, even if the government were willing to lay out the totality of its case—which, because of classification reasons, it would never do.

Read the full article here

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Last week, France and Russia began coordinating the delivery of humanitarian aid to parts of Syria devastated by the war.  RussiaFeed reports:

Yesterday, some 50 tonnes of medical aid was sent to eastern Ghouta in Syria as part of an agreement reached between France and Russia to coordinate humanitarian aid in the war torn Middle Eastern country.

…..It is hoped that if the operation is successful, further cooperation could be developed in the area of getting aid to areas of Syria which have been liberated and are back under the territorial control of Assad’s government in Damascus. Up until this point, the aid has been utilized in the Raqqa region in northeastern Syria under the occupation of French and American military forces.

A few days later, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that 100,000 refugees have been repatriated to Syria since January.    Euronews reported the following details:

According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, 101,976 refugees have been returned to Syria since January–232,792 “since the start of [the ministry’s] operation”, and 1,417,385 in total since 2015.

Additionally, 336,500 more places have been prepared around the country for receiving and accommodating refugees, the Russian Ministry of Defence stated. The statement detailed a report of ongoing infrastructure reparations, as well as medical assistance and food supplies.

With the aid of Turkey, Iran, and the Russian Centre for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides, Syria has recovered territory previously occupied by rebel groups and oversees ceasefire compliance, allowing, finally, for the return of refugees.

“It is estimated that more than 1.7 million Syrians have expressed a desire to return home from eight countries,” the ministry stated. The largest number of potential returnees come from Lebanon, followed by Turkey, Germany, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Denmark, and Brazil.

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The hysterical levels of anti-Russia sentiment in the media and Washington did not stop Russia from gaining a PR benefit and an economic infusion of $1.5 billion from the recent World Cup tournament.   According to the Financial Times (behind paywall):

Russia is already enjoying a World Cup windfall of positive international PR and a surge in national pride after staging a widely praised tournament and seeing its team defy rock-bottom expectations. The event also gave its economy a welcome shot in the arm, the country’s top bank said on Thursday.

Visiting football fans spent $1.5bn during the one-month tournament, according to state-owned lender Sberbank.

Moscow had hoped to use the event to defy western nations that have sought to diplomatically isolate Russia following its 2014 annexation of Crimea and its alleged meddling in the 2016 US election.

The country welcomed foreign fans with visa-free travel and spruced-up host cities, and a notable relaxation of heavy-handed policing encouraged street parties and a carnival atmosphere, fuelling celebrations that saw bars run out of beer and cafes open all night.

Sberbank said in a research report that its network alone had serviced 899,000 foreign bank cards from 194 countries during the month-long tournament, with one Chinese bank card used to make purchases in 11 different cities.

Fast-food outlets and restaurants saw spending of Rbs6.2bn ($98m), Sberbank said, with hotels accounting for Rbs5bn — though the real figure was likely to be far higher given that accommodation was also bought in advance or through foreign travel agents.

Due to other obligations, this blog will be on hiatus for the month of June.

Thank you,

Natylie Baldwin

Note:  Video will be posted as soon as it is available at the Consortium News website.  Other speakers at the event included Sam Parry (Robert’s son), Norman Solomon, Dennis Bernstein, Ann Wright, and Consortium’s new editor, Joe Lauria.  

I’d like to thank everyone for coming today.  I’d also like to thank the organizers for inviting me to speak at the tribute to a man who was very inspirational to me.

My own interest in foreign affairs began in college.  Not long after I graduated, 9/11 happened.  I joined the local peace movement to oppose our post-9/11 wars.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that the media is a big part of the problem.

The myth we’re taught is that our democracy is underpinned by a media that serves as a watchdog on the government and other powerful institutions – a noble fourth estate.

But when it comes to issues of war and peace, the media rarely – if ever- serves as a questioner of government claims, performing due diligence on a matter of life, death and destruction of societies.

We saw the mainstream media’s gross negligence with Iraq, Libya and other examples stretching much further back.  We are now seeing the same thing happen with the world’s other nuclear superpower, Russia.

I grew increasingly concerned about the degree of recklessness by U.S. political elites who supported the coup in Kiev – completely disregarding Russia’s security interests on its border.

I began to dig deeper into post-Soviet Russia and U.S.-Russia relations. I realized just how distorted and lacking in context the narrative Americans were being given was.

During this time, one of the sources I relied on, among others, was Robert Parry and Consortium News.

I also connected up with Sharon Tennison – an independent writer and program coordinator with over 3 decades of experience on the ground all over Russia, including citizen to citizen diplomacy during Cold War I.

She became my mentor and we traveled to Russia in October of 2015 for two weeks where I was able to speak to a cross-section of Russians in several different cities on a range of issues.  We traveled to Crimea where I interviewed a range of Crimeans about what happened in late 2013 and early 2014.

At this point, I had researched and co-authored a book about the Ukraine crisis – providing historical and contextual background of U.S.-Russia relations, as well as writing articles for a couple of alternative outlets.  I tried submitting articles about my on the ground observations and interviews in Crimea to several other “alternative” outlets in the hopes of getting this information out to a wider audience.  After all, not many American writers had actually been to Crimea and could provide on-the-ground perspectives.  But I was having little luck.

Somehow I got hold of Robert Parry’s email address and submitted to him.  Within 48 hours my article was posted, with many others to follow.

I was even more pleasantly surprised when a couple of weeks later I received a check in the mail for my work – which is a big deal for independent writers these days.  The money I earned from my articles at Consortium helped finance a return trip to Russia in 2017 and more articles.

Bob said that journalism required the acknowledgment that there were usually 2 sides – and possibly more – to every story and that Americans needed to hear both sides.  It’s critical to have an informed citizenry with a reasonable understanding of issues in a democracy.

This is especially true with issues most average Americans don’t have practical experience with, such as international policies, policy relating to other countries.  In order to conduct a rational foreign policy, one must understand the other country’s point of view – it doesn’t mean one must agree with it, but we must know how the other side perceives its own interests so we can determine what they may be willing to risk or sacrifice on behalf of those perceived interests.  Further, it’s essential to determine areas of common interest and cooperation.

Understanding that viewpoint means understanding the other side’s history, geography and culture.  The MSM has not provided this crucial service or provided a platform for those who can with respect to Iraq, Libya and many of the other nations with whom we’ve gone to war.  The so-called experts they consult often have conflicts of interest, nefarious agendas, and often lack an objective understanding of the nation about which they are writing or talking.  This has certainly been the case when it comes to reporting on Russia – a country with which the stakes are potentially much higher.

One source of mine who has spoken to State Dept. personnel in the recent past about their experience and expertise on Russia said that these diplomats admitted that they had been shuttled around to different countries in different regions – from Latin America to east Asia – before landing at their Russia post where they were suddenly expected to work and make decisions regarding that country with no knowledge of its history, traditions or culture.  This is also true with mainstream journalists who cover Russia.

Canadian Russia expert Patrick Armstrong got a similar response when he spoke to a former Treasury Dept. official who’d been involved with implementing the sanctions against Russia.  He was told:  “The bottom line is that the US government has a very shallow bench on Russia. And so they end up acting more-or-less at random.”

As Armstrong commented, “”Shallow bench”?  More of an echo chamber in which people at the top expect to hear what they want to hear and are told it; reinforced by a news media full of people paid to believe what they believe.”

Robert Parry referred to these phenomena as careerism and groupthink.  He argued that it was ruining journalism and the important role it’s supposed to play in our democracy.  And there are examples everywhere.

When our most experienced academic expert on Russia, Stephen Cohen, can hardly get an interview on CNN and cannot get an op-ed published by NYT or WaPo, but a neocon ideologue like Michael Weiss – who has no on the ground experience or educational credentials about Russia – can be hired as a commentator by CNN on the subject – it’s not just sad, it’s dangerous.

When someone like Rachael Maddow – who we know from her past investigative reporting knows better – has allowed herself to be used as a cartoonish purveyor of anti-Russia propaganda while virtually ignoring coverage of more immediate issues facing average Americans and distracting them away from confronting the Democratic Party’s failures and dishonesty, it’s dangerous.

Our media, like our political system, is in deep crisis.  Indeed these two crises reinforce each other as both our media and our political system are corrupted by money and have been largely reduced to cheap spectacle.

According to polls, large majorities of Millenials have contempt for these establishment institutions.  They are open to and looking for alternatives to these broken systems.

This makes Robert Parry’s legacy and the space for genuine investigative journalism that he fostered at Consortium News more important than ever.  With strong leadership and the continued quality of long form journalism from its current and new contributors, we can make a much needed difference at this critical time.