The Trump Doctrine In A Regional Context

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Oriental Review,

The last section of the new US National Security Strategy (NSS) describes the envisaged application of the Trump Doctrine in a regional context all across the world, and it’s worthwhile to examine what storylines will most likely be advanced by the policy document’s intrinsic infowar component. This analysis is divided according to the geographic categories contained in the NSS and proceeds along that order, after which a brief summary will be presented in highlighting the most discernable global trends.

Indo-Pacific

The US says that “a geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region” as China employs multifaceted influence strategies in a concerted effort to get regional states to follow its economic and political models. Although presented by China as being mutually beneficial, the NSS describes Beijing’s Silk Road relationships as being detrimental to its partners’ sovereignty. In response, Washington claims that “states throughout the region are calling for sustained U.S. leadership in a collective response that upholds a regional order respectful of sovereignty and independence”, which implies the creation of what the author has previously described as a ‘China Containment Coalition’ (CCC) to preserve the existing US-led unipolar system them. The suggested outcome of this initiative is the US’ “quadrilateral cooperation with Japan, Australia, and India”, with the latter once again being referred to as a “Major Defense Partner” whose “growing relationships throughout the region” will be supported by the US.

Elsewhere in the area, North Korea is identified as “a global threat that requires a global response”, later revealed in this section as being missile defense cooperation between the US, Japan, and South Korea towards the eventual aim of “an area defense capability”, one which was previously described in the document as “not intended to undermine strategic stability or disrupt longstanding strategic relationships with Russia or China.” Looking southwards, the US wants to “reenergize [its] alliances with the Philippines and ­Thailand and strengthen [its] partnerships with Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and others to help them become cooperative maritime partners”, with it being inferred that “reenergizing” is a euphemism for “winning back” Manila and Bangkok. Altogether, the US plans to use ASEAN and APEC as regional institutions for advancing its geopolitical and economic interests, with the former probably seeing some of the ASEAN states become the US’ “Lead From Behind” partners in “containing China” while the latter will result in more bilateral trade deals.

EU

Russia is fear mongered as engaging in “subversive measures to weaken the credibility of America’s commitment to Europe, undermine transatlantic unity, and weaken European institutions and governments”, suggesting that any objective developments that even remotely hint at either of these three conclusions will be dismissed as ‘Russian propaganda’ and their messengers discredited as ‘Russian agents/trolls’. China is also mentioned in this section as having “gain[ed] a strategic foothold in Europe by expanding its unfair trade practices and investing in key industries, sensitive technologies, and infrastructure”, showing that the US is now paying attention to the progress that its 16+1 framework has made in the “Three Seas” region of Central and Eastern Europe and will likely go on the information offensive against it in the coming future.

Daesh and the Migrant Crisis are also listed as posing serious threats to the EU as well.

In reassuring the continent, the US says that its “European allies and partners increase [its] strategic reach and provide access to forward basing and overflight rights for global operations”, which explains the self-interested reason why Washington will evidently abide by its Article 5 commitment to NATO. It believes that deepening transatlantic collaboration is necessary to protect Europe from the aforementioned threats that were described, with military spending increases geared towards modernizing capacities and building a ‘missile defense shield’ to ‘protect’ against Russia, Iran, and even supposedly North Korea too, while US efforts to “contest China’s unfair trade and economic practices and restrict its acquisition of sensitive technologies” in the EU will probably mean that Junker’s September 2017 proposal for a “European Enabling Framework” ‘screening process’ will become a roadblock to Beijing’s plans.

Furthermore, the US wants to expand its energy exports to Europe, which might see it getting more involved in the activities of LNG terminal-hosting “Three Seas” states such as Croatia and thus setting the stage for a “Balkan Pivot” to more directly counter China there.

Middle East

Right off the bat, the US blames Iran for all of the region’s woes by stating that “the interconnected problems of Iranian expansion, state collapse, jihadist ideology, socio-economic stagnation, and regional rivalries have convulsed the Middle East”, accusing what it labels as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” of “tak[ing] advantage of instability to expand its influence through partners and proxies, weapon proliferation, and funding” that oftentimes takes the form of Iran “develop[ing] more capable ballistic missiles and intelligence capabilities, and [undertaking in] malicious cyber activities.” Iran is painted as the ultimate evil in order to whitewash Israel, which the US attempts to unabashedly do in the passage where the authors write that “the threats from jihadist terrorist organizations and the threat from Iran are creating the realization that Israel is not the cause of the region’s problems.”

In fact, the NSS notes, “states have increasingly found common interests with Israel in confronting common threats”, in a nod to the de-facto alliance between the GCC and Israel against Iran. The US lists its chief objectives as strengthening cooperation with the GCC and what it describes as the “independent state” of Iraq, with the latter phrase hinting that Washington will work behind the scenes to counter Tehran’s influence in Baghdad. This presumption is apparently confirmed by the next passage where the US commits to “work[ing] with partners to…neutralize Iranian malign influence”, which again implies a similar “Lead From Behind” strategy just like it wants to employ in the Indo-Pacific.

Moreover, the US says that it will “seek a settlement to the Syrian civil war that sets the conditions for refugees to return home and rebuild their lives in safety”, signaling a step back from its previous regime change obsession and possibly opening the doors for a pragmatic ‘New Détente’ deal with Russia over this issue. In addition, the expected US commitment “to helping facilitate a comprehensive peace agreement that is acceptable to both Israelis and Palestinians” is reiterated in the text, though this is nothing more than rhetoric for distracting from the US’ determinedly pro-Israeli policies. Most interestingly, however, is the penultimate policy prescription that the US will “help (its) partners procure interoperable missile defense and other capabilities to better defend against active missile threats”, which demonstrates that its missile defense plans are indeed Eurasian-wide and stretch all across the EU-Mideast-Northeast Asian Rimland.

South And Central Asia

The US draws significant attention what it describes as Pakistan-based threats on multiple occasions, slyly speaking tongue-in-cheek when talking about the Pakistan that it’s supposedly seeking in order to indirectly accuse the Pakistan of today of embodying these said threats. For example, when the authors write that their country “seeks a Pakistan that is not engaged in destabilizing behavior…will press Pakistan to intensify its counterterrorism efforts, since no partnership can survive a country’s support for militants and terrorists who target a partner’s own service members and officials…(and) will also encourage Pakistan to continue demonstrating that it is a responsible steward of its nuclear assets”, it’s essentially saying that Pakistan is destabilizing the region, supporting anti-American militants and terrorists who target US forces in Afghanistan, and irresponsibly wielding nuclear weapons which might one day fall into the hands of the same terrorists that it’s accused of backing.

India, US, Japan annual Malabar naval drills

All of these hostile narratives against Pakistan explain why the US wants the world to think that “the prospect for an Indo-Pakistani military conflict [which] could lead to a nuclear exchange remains a key concern requiring consistent diplomatic attention”, as the thinly veiled inference is that Islamabad is solely responsible for this dangerous state of affairs. It’s predictable that Washington would weave such a one-sided storyline because it envisions New Delhi as its 21^st-century partner for ‘containing China’, with its strategists writing that the US “will deepen [its] strategic partnership with India and support its leadership role in Indian Ocean security and throughout the broader region”.

Concerning Central Asia, the NSS says that the US “will encourage the economic integration of Central and South Asia to promote prosperity and economic linkages that will bolster connectivity and trade”, and since it’s improbable that this is an oblique statement of support for CPEC, the only realistic conclusion is that it’s an American endorsement for the Central Asian component of India’s Chabahar project. As even the most inexperienced observer would know, this port is based in Iran, so the US will have to work overtime in crafting a semi-cohesive explanation for why it doesn’t mind India working with Washington’s hated nemesis in Tehran, though the answer could probably be simplistically summed up as ‘realpolitik’ for ‘containing China’.

Another point to mention is that the US says that it “seeks Central Asian states that are resilient against domination by rival powers, are resistant to becoming jihadist safe havens, and prioritize reforms”, and that it “will work with the Central Asian states to guarantee access to the region to support [its] counterterrorism efforts.” Evidently, the US is aiming to exploit the new Daesh threat to the region that it helped transfer from “Syraq” to Afghanistan as an excuse for reestablishing the military partnerships that it used to have with Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, possibly up to the point of once again basing its troops on their territory. While pretending that this is only in the interests of “counterterrorism efforts”, the real motivation would be to boost their “resilien[cy] against domination by rival powers”, or in other words, try to dislodge them from the joint Russian-Chinese multipolar orbit of the SCO.

Western Hemisphere

The US claims that “democratic states connected by shared values and economic interests will reduce the violence, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration that threaten [their] common security”, but in reality it’s only concerned about leveraging its economic connectivity with Latin American states to counter the three mentioned threats and doesn’t actually care too much about “democratic states” or “shared values”. After all, the US supports the Honduran government of Juan Orlando Hernandez despite the OAS requesting an electoral redo after the incumbent was suspected of stealing the election and then openly resorting to deadly force to suppress opposition protests against him. The Trump Administration’s visceral hatred of anything socialist is also on full display in condemning Cuba and Venezuela, which it believes have served as magnets for inviting Chinese and Russian influence into the region via economic and military means, respectively.

The NSS emphasizes the US’ “regional efforts to build security and prosperity through strong diplomatic engagement” and its desire to “isolate governments that refuse to act as responsible partners in advancing hemispheric peace and prosperity”, suggesting that the incipient anti-Venezuelan coalition model that’s forming could be replicated against the similarly multipolar-aligned ALBA states of Bolivia and Nicaragua due to their socialist ideals and in the event that they forcibly react against any forthcoming Hybrid War provocations against them. The declaration that the US “will encourage further market-based economic reforms and encourage transparency to create conditions for sustained prosperity” adds credence to the claims that it will probably expand its “Operation Condor 2.0” unconventional campaign of restoring its hegemonic hemispheric influence against those states and possibly other ones as well.

US President Donald Trump attends a working dinner with Latin American leaders in New York

On the economic front, the document says that the US “will modernize [its] trade agreements and deepen [its] economic ties with the region and ensure that trade is fair and reciprocal”, which is just a reaffirmation of Trump’s well-known intent to renegotiate NAFTA, but which could also extend to the US’ other hemispheric multilateral trade deal of CAFTA-DR and the bilateral ones that it has with Chile, Colombia, and Peru (the latter three of which plus NAFTA-member Mexico constitute the four states of the Pacific Alliance trading bloc). The phrasing about “deepening economic ties with the region” might indicate the US’ plans to reach bilateral trade deals with the Mercosur members, probably beginning with Brazil and then having the rest of the bloc fall in line afterwards. Altogether, the interweaving of bilateral trade deals all throughout the hemisphere would represent the de-facto fulfillment of the long-sought “Free Trade Area of the Americas” (FTAA).

Africa

The final section of the NSS’ regional context review is the most direct about the US’ intentions to “contain China” and obstruct its Silk Road strategy. The authors confidently write that Africa “represent[s] potential new markets for U.S. goods and services”, the demand of which “is high and will likely grow” because of what it hints as being the desire of many countries to replicate its political and economic models. This is obviously the infowar narrative that will be spun in serving as the ‘carrot’ for attracting African partners (subordinates), while the ‘stick’ is the equally weaponized storyline that “some Chinese practices undermine Africa’s long-term development by corrupting elites, dominating extractive industries, and locking countries into unsustainable and opaque debts and commitments.”

US President Donald Trump congratulates African leaders

In case there was any doubt that the US wants to challenge China’s dominance in Africa, the document unambiguously announces that the US “will offer American goods and services, both because it is profitable for [it] and because it serves as an alternative to China’s often extractive economic footprint on the continent.”

To this end, the US “seeks sovereign African states that are integrated into the world economy”, which is a just another way of saying that it wants its partners to abandon the Chinese model of state-driven development and open up their economies to Western businessmen and their Indo-Japanese partners instead. “Support[ing] economic integration among African states” could be seen as developing an anti-Chinese trading bloc in the future, though this is unlikely since all existing economic organizations on the continent are closely aligned with the People’s Republic, as are most of the countries that are party to the massive 2015 Tripartite Free Trade Area in China’s most active “sphere of Silk Road influence”.

However, where the US is most capable of making African inroads is through military-security relations in “partner[ing] with governments, civil society, and regional organizations to end long-running, violent conflicts”, which carries with it a whiff of “Lead From Behind” “nation-building” that America is much more experienced with (for better or for worse) than China. By using the existing anti-terrorist pretext present throughout most of Africa to degree or another and especially in the transregional Sahel, the US will probably seek to leverage its military advantages to “stabilize” these states in exchange for them disengaging from China and/or clinching profitable trade deals with the US afterwards, since it will otherwise be exceptionally difficult for the US to economically counterbalance China any other way.

Global Trends

 After examining the Trump Doctrine in all of its regional contexts, it’s possible to detect several interconnected global trends that are present in the US’ National Security Strategy:

Demonization Of Strategic Rivals:

The US is hell-bent on framing its strategic multipolar rivals of Russia, China, and Iran as responsible for global destabilization in order to deflect attention from it and its partners’ responsibility for this state of affairs, with the distinct possibility that Pakistan will soon be added to this list of adversaries as America moves towards making India its top international ally in the future.

Assembling “Lead From Behind” Coalitions:

The demonization of the US’ strategic rivals provides it with the ‘plausible pretext’ for assembling regional coalitions against them all throughout the Eurasian supercontinent and potentially even in Latin America too if it gets its way against Venezuela, thus formalizing a new model of unipolar proxy control that has flexibly adapted to multipolar challenges.

Building “Missile Defense Shields”:

One of the most prominent state-to-state manifestations of “Lead From Behind” cooperation between the US and its subordinates is the construction of “missile defense shields” on trumped-up pretexts in order to undermine Russia and China’s nuclear second-strike capabilities, with the possibility existing that the same model can one day be implemented in South Asia to support India against Pakistan.

Exploiting Non-State Threats:

Another way in which the US plans to utilize its “Lead From Behind” coalitions is to exploit the prevalence of threatening non-state actors such as jihadists and transnational criminal organizations by using them as a ‘plausible pretense’ for setting up a range of differently sized regional bases in its partnered countries to support special forces raids against these shared menaces.

Stopping The Silk Road:

The combination of demonizing infowars, “Lead From Behind” coalitions, and multidimensional partnerships with its allies naturally leads one to the conclusion that the US plans to employ all instruments of its power (Hybrid War) in stopping China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity so as to counter multipolarity and indefinitely preserve the declining unipolar system.

In From The Cold: CIA Gesture Indicates Thawing US-Russia Ties

Authored by MK Bhadrakumar via The Asia Times,

In the annals of Russian-American relations, it is difficult to recall a precedent for the Kremlin leader calling his White House counterpart to convey his personal gratitude and appreciation for the profound contribution made by the US’ Central Intelligence Agency and its director to Russian national security.

The great irony is that the incumbent Kremlin boss is a former KGB officer. Vladimir Putin never ceases to surprise.

The Kremlin readout of Putin’s phone call to US President Donald Trump on Sunday should be an eye-opener to anyone who bought the US propaganda that Putin is a demon preparing to devour the West – or Russian propaganda that encourages an impression to be formed among the naïve and the gullible that the world is carved into two neat halves, namely the good and the evil.

Countries like Turkey, Iran and Egypt – and Venezuela and North Korea – should take particular note that the world situation and the emerging international order are a lot more complicated than some among them would like to think. What prompted Putin to make such an extraordinary move?

For a start, the Kremlin senses that the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the US election last November is meandering aimlessly and may have to be wound up sooner rather than later. That being the case, a future is conceivable in which the tidal wave of Russophobia in the US recedes, leaving behind much devastation and debris but also the opportunity to begin rehabilitation and reconstruction.

Most certainly, Putin understood the great symbolism and meaning behind the gesture by the CIA to pass on crucial intelligence relating to the security of his hometown, the city of his heart’s desires, and the pride of all Russian people.

US President Donald Trump chats with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin as they attend the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Danang, Vietnam, on November 11, 2017. Photo: AFP / Sputnik/ Mikhail Klimentyev

It all seems very much like strangers in the night exchanging glances. The key lies in interpreting the CIA’s gesture. The CIA signaled that it is once again viewing Russia as an interlocutor in professional terms and that, in its estimation, all is soon going to be business as usual.

The amazing part, of course, is that the CIA simply ignored the Obama administration’s sanctions against Russia. Putin has promised Trump that the Kremlin will remember this noble gesture and that if, god forbid, the occasion arose, the FSB will reciprocate.

Could the CIA have acted on its own? We don’t know what channel the CIA used. But Putin seems aware that Mike Pompeo, the CIA’s Director, took the decision. The likelihood is that Pompey spoke to the Russian ambassador Anatoly Antonov with Trump’s approval. Putin pointedly requested Trump to pass on his words of appreciation to Pompeo personally.

All of this occurred so very close to Monday – the moment when President Trump was expected to unveil the new US National Security Strategy. Didn’t the CIA hear National Security Advisor HR McMaster condemning Russia only a week ago, naming that country as a “revisionist power” that threatened the very foundations of the world order and international system that the US painstakingly erected in the last century after World War II ended?

Two phone conversations between Trump and Putin within three days resets the calculus. If the first phone call by Trump on Thursday was to thank Putin for the friendly references he made to the US in his annual year-end news conference in Moscow, the call on Sunday was likewise to convey Putin’s gratitude to Trump for approving Pompey’s initiative to pass on the vital intelligence regarding the impending terrorist strike in St. Petersburg.

Many signals lately suggest that some degree of sobriety is setting in, finally, within sections of the US establishment, along with a realization that Trump has been a voice of sanity all along in maintaining that US interests stand to gain by working with Putin and taking Russia’s help. More importantly, the Kremlin is sensing that Trump’s travails could be ending.

Of course, there are negative tidings, too. Only ten days ago, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson conjured up an image of Russia as the “enemy” through his three-nation European tour. And as recently as December 9 there was an altercation between US and Russian fighter planes in the skies above the Euphrates.

But to be sure, the “working lunch” later today in Washington between US Under Secretary of State Shannon and Russian Ambassador Antonov will be closely watched in places as far away as Beijing for any more sounds of ice cracking. Antonov was quoted as saying last night that the two phone conversations between Putin and Trump underscored that “our countries need each other. Our countries define the joint program of actions to strengthen global security.”

On The West"s Demise To The Sidelines Of History...

Authored by Seth Lievense via Limpidus.org,

The world is changing, but the west is clinging on to a unipolar vision of the world that has passed. It’s attempts to discard this changing reality in exchange for a western worldview expressed in their politics and media are so ungrounded, it’s comical as it is dangerous. This western bubble of reality laid down before the wests general public seems to hold up for now, although fragile and less and less by the day. Really, Russia again? Outside this western bubble however, credibility is lost daily as the west places itself on the sidelines of history.

The fundamental building blocs in western hard power and soft power are not under attack as the mediapolitical landscape could make us feel they are, it is more that they are revealed for what they are without the sugarcoating. As the multipolar world creates the political and economic power to pursuit alternatives and show new perspectives and interpretations, they now have the power to reflect the actions of the west mirrored back upon themselves as apposed to ‘just the way things are’ in the world.

Suddenly we are presented with another version of reality that also begs for a different version of history for the past decades. Our economic system seems to benefit the few as those few have a well managed grip on politics. Local business and craftsmanship, the real economy, have given way to the privileged multinationals and the financial world, the world of tax breaks and tax havens.

Whilst the real economy is breaking down, the central banks were printing money like never before to keep the banks and the familiar names afloat -so long as the Apple’s and Facebook’s and other household names keep the indices up, all is good. At the root of this infinite printing of money lies of course the petrodollar. The 1973 deal with Saudi-Arabia where the US would support the house of Saud so long as OPEC would sell all oil in US dollars only and buy US bonds, creating an immense need for dollars in the world and preventing inflation as the Federal Reserves printing presses make way for the economic, political and military US might since. Since, the whole international trade system has been dollar based. If Bolivia wants to sell logs to Venezuela, it will still use dollars. And by US law, every dollar has to be cleared by the bank of New York, thus making this transaction subject to US law. And don’t you dare circumvent it. Blocking Iran from the dollar-trade for not selling oil in dollars, and thus blocking it from the swift-system, and thus from world trade, was therefore the nuclear bomb in economics. Their currency devalued 50%. The earlier threats to the petrodollar –Libia selling oil for gold, Iraq for euro’s- have been met with heavy resistance. Now, in Syria, it seems the world has changed. The predominantly Saudi-US creation of ISIS to destabilize the nations of Iraq and Syria into chaos has now failed. Could we again see Syria, Iraq and Iran work together to create the Friendship Pipeline (a.k.a. the Islamic Pipeline in the west), exporting oil from Iran to Europe? Or will it be more of the same political-economic-monetary-military export of the west, with freedom, democracy and human rights as it’s sugarcoating?

The guardians of a new geopolitics: Iran-Russia-China

The demise of military hegemony
The success-story of the liberation of Syria by ISIS is a result of the Astana peace talks between Russia, Syria, Turkey and Iran, not the Geneva talks where the US made promises it broke within days on the ground. It is the cooperation of Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq and Russia (as tides changed, Turkey) that in spite of US-Saudi aid to ISIS managed to liberate the countries of Syria and Iraq. The military power of Russia, with for example it’s S-400 anti-missile all over the middle east is a game-changer. It’s a defensive system that leaves air-intervention in a padlock. Turkey as well as Saudi Arabia buying these demonstrates once more the break down of this unipolar world. Where NATO’s version is unable to attack ‘friendly’ aircraft -friendly as defined by NATO-, the S-400 is neutral in this aspect and respects the autonomy of a country.

As for within Syria, where Iran and Russia are invited by Syria and are legal in respect of international law, the United States is seen as an invader by Syria. Also, but most importantly, Assad is popular in Syria itself and self-determination is being undermined. It must sound as alienating to a west man’s ears as Assad stressing education and health services in the rebuilding of Syria or the gas attack being from ‘moderate rebels’, not Assad’s government. At the moment 95% of Syria has been freed from ISIS (sometimes known as moderate rebels in the west), yet the United States is still making a last-minute effort to control the border of Iraq and Syria to prevent regional integration -or a pipeline. They will fail.

The demise of economic hegemony
For the past decades the west has been producing less and less, as cheap labour was found in the east. It seemed to make the average western person rich as purchasing power (pp) rose. These riches are however the fruits of the rise of technology, oil and the currency devaluation of e.g. China. This cheap produce from the east could be branded to sell for many times it’s cost as this gave way to multinationals and the service and retail industry in the west. Likewise, cheap money from the printing presses allowed for financial industry to blossom. And on the other side of the petrodollarcoin, the OPEC-countries maintained whatever powers that were via the high oil prices the world paid them and US protection.

As the west and OPEC-countries profited of cheap labour, China saw a boom in exports that developed their country. China then used these profits to buy US obligations to keep their currency low as it blew up the dollars value even more. You could say a whole generation of Chinese has had to sacrifice/work their way out of a dollar-dominated trade.

Over the past decade Chinese growth has allowed for the rise of wages, “China is no longer the cheap labor haven it once was. Monthly manufacturing wages reached 4,126 yuan at the end of 2015, equal to those in Brazil but much higher than Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India.” –Bloomberg. Chinese per capita income rose from $200 in 1990 to $5000 in 2010. The Chinese middle class has grown significantly and according to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China’s poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012. “Between 1990 and 2005, China’s progress accounted for more than three-quarters of global poverty reduction and a big factor in why the world reached the UN millennium development goal of halving extreme poverty.” –Wikipedia. Extreme poverty has now almost completely disappeared from China and by 2020 it aims to have eradicated poverty at all. These great stories don’t form part of the wests reality. It clings on to past views of the world to explain its place in this world. The east looks forward, the west still only sees $1/hour sweatshops and environmental pollution.

Besides the rise of purchasing power (PP) in the east soon meeting the demise of PP in the west and besides the oil price having plummeted with fewer petrodollars to recycle into the US economy, there is also the factor of technology that undermines the unipolar world, the western favoured world.

Multinationals of the west used to be able to buy up cheap products, market them and sell them off highly priced, supporting whole industries in advertising and the service and retail sector. The internet however has now made it possible to bypass these western cooperations and to buy directly from small and medium enterprises (SME’s) in China.

Alibaba processed 812 million orders within 24 hours and its payment service Alipay handled 1.5 billion transactions during the day, peaking at an incredible 256,000 transactions per second.

Chinese export subsidies make it very affordable to ship these products all over the world, where for example a European import tax on goods over €30 from China seeks to limit this. As Alibaba allows western SME’s to buy directly from Chinese SME’s, bypassing import and export companies and western branding, so does AliExpress make these products available for the consumer. As this will temporarily save western purchasing power, it will in the long run also favour the real economy over the one pushed upon us by the wests hegemonic structuring of political-economic power. Less and less money will flow through this hierarchical organizing of society. And, “By 2020, China will account for about 60% of global e-commerce.” – Forbes

China seeks to be at the forefront of the third industrial revolution by heavily investing in automation and renewable energy. “Somewhere around 80GW of solar manufacturing capacity exists in China, of 130GW global – using 50 of those 80 gigawatts is clear evidence that China is no longer focusing on exports.” –Electrec. China knows it will have to invest in automation and renewables, as the rise of wages is already putting pressure on economic growth. The Chinese are pricing themselves out of the market. This concept of economic interconnectivity of the real economy by connecting SME’s and customers is part of China’s ‘win-win‘-strategy of diplomacy abroad. This is where the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), fits in too. Both seek to facilitate and steer, rather than dominate. Like a parent would a child, a very Chinese view of government. The BRI is the largest infrastructural realization the world has seen to day and seeks to connect China via large infrastructure projects, or so called ‘new silk roads‘, with the rest of the Eurasian continent, guarenteeing export for the foreseeable future as the Chinese economy is changing away from a production-oriented economy.

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

BRI connects the economies by annihilating time and space and creates interdependence, ideally preventing regional instabilities or wars. The ‘win-win’ presents a clear business alternative against the hegemonic ways the west organizes the world to the advantage of those that have the advantage already.

One of these new silk roads will connect China via high speed rail and road to Europe via Russia, drastically reducing traveling time of goods and people. China and Russia have also found each other in bypassing the US dollar in bilateral trade. “In 2016, the share of national currencies in payments for exports of Russian goods and services was 13 percent, imports 16 percent. In the first quarter of 2017, these figures rose to 16 percent and 18 percent, respectively,” said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko. Jack Ma’s Alibabi/Aliexpress has also been invited to stimulate, diversify and localize Russia’s economy by creating a Russian arm of the company. Russia already diversified the economy over the past years dropping oil and gas state revenues from over 50% in 2014 to 39% now and less than 1/3^rd expected in 2020. When sanctions from the west came for (people in) the oil, banking and military industry, Russia chose to reply with sanctions that affected the real economy, promoting the growth and diversifacation of local industry, creating an immense growth and maturation of their agricultural sector. The russian economy is remarkably self-relient in agriculture. “Russia is one of the world’s leaders in exports of grain, vegetable oils, fish, and a number of other foods. We expect to become the leading supplier of ecologically clean food to our neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region.”, published by Russia ahead of the APEC meeting of last november.

It would be interesting for people in the west to listen to a Valdai speech of Vladimir Putin, the speech of Xi Jinping at the 18^th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China or to the balanced words of Hasán Rouhaní when confronted with polarizing western rhetoric. For most in the west however, the mind has constructed views of these countries that are hard to break, based on allegations circulating within the western bubble of reality that seek to polarize and justify the unipolar hegemony. Russia’s RT has successfully been able to show different understandings of the world and has become the object of discussion itself. It’s usually a disturbing allegation brought forward by a politician, backed up by institutions and amplified by media. It either consequently lacks any proof of the allegation and usually ends in self-reference to the wests mediapolitical show and might even be corrected when the attention of the media has shifted to a new hype or is either so blown out of proportion that it fails to make the argument. This includes the election-hacking I’ve written (Dutch) about before, as well as the whole Crimea-unification, as I’ve written about before as well. There is a world of views to discover for which I hope we may find ourselves mature enough to decide over ourselves. Geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar put it wonderfully when visiting Iran, “So once again, in Tehran, provoked by the meeting of minds around the conference – the absolute opposite of “clash of civilizations” – it was possible to discuss how Iran (resistance against injustice), China (remixed Confucianism) and Russia (Eurasianism) are offering post-Enlightenment alternatives that transcend Western liberal democracy – a concept that has been completely co-opted and shattered by the hegemony of neoliberalism.”

The longer the mediapolitical west keeps up the false narratives around Russia, Iran and China for maintaining their unipolar worldview, the more it will distance itself from the socioeconomic integration in the world around them. It will happen slowly -China favours stability-, as our growth slows down and tourists will visit our historic scenery. The new Silk Road doesn’t have to stop in Istanbul or Moscow, it can connect through to the harbour of Rotterdam and go via Berlin. The concept of the enemy is the produce of a society that lacks the leap of trust to participate in a lateral way in the challenges of tomorrow.

The west will have to start to understand that the ideas of the enlightenment, the concepts of freedom, democracy and human rights are shattered not by the development of the rest of the world -the exception of ISIS noted-, but by the stratification of a society undermined by monetary and neoliberal concepts that have hollowed out their ideals. As for spreading those ideals of human rights, freedom and democracy abroad, we might do well listening once again to the east. The Chinese do not argue these principles, yet are in no way convinced of the path dictated by the west, nor the moral high ground to preach from. They see these principles arising out of economic development. Out of a rising middle-class and basic needs for citizens -thus free of poverty and free from harsh economic inequality- will arise democracy. These values have to be developed and can not be enforced without economic democracy and basic needs. How can you expect someones human rights to come first, does not your survival do? In the export of Chinese ‘win-win’ diplomacy, it does not seek to impose a way of living, a certain developmental path. It provides stability, a way for both economies to become interdependent, of which cultural exchange and respect may follow.

The west is in debt, immensely. And this time it’s not only consumer debt that resulted in the mortgage crises of 2008, it’s also corporate debt, states, bond markets, you name it.  Whatever credit market the crises will start in, it will spill over resulting in a crash far greater than 2008. The real wealth has moved east. Sure, China has debt, but it also has growth and actual production and it’s debt is small in comparison. Russia and Iran hardly have any debt. Gold is moving from west to east and is in high demand. We can’t see it reflected in the price yet, for the wests money printing presses and their leveraged ‘paper gold’ still manage to hold down the prices, but the direction is clear.

If not for production, resources or gold, what still backs a euro or a dollar? With bitcoin gaining credibility with each passing day, be it for storage or as currency, the euro/dollar demise doesn’t even stop there. Blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin, allows for the whole replacement of most of the financial world that forms one of the last strongholds of western power. Ethereum’s ether does not only allow for new coins (the famous initial coin offerings where lots of money is bound to be lost) on top of their base system, but this also allows for smart contracts. These have the potential to replace any mortgage, loan or other smart contract you could think to need a financial institution for. In time, settings in a program or on a site will make these interpersonally, with the community to verify for the conditions made. Russia, the first state to announce so, has it’s CryptoRuble ready, undoubtedly balancing the perseverance of the state (taxes) with the newfound freedoms and stability of digital money.

China’s Panda Power Plant

With the west to be behind in automation and renewables, without production and resources and no multinationals and financial world to profit of others, what are we but left in dependency? It’s time to find ground in roots of the renaissance and the enlightenment, find strength in local economies connecting laterally to local economies, find autonomy in renewables and find security in cryptocurrencies and gold as we connect ourselves to a future we can pull forward ourselves, away of dependance of institutions and corporations we can not rely on and in spite of their hinderance. As we pull out of globalization as put forward by the west, we will see the world connect globally from a local angle. And, as automation and technology can decentralize, they can provide locally. Think crypto instead of central bank or mortgage, solar instead of OPEC, 3d-printing directly from local resources instead of shipping from afar, the arts and craftsmanship (a design at the local 3D-shop?) instead of the wage-slave, vertical farming instead of poverty and local abundance instead of global scarcity. It’s a way of thinking that puts autonomy and free time back up front. Wasn’t that what freedom once meant? And from that place, we will see each other in shared pursuits of dreams.

Surely, all societies have flaws and have challenges to work on, as I understand this is the case in China, Russia and Iran, however, a western attitude of false moral superiority prevents understanding. How can we adapt to a future we understand less and less? The more the west will put in the full weight of it’s apparatus based on the old industrial revolutions and monetary and mediapolitical hot air, the harder the fall will be. The more the west clings on to this western bubble of reality brought to them by giving ear to their mediapolitical, the more certain it’s demise will be. The multipolar world now holds up a mirror, it’s about time the west dare look into it. It’s time for the west to grow up and join a new world in the making.

US, Russia Agree On "Iran-Free Zone" In Syria

Multiple Israeli news outlets reported Saturday that the US, Russia, and Jordan have reached a ceasefire agreement over southern Syria which proposes to expel Iran-backed militias from the border with Israel in the Golan Heights. The reports came on the same day presidents Trump and Putin issued a joint statement on Syria after meeting on the sidelines of the APEC conference in Danang, Vietnam, which reaffirmed de-confliction efforts as both countries fight ISIS and underscored willingness to keep Syria"s territorial integrity intact while pursuing the Geneva process.

Though the joint statement references the "Memorandum of Principles concluded in Amman, Jordan", it doesn"t make explicit reference to Iran or Hezbollah, but more broadly to efforts for "the reduction, and ultimate elimination of foreign forces and foreign fighters from the area to ensure a more sustainable peace."

Image source: Getty images

But according to The Times of Israel, the Amman agreement is geared toward preventing a continuing Iranian presence in Syria:

Under the agreement apparently inked Saturday, all non-Syrian fighters, including Iranian proxies fighting on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, would be required to leave the border area and eventually Syria, Hebrew media reports said Sunday, citing an American official.

Currently, there"s been no confirmation of whether or not the deal actually singles out "Iranian proxies" or if Israel had any influence within the negotiations. The deal is based on a previous ceasefire agreement reached in July in Astana, Kazakhstan - a deal which Israel blasted at the time as being too tolerant of Iran"s presence in Syria. 

As part of the Astana talks, Trump agreed to a southwest Syria "de-escalation zone" with Russia, which would necessarily involve Iranian cooperation. The agreement implicitly acknowledged Iran"s troop presence in Syria as legitimate, and as reported at the time further "ignored Israel’s positions almost completely." But analysts have been in general agreement that the US-Russia brokered deal has been relatively successful and a step in the right direction. 

A subsequent Reuters report covering a contentious Netanyahu-Putin meeting in August bluntly acknowledged Israel"s willingness to see the Iranian and Shia allies of Assad expelled from the region, even if that should mean the ascendancy of ISIS. According to the Reuters report: 

In parallel to lobbying Moscow, Israel has been trying to persuade Washington that Iran and its guerrilla partners, not Islamic State, pose the greater common threat in the region.

For this reason, Israel has blamed - seemingly without any pretense of an investigation - each and every border incident on Syria and its allies, to the point that even when anti-Assad groups fire mortars in the direction of Israeli territory, the Israeli military response targets Syrian government forces.  

This phenomenon has been long recorded by United Nations investigative reports. For example, in October 2014 the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which at that time still had a significant presence in the Golan area, reported to the UN Security Council:

On 23 June [2014], Israel targeted nine Syrian army positions with tank fire and air strikes after mortar fire from the Syrian side the previous day killed an Israeli civilian. Israel’s assessment is that most of these incidents are due to errant fire resulting from fighting in Syria. Israel said that armed opposition groups were probably responsible but that its forces fired on Syrian military positions to stress that Syria was responsible for security on its side of the ceasefire line.

Since then Israel has repeatedly struck targets inside Syria deemed to be Hezbollah weapons storage locations - and over the past year such airstrikes have occurred almost weekly - with Israeli jets often firing from over Lebanese airspace. 

And again over the weekend Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly shot down a drone above the Golan Heights, which the IDF claimed was a "Syrian Spy drone" which originated with either Iran or Hezbollah. The incident prompted Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman to once again threaten Syria. “The Syrian regime is responsible for every attack and violation of our sovereignty, and we will not allow the Shiite axis to be established in Syria as a base for action,” Liberman said.

On Friday Israel continued to escalate its rhetoric after a dubious report published by the BBC claimed that Iran has established a military base at a site used by the Syrian army outside El-Kiswah, 14 km (8 miles) south of Damascus. For Israel this would constitute the crossing of a "red line" by Iran: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu recently warned that Iran wanted to establish itself militarily in Syria. "Israel will not let that happen," he said.

Though Israeli media appears to be reporting the latest "deescalation agreement" in southern Syria which would force the exit of Iranian proxies as an Israeli diplomatic victory, it is unlikely that Israel"s heightening war rhetoric will cease.

Trump "Chats Amicably" With Putin, Sides With Russia Over "Election Interference"

All eyes were on Trump and Putin again as the two leaders bumped into each other at the APEC meeting on Saturday. They patted each other on the back several times, and Putin whispered something in Trump’s ear. The US leader listened attentively leaving reporters to guess what the two discussed.

Shortly after, President Trump again dismissed allegations of Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. election, following his first brief meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin at the APEC conference after their first encounter in July. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One, Trump said that he believes Vladimir Putin"s denials about election meddling - over allegations raised by US intel agencies including the CIA, NSA, and FBI which claim that Russia actively worked to meddle in the election - which are an “artificial Democratic hit job” and did not want to press further because he thinks the U.S. and Russia can work together on issues that include North Korea, Syria and Ukraine. He also said that interference talk "gets in the way and that’s a shame," because people will die because of it.

Trump said Putin had told him again that he hadn’t meddled in the election: “I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it,” Trump said of the accusations.

“I think he’s very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country.” Trump repeated that “there was no collusion, everybody knows there was no collusion” and called it a "pure hit job" and said that “rhis is really an artificial barrier that’s put in front of us for solving problems with Russia. I think it’s a shame that something like can destroy a very important potential relationship between two countries that are very important countries. Russia could really help us.”

Putin likewise dismissed suggestions Russia influenced the elections through political advertising. Tech companies, including Facebook, have said some Russian-bought political content spread on their platforms around the time of the election.  “There is no confirmation of our mass media meddling in election campaigns – and there can’t be any,” Putin said.

Trump also said he didn’t speak to Putin about North Korea during APEC summit, and was focused on Syria and Ukraine.

While there was no official meeting between the two presidents scheduled, Trump said he and Putin spoke at picture- taking last night and at a roundtable today. “We spoke intermittently.” Scheduling and unspecified protocol issues were to blame for the fact that a mooted sit-down meeting with Trump did not happen in Danang, Putin said.

They were also seen chatting amicably as they walked to the position where the traditional APEC summit photo was being taken at a viewpoint looking over the South China Sea.

Pictures from the APEC meeting also showed Trump walking up to Putin at the summit table and patting him on the back. They also shook hands at the summit dinner on Friday evening. "We’ll have a meeting” in the future Trump said, while adding cryptically that a deal to support a political solution to Syria’s conflict would save “tremendous numbers of lives”.

“We did it very quickly,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after leaving the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the resort of Danang for Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital. “We seem to have a very good feeling for each other, a good relationship considering we don’t know each other well.”

Talking to journalists on Saturday after the meeting, Putin said that the absence of a separate, official meeting with the US president at the summit further proves that there is an ongoing crisis in relations between the two nations. “It means that US-Russia relations are still in a state of crisis." Moscow is, however, ready “to turn the page and move on, look into the future and solve problems important both to the people of the US and Russia,” including issues within the “sphere of security, and of economic interaction, which has dropped to virtually zero.”

Asked whether he experienced Trump’s trademark "intense handshake" habit, the Russian leader replied: “I know nothing about his habits, we are not so well acquainted, but the US president conducts himself in the best possible way, is a well-mannered person and comfortable to deal with.”

Ahead of APEC, the Kremlin and the White House gave conflicting reports on the possibility of a meeting between the two leaders, before eventually stating that there will not be an official meeting this time around. Nonetheless, Putin and Trump met and shook hands at a dinner on Friday night, and again at the start of the main meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders on Saturday.

Eyebrows were raised when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson questioned the necessity of the Russian and US presidents sitting down for a meeting. “The view has been if the two leaders are going to meet, is there something sufficiently substantive to talk about that would warrant a formal meeting?” he told a press briefing in Beijing on Thursday. Tillerson’s statement comes at a time when US-Russian relations have reached one of the lowest points in decades.

On Saturday, the two leaders agreed on a joint statement confirming their commitment to Syria’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity. “Moscow and Washington agree there is no military solution to the conflict,” the text of the joint statement, published on the Kremlin’s website, said. Putin and Trump have called on all parties to the Syrian conflict to “take an active part in the Geneva political process and support efforts aimed at ensuring its success.”

* * *

Courtesy of Axios, here is the exchange between Trump and reporters on Air Force One

Reporter: Did Russia"s attempts to meddle in US elections come up in the conversations?

Trump: "He said he didn"t meddle, he said he didn"t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times."

Reporter: Today?

Trump: "I just asked him again. He said he absolutely did not meddle in our election, he did not do what they are saying he did."

Reporter: Do you believe him?

Trump: "Well, look, I can"t stand there and argue with him, I would rather have him get out of Syria, I would rather get to work with him on the Ukraine rather than arguing about whether or not... that whole thing was set up by the Democrats. Look at Podesta, look at all the things that they have done with the phony dossier. Those are the big events. But Putin said he did not do what they said he did. But we have a good feeling toward getting things done. If we had a relationship with Russia, that would be a good thing. In fact it would be a great thing, not a bad thing, because he could really help us on North Korea. We have a big problem with North Korea and China is helping us. And because of the lack of the relationship that we have with Russia, because of this artificial thing that"s happening with this Democratic-inspired thing. We could really be helped a lot with Russia having to do with North Korea. You know you are talking about millions and millions of lives. This isn"t baby stuff, this is the real deal. And if Russia helped us in addition to China, that problem would go away a lot faster."

Reporter: On election meddling, did you ask him the question?

Trump: "Every time he sees me he says I didn"t do that and I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it. But he says I didn"t do that. I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country. Because again, if we had a relationship with Russia, North Korea which is our single biggest problem right now, it would help a lot. I think they are doing very well with respect to China, they have cut off financing, they have cut off lots of oil and lots of other things, lots of trade and it"s having a big impact. But Russia on the other hand may be making up the difference. And if they are, that"s not a good thing. So having a relationship with Russia would be a great thing especially as it relates to North Korea."

"Hillary had her stupid reset button that she spelled the word wrong, but she does not have what it takes to have that kind of relationship where you could call or you could do something. But this is really an artificial barrier that"s put in front of us for solving problems with Russia. He says that very strongly, he really seems to be insulted by it and he says he didn"t do it. He is very, very strong in the fact that he didn"t do it. You have President Putin very strongly, vehemently says he has nothing to do with that. Now, you are not going to get into an argument, you are going to start talking about Syria and the Ukraine."

The End Of "The End Of History" - US Mid-East Policy"s Fork In The Road

Authored by Tom Luongo,

In 1989 Francis Fukayama declared that we had reached “The End of History.”  Democracy as a form of government would, in fact, be the end of the evolution of human interaction.  The West had triumphed and that the rest was ‘just a chase scene,’ to borrow a phrase from Neal Stephenson’s brilliant dystopian novel “Snow Crash.”

But, this past week’s events in the Middle East tell me that autocracy has replaced democracy and the trans-national parliamentary system of the European Union that Fukayama championed in his 2007 article in The Guardian.

The EU no longer practices representative Democracy today.  Diktats come down from unelected technocrats in Brussels. They are wholly-owned by stateless rent-seeking oligarchs (i.e. George Soros). Everyone in and around the EU is expected to obey or face tanks in the streets (Spain) or endless legal entanglements from captured international courts (Poland).

If you circumvent the rules, the EU will change them to suit its masters’ needs.  Just look at any proposed Russian pipeline into Europe over the past five years.

In the U.S. we have been subjected to the worst form of operant conditioning by an unelected Deep State and its quisling media for a year. They created the mass delusion that President Donald Trump is a secret Russian agent.

The goal was to overturn a democratic election, which itself the people had to overcome systemic voter fraud to win.

When, in fact, everyone who is involved in creating this mass delusion are covering up their collusion with Russia in ways that are espionage and treason.

So, consider me unimpressed with Fukayama’s assessment of history.  History is one of the praxeological disciplines.  Economics is another.  Any historical analysis bereft of economic imperatives is worthless.

And Fukayama’s end of history argument is the height of worthless history because it doesn’t ask the basic question “Cui Bono?”  Who benefits?

The End of Saudi Arabia as We Know it

Saudi Arabia has simply replaced one group of autocrats with another, Crown Prince (and soon to be King) Mohammed bin Salman.  There is not one democratic impulse in his body.  But he is the tip of the spear that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are wielding to remake the landscape in the Middle East.

Bin Salman’s moves have been stunning in their severity and swiftness.  But, if you are going to move against the most powerful people in the world, act fast or be destroyed.

There is a full-court press on to bring to light the extensive corruption of our political class from Washington to Tel Aviv, Brussels to Beirut.  And while barred from openly coordinating policy or even talk with each other, Putin and Trump are supporting each other’s moves while looking like they aren’t.

The status quo in Saudi Arabia is over.  It’s bin Salman’s country now.  Thank Putin and Trump for this.  The old alliances between it and Israel are now out in the open, creating cognitive dissonance in a whole new class of people.  It’s reach into governments around the world has been severed.

Hundreds of billions in assets frozen.  Dozens of family members jailed, many major donors to the corrupt-to-the-bone Democratic National Committee.

A major pillar of U.S. control atomized with the arrest of Prince Alaweed.

The coincidence cannot be ignored.  Everything happens in politics for a reason.

And for every pundit confused by what is happening, worried that this is a prelude to regional war I remind you that there are always multiple interpretations of the same events.  Such is the grist for history’s mill.

For example, that missile fired from Yemen at the Saudi capital conveniently had ‘proof’ of its Iranian origin.  Was this bin Salman’s false flag or someone else’s?

As Zerohedge pointed out this morning:

The narrative is familiar: just as European terrorists conveniently commit suicide and always dutifully bring along their passports so they can be identified, so Iran always makes sure it leaves identifying marks when it illegally sells its weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Lingering Questions

What if bin Salman’s purge was a reaction to a false-flag to gin up a war with Iran?

Israeli and U.S. Deep State forces have motive.  They are on the verge of losing everything? Certainly it’s as plausible as it being the opening act of bin Salman’s next foreign intervention.

Why was Donald Trump greeted by China’s leadership in a way that no foreign leader in the past 60 years was ever treated?

Could it be that despite his ham-fisted rhetoric, Premier Xi Jinping knows that Trump is, in fact, sincere in dismantling that portion of the U.S. Empire that no longer serves anyone’s interests except the very favored few who meet in Davos and Jackson Hole every year?

And that Trump will come to embrace China’s One Belt, One Road Initiative as good for the U.S. as well as the rest of the world?

Trump went out of his way to greet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vietnam at the beginning of APEC, despite intense pressure for him not to do so.  Again, why?

Is this the behavior of a man about to go to war? Be impeached?

Multiple Ways to Drain a Swamp

The path to draining the swamp is a circuitous one but, in my mind, it’s hard to argue where things are headed.  They are not headed towards confrontation with Iran but actually the opposite.

The most rabidly anti-Iranian segment of the Saudi Royal house is impoverished and imprisoned.

CNN will be sold and go out of business to allow for the Time-Warner/AT&T merger.  Jeff Zucker is out. Add another scalp to Steve Bannon’s belt along with Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and so many to come.

Will the vestiges of the neoconservative establishment in the U.S. and Israel continue to sabre-rattle and try to undermine what is happening?  Yes.

They’ve been doing that since the day Trump was elected just over a year ago, but it hasn’t stopped the momentum.  Why?  Because Putin was on the job outmaneuvering them at every turn.

Trump made a deal with the neocons back in August to cede them control of foreign policy and, in effect, outsourced cleaning up the Middle East to Putin. But, predictably they also didn’t follow through with their end of the bargain.

Trump learned, like Putin did, the John McCain’s of the world don’t keep to their deals.  They are ‘not agreement capable.’  And, as such, since the last failure to repeal Obamacare Trump has gone after every pillar of support these people had.

It will end with Hillary Clinton’s indictment.  But in the meantime it will look like the world is on the brink of world war.

And History’s Just Fine

Eventually, Saudi Arabia looked at the game board and saw that it was alone.  King Abdallah saw the changes that had to be made.  He met with Putin, they agreed on slightly-higher oil prices.  China offered to buy an Aramco stake but that would mean cutting ties completely with the U.S.

I believe that offer was a bluff.  It was meant to send bin Salman to Trump who agreed to get the Aramco IPO done in New York but he had to take control and end the royal family’s support of evil around the world.

Pat Buchanan’s latest column laments that no one listens when the U.S. barks anymore.  But, at the same time, what the U.S. is barking hasn’t been worth the air it disturbed in more than twenty years since the End of History.

This is what happens when you ‘Cry Wolf’ too many times. 

Benjamin Netanyahu is finally going to learn that lesson in the coming weeks.

The extent of bin Salman’s purge and its effects on not just the Middle East but the U.S. and the EU can only be assessed in hindsight by historians.  A future Fukayama will come along and see this and declare another end to history.

*  *  *

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Putin, Trump Meet In Vietnam: This Handshake Followed

While officials cited "scheduling conflicts" that dashed hopes of a bilateral meeting between President Trump and President Putin on the sidelines of the APEC summit, the two "old friends" came face-to-face during the photo-op at the start of the conference... and the handshake took place...

The two were all smiles while shaking hands during the photo call...

Preparing for the traditional leaders’ photo at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit – held this year in Da Nang, Vietnam – Putin had already taken his spot when Trump approached him, extending his hand. In the manner which has become famous, the US president then held onto Putin’s hand for several seconds, patting his counterpart on the back.

The leaders were dressed in Vietnamese national attire, in accordance with the informal APEC tradition. Both Putin and Trump put on blue shirts, while some of the other participants chose to wear white ones.

Notably the positioning of the leaders this year...right next to the Vietnamese leader and Putin...

Quite different from that of three years ago when President Obama appeared to be demoted to the old wives club...

Kremlin Says Trump-Putin Meeting "Highly Likely" In Vietnam This Week

In what is sure to stir up a media storm of over analysis, the Kremlin has commented that there is a strong possibility that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet on the sidelines of the upcoming international summit in Vietnam.

“Both Putin and Trump have extensive plans for bilateral meetings, which have been agreed upon long beforehand. There is also the APEC summit program, so the relevant offices are trying to choose an appropriate timing and format,” he said, adding that the likeliness of a Trump-Putin meeting was high.

As Strategic Culture Foundation"s Andrei Akulov notes, President Donald Trump told Fox News last week that he may meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said it was very important to meet the Russian leader. The US president expressed hope that Russia would help solve the North Korea problem. "It"s hard to overestimate the importance and significance for all international matters of any contact between the presidents of Russia and the United States," said Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Donald Trump"s trip comes at a time the Asia-Pacific policy goals require clarification against the background of the US withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. President Trump is pushing bilateral trade deals to replace the TPP, but Asian countries are reluctant to open negotiations, while South Korea is balking at his demand to renegotiate the existing trade accord. The relations with China and the problem of North Korea top the agenda. In Vietnam, the US president will articulate a new policy for Asia built on the concept of a “free and open Indo-Pacific” region. The idea presupposes bringing together Japan, Australia, and India to contain a rising China.

Putin and Trump first met at the G20 summit in Hamburg in July when they discussed allegations of Russian meddling in the US presidential election. Back then, the leaders agreed to focus on better ties. However, the relations have soured further since that time as the diplomatic scandal broke out. In August, the president signed new sanctions against Russia. During the election campaign, Donald Trump pitched himself as a leader who would normalize the relationship. The American voters backed this stance. But the promised improvement has not materialized.

Today, the relations between Russia and the US are on a downward spiral of sanctions and accusations. It’s true that the Russian-American relations are struggling through their most difficult period since the end of the ?old War. The domestic context makes it virtually impossible for the US president to attempt any kind of fundamental reset.

No breakthroughs are expected but there is a range of burning issues to be urgently addressed despite the divisions. What the leaders could do is implement a "ceasefire" on the diplomatic blows of the past few months. The hole is deep enough; it’s time to stop digging.

With Syrian conflict entering endgame and de-escalation zones in place, Russia and the US face responsibility for ending the conflict and launching the nation-building process. Syria should not divide but rather unite the two powers. Ukraine and North Korea will be included in the agenda. It’s also logical and imperative for Russia and the US to pursue cooperation on Libya and Afghanistan.

With arms control eroding, the time is right to launch discussions on the future of New START and the divisions over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) Treaty. Moscow has declared readiness to negotiate an extension of the New START, but the US position remains unclear. If nothing replaces the New START, there will be a new situation when strategic offensive forces are beyond any control for the first time since SALT-I was signed in 1972. The fate of the INF Treaty is uncertain with both sides accusing each other of violating the agreement. It would be right if the presidents gave orders to launch meaningful discussions to smooth away the existing problems.

A lot of issues of mutual concern could be addressed if the US reversed its decision to shut down most channels of cooperation including the Presidential Commission (21 working groups). Regional security and arms control will probably dominate the official bilateral agenda but strong interaction between academics, media, businesses and public diplomacy could help manage existing problems and make the relationship much more fluid.

Much has been said about what causes the current deterioration, while almost nothing is said in the mainstream media about the fact that the dialogue is still alive despite all the snags on the way. Contacts are maintained.

This was in focus of the talks held in Helsinki between Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and US Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon on September 11-12. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, has maintained dialogue with Russia over the conflict in Syria, and raised the possibility of joint stability operations, including de-escalation zones and ceasefire observers. In June, numerous US companies took active part in the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

The divisions were deep when the “Helsinki process” was launched in the 1970s. The Helsinki Final Act dealt with a variety of issues divided into four “baskets.” The same thing can be done today.

It is quite possible to put the differences into a basket to be addressed separately, while concentrating on achieving progress in the areas where it can be done. The fact that the initiative to arrange a meeting comes from the US proves the fact that Russia is an important world actor that no international security problems can be solved without. The APEC summit in Vietnam provides an opportunity to revive dialogue on the issues of common interest. It should not be missed at a time when the bilateral relationship has tumbled to a nadir.