Afghanistan in the Neo-Colonial Policy of the United States

The United States plans to send another thousand troops to Afghanistan to strengthen its contingent there. Now the Pentagon is deciding which military personnel will be sent to this country. We shall note that US troops have been stationed in this country since October 2001, which has cost US taxpayers $680 billion dollars. During this campaign, more than two thousand American soldiers have been killed and another 20,000 wounded. According to the US media, at present, there are 15,282 US troops in Afghanistan. It should be said that President Donald Trump fully complied with the request of General John Nicholson, who believes that under his leadership in Afghanistan there must be at least 16,000 soldiers.

Seventeen years seemed to be enough for peace to reign on the ancient land of Afghanistan. However, the tragedy of the Afghan people appears to have no end in sight. It can be said that Afghanistan, as a single state, has long been gone. The US and its coalition allies, gathered from all corners of the world, for many years have contributed to the persistence of a bloody conflict, and the settlement between the Afghans themselves has not progressed one iota. The Iranian newspaper Tehran Times wrote the following about this: ‘Washington, having occupied Afghanistan, took responsibility for the cessation of the war, the restoration of peace, the elimination of internal contradictions, the revival of an eroded economy. However, this did not happen, except for the presence of American troops in the country, the continuation of chaos and the war of all against all.’

Now on the backstages of the White House and the Pentagon there is approvingly discussed the plan that Eric Prince, the former head of the Blackwater Private Military Company (PMC), put forward, about the creation in Afghanistan of an analogue of the East India Company and the establishment of the similarity of the post of viceroy who would be responsible for everything that is happening in the country, as was done by Great Britain in India. The viceroy, according to Eric Prince’s idea, would solve all the issues in the country individually without bureaucratic delay and endless meetings with Washington and would answer only to the US president. The ‘brave warrior’ suggests sending contract soldiers to Afghanistan for a long time so that they live, bear all the hardships of the service and fight shoulder to shoulder with divisions consisting of local residents. The main investors of the project, according to Eric Prince, could be large Western corporations that are interested in the extraction of Afghanistan’s natural resources. It should be recalled that the cost of minerals in the country is estimated at between one and three trillion dollars. That’s where the genuine reasons are revealed and explain Washington’s entire policy in this country.

The US itself cannot leave Afghanistan either for reputational reasons or for fear that the country may fall into the sphere of influence of Iran, China and Russia, or the authorities will completely transfer to the Taliban, and Afghanistan will then become a hotbed of jihadists. The current administration in Washington needs to seek out some kind of third way. That’s why Eric Prince’s plan began to receive more attention. The idea of shifting all costs and losses of the war in Afghanistan to private companies and contractors looks increasingly tempting for the current president-businessman Donald Trump. And now we see how this diabolical plan to turn Afghanistan into an American colony on the model of British, and the appearance of new ‘contract soldiers’ begins to be implemented. If you look at them more closely, they turn out to be terrorists from Daesh and Jabhat al-Nusra, rescued in Syria and Iraq by Americans, and then transferred by American planes in Afghanistan.

During the meeting of the Council of Heads of Security Authorities and Special Services of the CIS, Alexander Bortnikov, head of the Federal Security Service of Russia, noted that the movement of terrorist groups to Central Asia poses a threat to the security of the region: ‘The main centre for the concentration of bandits is Afghanistan, where there are already positions of the so-called “Islamic state” and where the militants have the opportunity to infiltrate the territory of the CIS countries’.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said that the north of Afghanistan is turning into a base for international terrorism, as he said during a speech at a meeting of the UN Security Council dedicated to the situation in Afghanistan and the Central Asian region.

It is interesting that Qatar, a small state situated in the Persian Gulf zone, has also actively entered into the settlement of the Afghan crisis. For example, recently a delegation of the Qatari representation of the Taliban arrived in Islamabad; the Pakistani media reported referring to anonymous sources from the pro-Taliban and diplomatic circles. According to the reports, the delegation included three high-ranking Taliban leaders, including Shahabuddin Dilawar. It is assumed that the recent visit was part of the efforts of the Qatari leadership to promote an intra-Afghan peace dialogue. A few weeks earlier, a Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Abbas, made a trip to Qatar, discussing the prospect of peace talks in Afghanistan, according to the Pakistani newspaper Daily Times.

But for the global hegemon – the United States – there is no opinion of the UN and other international organisations. They continue to violate all conceivable and unthinkable international laws, providing assistance to terrorists. For example, the US Department of Defence used a loophole in legislation to continue training, providing equipment and assisting other units of the Afghan security forces who committed ‘gross human rights violations’. Such confession is contained in a declassified report prepared by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction John Sopko. Legislation prohibits the US government from assisting foreign forces that commit gross violations of human rights, but exceptions can be made for reasons of national security.

The Diplomat newspaper reported that during a recent telephone conversation between US President Donald Trump and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the mining industry was discussed, and that the White House plans to send a special representative to Afghanistan to assess the necessary investments in mining. For example, the country has huge lithium reserves, the demand for which will increase as the electric vehicle industry and electronic gadgets grow, as this metal is used in the creation of batteries. Afghanistan is even called the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium’. It should be noted that today the extraction of natural resources in Afghanistan is the second most important source of income for the Taliban. 

The protection of deposits, mines, transportation, etc. looks like the ideal application of private military forces, and not American soldiers in uniform. Donald Trump’s team, as the US media writes, have already consulted with the head of the mining company, American Elements. In addition, billionaire Steve Feinberg, who personally advises Trump on Afghanistan and owns one of the most powerful corporations in the world of military contracts – DynCorp International, is constantly showing increased interest in the exploitation of Afghani deposits. 

In other words, today’s northern Afghanistan is beginning to play an ever-increasing role for Washington. First of all, by sending terrorists from Syria and Iraq there, the American rulers are creating a new hotbed of tension on the border of the former republics of the USSR and, therefore, threatening Russia’s security. Secondly, by actively developing the richest deposits in the north of the country, President Donald Trump shows his voters the professional grasp of the ‘businessman’, who has no business creating a peaceful society in Afghanistan.

Viktor Mikhin, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Afghanistan: Why Won’t the Taliban Just Go Away?

Billions have been spent on the conflict in Afghanistan. First the object was to liberate the country from the Soviets, at a time no one really thought that would happen as touch upon in Charlie Wilson’s War. But at least would at least make them bleed as the Americans and French had in Vietnam.

Then it was to remove the Taliban, the logical consequence of the sane groups who had been funded and armed before. Now it is to support the Afghan government to construct a virtual reality – pretending there is a functioning administration in a country the government can only partially control, whilst still depending on periodic US airstrikes to keep the Taliban at bay.

Like Al-Qaeda, whose presence in Afghanistan was the original ostensible reason for the US presence there, the Taliban claims responsibility for any act of terrorism to make itself look all-powerful. However it is, as it claims, the most probable suspect in the recent Kabul hotel bombing, which has claimed over 100 lives. 

Hotels attract international visitors, even in Afghanistan, and the presence of foreigners is the issue the Taliban has with the Afghan government. The bombing is exactly the sort of symbolic gesture which would satisfy the Taliban’s own supporters and embarrass the Afghan government, which should be guaranteeing the guests’ safety. It also demonstrates to a worldwide audience that the Taliban is still news: and they of all people should know the value of such publicity.

It is unlikely that many ordinary Afghans want the Taliban back in power. But many things the organisation represents, in default of anyone else representing them, do resonate with Afghans. The US probably thought, as the Soviets did in the 1970s, that importing their own vision would give people something new and better to believe in. But they ignored one vital lesson from history: that Afghanistan has never been permanently conquered by any other country, including the great powers who have flocked to it to secure trade routes.

Go into Afghanistan and you take on the whole identity of every Afghan, past and present. Successive military personnel and prospective conquerors have found that this is not a turn of phrase but a concrete reality. As long as the Taliban still represents that identity, however unpalatable many of its actions and teachings are, it cannot be defeated and Afghanistan cannot prosper. But can any of the powers which want to help the country move on make that happen?

Don’t play in our backyard

We were all brought up on stories coming out of Afghanistan. Few noticed or cared when it turned Communist in 1973, when the mighty Soviet Empire was thought to be too tightly controlled to ever disappear. Then the Soviets themselves intervened and removed the local Communists, an action few in the West, and increasingly fewer in the Soviet Union, could explain.

This coup was described at the time as the “will of the people”, as they usually are. But like the rise of the Taliban, it was popular will by default. The 1973 coup which overthrew the monarchy had not achieved many of its aims, and people had begun feeling let down and distrustful of the spate of murders and arrests. So when the Communists took action, where else could the public turn for a saviour? In this sense, the Communist takeover was indeed the “will of the people”

Afghan Communism was essentially secularist. It declared women’s rights and introduced severe repression designed to reduce the influence of Islam. Most Afghans objected to these things because they were foreign, and foreigners can’t tell Afghans what to do and get away with it.

The greatest ever British military defeat was in Afghanistan, and the Duke of Wellington was Commander-in-Chief of the British Army at the time. In spite of three wars, the British had been driven out each time because Afghans make their own rules, they do not respect those imposed from outside.

When various armed groups rose in revolt in 1979 the Afghan government respected the “will of the people” by remaining in power but murdering the president, so the one-party regime could distance itself from Moscow. For the West, this did not signify a political change in the country. But the Soviets objected to this win-win situation and intervened to put a Soviet loyalist in power. Thus began nearly forty years of continuous war, which anyone, at least in policy positions, who knew the history of the place could have seen coming.

Afghans always claim that their ultimate victory over the Soviet Union, with considerable Western material help, was the factor which led to the downfall of the entire Soviet empire. Unfortunately the West then made the same mistake the Soviets had—forgetting the end game and what would come next.

The US stated it would organise free elections to choose the next government but then allowed the particular mujahedeen faction which controlled the part of Kabul where the government buildings are, and few other places, to declare itself the Afghan government. This government was then recognised around the world, without the people being consulted, which was seen as another foreign takeover.

None of the other many groups the West had happily armed had a better claim to run the country, but all disagreed with Burhan Rabbani’s group claiming to be the whole government. As the fighting continued, and alliances between different groups were made and broken weekly, the people lost faith in any of the combatants, who continued their campaigns without popular support, often targeting whole civilian populations due to political changes those populations had not made or even known about.

This is why the Taliban was able to advance on Kabul without fighting a major battle. Rather than preaching radical Islam and further terrorism, it upheld the system of Pashtunwali – the traditional code of values of the Pashtun community, which had been historically dominant. Even if people aren’t Pashtuns, they understand and respect this code. In effect it was Margaret Thatcher’s concept of “Victorian Values” – a morally superior system from a better age which would restore the country to its former glory.

Afghans soon realised that the Taliban is an amoral and corrupt gang of thugs whose radical interpretation of Islam is that of a psychopath justifying his behaviour by quoting scripture. But the alternative is foreigners, or those perceived as taking orders from the foreigners who put them there and have constructed the contemporary virtual state. The Taliban itself is used by the US for its own purposes, as all terrorist groups ultimately are, being part of the drug supply chain which funds ISIS as well as the Taliban itself. But no one else has come along to give Afghans another set of values they can support, shorn of the unacceptable extremes which characterise the Taliban in the West.

The further we get from the days of Taliban rule, the more persuasive its support for Afghan independence and traditional values will seem. These things still are, and always will be, the “will of the people”. The West will not be able to counter them by offering blue jeans and milkshakes in return for joining the Afghan army. It will have to make the preservation and promotion of Afghan values the centrepiece of its own policy – but as we have seen in many other countries, it cannot do that simply because it is the West.

I’ve always spelt it that way and always will

Every great empire thinks that its own way of doing things is better than anyone else’s, simply because it rules so many other people. If it wants to conquer more people, it does the same things it always does because those ways are demonstrably superior, simply because it has a larger territory.

When empires start to decline, as Russians remember, their leaders start to question those ways of doing things at look at other models. But this is an internal process: in foreign policy the old ways are promoted with ever greater vigour, to justify the country in the eyes of the world. Belgians always objected to what their King Leopold was doing in the Belgian Congo, which was his own private business, and took it into state hands to stop those abuses, but many of those crimes against humanity continued because Belgium couldn’t admit it was wrong and remain in charge.

The US empire is now in decline due to its economic weakening and military overstretching. Americans themselves are questioning the long-held belief that The American Way is the one every other country would freely choose to follow, given the chance. So how does the US defend itself? By being even more insistent that the US model must be introduced into every nation.

It is this, rather than what Western troops have done, which has led to the Taliban remaining a force in Afghanistan. Afghans respect democracy, but not one they are told to have by a foreign power, structured the way a foreign power wants it. Traditionally they have had different systems of their own, such as the institution of the Loya Jirga, roughly equivalent to the House of Lords. Similarly, though a Pashtun will not be a tenant of another Pashtun they have no problem being a tenant of a representative of one of the hundreds of other ethnic groups in the country, and this spills over into political relations, making a flat universal franchise a nonsense.

Similarly, Afghans have sophisticated trading relationships with each other, and the rest of the world, based on Islamic monetary principles which have been around for centuries longer than the ideas of Adam Smith and David Ricardo which form the basis of modern free trade. Most also pay voluntary taxes under the Zakat system, which has an effect on governmental use of taxation. Above all, if they see a moral case for taking a welfare action they just do it, without seeing the need to do things like register charities and record how the money is used. They will not be told what they can and cannot do by an aid programme, however well intentioned.

The way to defeat the Taliban is to institutionalise the traditional Afghan systems, which are understood even by those who do not like or practice them, in the same way the Orthodox Church and its teachings and practices are understood by non-Orthodox in Russia. If these are made the basis of government practice, and then protected by foreign troops for that reason, this will turn foreign occupiers with their infidel Western ways into friends.

But it will also mean that the US doesn’t have as much to offer as it thinks it has, and call its role in all other countries into question. The US is capable of riding this storm by adopting the same policy everywhere, and encouraging a more diverse global order based on partnership. But there are very few signs the US is thinking in this way – indeed, quite the opposite has been the policy for generations, whatever the complexion of the White House.

As has been pointed out, the countries the US has recently taken a shine to invading, such as Libya, Iraq and Syria, all made one decision prior to the US intervention – abandoning the dollar, and thus becoming more independent of US financial control. Similarly, the Western model, which is the US one coloured differently depending which country is preaching it, is still the only one its friends are allowed to accept. Viktor Yanukovych had his own plans for Ukraine, which needed both Western and Russian help to be realised. However he was told to choose, which meant his plans would have to fit the model of the chosen donor rather than being Ukraine’s, and we all know what happened there.

The West cannot become the guardians of all Afghans think is good, because the West has no respect for those things and cannot develop that respect. However bad the Taliban is in practice, it still defends those values in theory. The good deeds done by the West in Afghanistan only work for as long as people do not see, or care about, the strings attached. But every time the West makes any false step, even in faraway countries, Afghans see the strings and not the good deeds, and they find themselves agreeing with the Taliban, however reluctantly.

Sold out by yourselves

The West’s failure to respect Afghans presents opportunities to both Russia and China. Both of these countries are positioned, either directly or via proxy Muslim states, to do both the things the US won’t do – support a government and system based on Afghan traditions, and remove the radical element from the Taliban whilst leaving its positive values in place. Russia is unlikely to try, given its previous history in Afghanistan. But China will have no qualms becoming the new protector of Afghanistan, provided the price is right.

Evil Red China is as Red as ever. But the West can’t do without its funds, so suddenly this doesn’t matter. If China wants something which is in Afghanistan, like roads, minerals or licorice, the Afghan national plant which isn’t used to make confectionery there, it will pay for it provided it sees the benefit. As it has found, it will not need to tell the government what to do to obtain the influence it needs to achieve its goals, and the West’s kowtowing to it has set the template for how other countries respond to Chinese economic co-operation proposals, which are made by the state-owned companies US economics is determined to destroy as a matter of faith.

The Chinese would approach Afghanistan the way the West can’t – by supporting the locals and their culture from behind the scenes to pursue their own interests. But this also creates a problem for the West. Such is its desire to impose its own ways of thinking that everything good which comes out of Afghanistan must be a Western achievement. The West will be treading a dangerous path if it helps Afghanistan get back on its feet and then flogs off vast array of the new infrastructure to the Chinese, making Beijing the senior partner in any such geopolitical arrangement.

The Taliban found out the hard way that it cannot murder its way into the hearts of the Afghan people. But some of its values are still, unfortunately, the best available from an Afghan viewpoint. Treating it as an irredeemable enemy, which has bombed its way to the negotiating table, won’t solve that. Only a change of political approach and winds would remove the Taliban from the scene, but if the West makes that change, Afghanistan might ultimately be responsible for the death of another Great Empire.

Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

Is Trump Afghan Policy Aimed at Taliban or at China?

In recent months the US President has reversed yet another campaign pledge to pull out of Afghanistan, America’s longest war, and instead has begun to deploy an added 3,000 troops there. At the same time he has lashed out at the government of Pakistan accusing it of aiding the Afghan Taliban and pledging to cut all US military aid to that country as reprisal. A deeper view into the situation suggests that both moves are linked and have to do with not the Taliban and the Afghan terrorists. It has very much to do with ongoing developments of peaceful construction of the Chinese-led Belt, Road Initiative and desperate attempts of Washington to try to stop those developments using other pretexts.

In June 2017 After intense discussions with his military Trump authorized an added up to 4,000 US soldiers ostensibly to further train an Afghan military in dealing with an increasingly successful Taliban force. By December the Pentagon was engaged in a massive air campaign it said was aimed at destroying the Taliban drug labs.

Arguing that the Pakistan ISI intelligence service was complicit in giving Taliban, the CIA-trained and al Qaeda-associated Haqqani and other terrorist groups sanctuary across the border, Trump then froze military aid to Pakistan. It is allegedly to force Pakistan’s military and intelligence to cut support for the Taliban and other Islamist groups. In one of his infamous tweets, the US President wrote, “The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools…They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

The Pakistan aid cut could involve two billion worth of equipment and coalition support funding. Administration sources stated that, “all options are on the table,” including stripping Pakistan of its status as a “major non-NATO ally” or calling in vital IMF loans.

As a direct result of the US pressure, the Pakistani government did not automatically renew for a full year refugee status for some 1.4 million Afghan refugees, instead ordering them to return to Afghanistan by end of January. This, to a country where US bombings have escalated threefold, creating a de facto new destabilization across all Afghanistan.

Another Hidden Agenda

In fact what Washington is doing in both Afghanistan and Pakistan has little if anything to do with restoring a functioning government in Kabul or stabilizing Pakistan, once a close US ally during the 1980’s US-backed Al Qaeda war against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, the CIA Operation Cyclone, using Mujahideen mercenaries it trained and armed in a costly ten year war.

The true aim is geopolitical and is directly aimed at the growing influence of China, in cooperation in part with Russia, in stabilizing Afghanistan and drawing the country, along with Pakistan, into the game-changing Belt, Road Initiative, China’s multi-nation multi-trillion dollar rail and deep water port infrastructure network. China is eager to draw Afghanistan into the China-Pakistan Corridor part of the BRI, for economic reasons as well as to control terrorist groups among China’s Uighur Muslims from China’s Xinjiang province being trained by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

China Invites Afghanistan to Belt, Road Initiative

In fact Washington has never been serious about building genuine democracy in Afghanistan. Rather its priority was building NATO bases deep inside Eurasia to potentially target China and Russia. Another benefit was allowing Taliban and others to grow the world’s largest opium crops, exporting the heroin via US military aircraft via Manas Airbase to create serious addiction problems inside Russia and Central Asia.

The renewed US interest in Afghanistan coincides with the growing efforts of especially China to stabilize Afghanistan following the 2014 US troop withdrawal and using economic development to reduce the breeding ground for radical Muslim terrorism near the border to China’s Muslim Xinjiang province.

In late December Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced that both China and Pakistan are looking to include Afghanistan in their estimated $57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a key rail, highway, port and pipeline corridor of the vast Belt, Road Initiative. He declared, “China and Pakistan are willing to look at with Afghanistan, on the basis of win-win, mutually beneficial principles, using an appropriate means to extend the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to Afghanistan.” That would mark a major stabilization of the entire region where Pakistan and Afghanistan have often been at odds since the US invasion of Kabul in 2001. Such stability in the context of the Belt, Road Initiative would severely weaken US military influence across the entire region.

For its part, the current government in Kabul is very eager to discuss joining China’s Economic Silk Road project. In October, 2017 Kabul hosted a forum of mayors of cities along the historic silk road and discussed the prospects of joining the China project. Among the projects in discussion between China, Pakistan and Afghanistan a Peshawar-Kabul motorway, the Landi Kotal-Jalalabad Railway, the Chaman-Speen Boldak Railway, a hydropower dam on Kunar River, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan electricity transmission line, and the trans-Afghan highway to Central Asia from Peshawar, Pakistan. These projects, along with the Logar-Torkham Railway line, would be a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Clearly this would create a far more stable dynamic than the present US strategy of endless fighting.

At the same time that US President Trump was tweeting aid cuts to Pakistan for allegedly harboring Taliban from Afghanistan, the central bank of Pakistan announced that it would permit trade settlement with China, its largest trade partner, in Chinese yuan, another blow to the domination of the dollar. For its part, the Pakistani government has reacted to the pressure from Washington by suspending all military and intelligence cooperation with the US according to the Pakistani Defense Minister.

Washington these days has little positive to offer to the nations of Afghanistan or Pakistan. Threats, more troops, cuts in aid are not what is gaining the interest of those countries. Economic development is, and there is no development more attractive than that of building infrastructure corridors linking Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and potentially Turkey to China, Russia, select EU economies to create entire new markets and industries. To try to stop this is the real background to Washington’s recent military reversal in Afghanistan and its pressure on Pakistan, not the Taliban.

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

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.

Putin Warns: Foreign Powers Are Trying To Meddle In Russia"s Affairs

Perhaps because he fears retaliation for his government"s deliberate - and unsubstantiated - interference in last year"s US presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin is apparently worried that foreign powers might interfere in Russia’s upcoming federal election. So, nearly a year after US intelligence agencies first blamed Russia for conspiring against their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, and throwing the vote to Trump, Putin is ordering Russia’s security services to “erect a safe barrier” to prevent foreign powers from meddling in federal elections set for March.

In a speech to security and intelligence personnel on Wednesday, Putin urged everybody in attendance to work tirelessly to try and prevent foreign influence from creeping into Russian society and politics, according to Russia Today.

Putin’s request, which is an obvious, if indirect, sleight against the US despite the recent “collusion” between US and Russian intelligence that helped prevent a terror attack in St. Petersburg.

“There is a great responsibility on the intelligence services to erect a safe barrier against external meddling in our social and political life, and to counteract the work of foreign security agencies, which are doing all they can to ramp up their level of activity in Russia,” Putin said.

Russia’s security services should also remain alert as terrorists from Muslim-majority areas of the former Soviet Union return home, and try to carry out attacks in densely populated urban centers.

“Agents must work to destroy the financial and recruitment networks, and to prevent radicals from influencing youths, and spreading the ideology of hate, intolerance, and also aggressive nationalism,” he said.

Earlier this year, Putin said that up to 7,000 Muslims from the former Soviet Union, primarily from predominantly Muslim regions in the Caucuses and Central Asia, had flown to Syria and Iraq to join Islamic State. Since Syrian Army forces - aided by Russian troops and aircraft - drove ISIS out of Syria, many of its former foreign fighters have tried to sneak back into their home countries.
 

Escobar: Vladimir Putin Takes Spotlight As Eurasia Connector

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

At his trademark annual year-end press conference in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin once again let drop selected foreign-policy nuggets essential to understanding what lies ahead on the turbulent Eurasian geopolitical chessboard.

By now it’s well known that Putin will run again in the presidential elections scheduled for March 18 (“it will be self-nomination” and “I hope for the overall support from the public”). The Man in Charge might as well continue to be in charge. So it’s always enlightening to bring down the (spin) noise: sit back, relax, and just listen.

On President Trump: “I am on first-name terms with Trump; yes, we would probably use the familiar ‘you.’ I hope he’ll get the opportunity to improve relations with Russia. Look at the markets, how they have grown. This means that investors trust the US economy, this means they trust what he [Donald Trump] is doing in this field.”

On Russiagate: “What’s so strange about this [diplomats speaking with officials in their host country]? Why do you have this ‘Russian spy’ hysteria?” On accusations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential race, Putin said, “They have been invented by those aiming to delegitimize Trump. These people don’t understand they are undermining their own country – they aren’t showing respect for the Americans [who] voted for Trump.”

On working together with Washington: “Russia and the US can work closely on a range of issues” even given the “well-known limitations” on Trump.

On potential US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty: “We hear about the problems with the INF Treaty. Apparently conditions are being created and an information-propaganda campaign is being run for a possible US withdrawal from the treaty. There is nothing good about a US withdrawal, that [would] be highly detrimental to international security. The US has de facto left the INF Treaty already, with the deployment of the Aegis ashore, but Russia is not going to leave the treaty. We will not be dragged into an arms race.”

Putin stressed that Russia’s defense spending was US$46 billion a year, while the US plans to spend $700 billion in 2018.

On the Arctic: “I have visited [the Arctic archipelago] Franz Josef Land; several years ago foreign guides, accompanying foreign tourist groups, would say that these islands ‘recently’ belonged to Russia. They had forgotten that [Franz Josef Land] is a Russian archipelago, but we reminded them, and at the moment everything is fine. We shouldn’t forget it. Developing all those resources in the Arctic should take place in sync with taking care of the environment … we should not impinge on economic activities of ethnic minorities.”

On Ukraine: “The Kiev authorities have no desire to implement the Minsk agreements, no desire to launch a real political process, the completion of which could be the implementation of an agreement on the special status of the Donbass, which is enshrined in the relevant law of Ukraine, adopted by the Rada [Ukraine’s parliament]. Russians and Ukrainians are basically one people” (the audience is audibly pleased).

On Syria: “The US is not contributing enough to the successful resolution of the Syrian crisis. It is important that none of the participants in this [Syrian peace] process have the desire or temptation to use various terrorist or quasi-terrorist radical groups to achieve their immediate political goals.”

On Iraq: “Let’s say, militants are parting for Iraq. We are telling our US colleagues, ‘Militants have gone this or that way.’ There is no reaction, they [militants] are just leaving. Why? Due to thinking that they could be used in the fight with [Syrian President Bashar] Assad. That’s very dangerous.”

On Russia possibly influencing North Korea to abandon its nuclear program: “Your congressmen, senators look so good, they have beautiful suits, shirts, they are seemingly clever people. They put us alongside North Korea and Iran. At the same time they push the [US] president to persuade us to solve the problems of North Korea and Iran together with you.”

On a nuclear DPRK: “On North Korea, we don’t accept it as a nuclear country. As for the US, it has gone beyond previous deals [with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] … and has provoked North Korea to withdraw from agreements.  I think we heard the US would stop military drills, but no … they didn’t. It is vital to act very carefully when dealing with the DPRK’s nuclear program.”

On China: “I have full confidence that cooperation with China is beyond any political agenda. We will always remain strategic partners, for a long period of time. We have similar approaches to the development of the international system. We are both interested in joint [economic] projects, including integration of OBOR [One Belt One Road] and the Eurasian Union.”

Crafting the integration soundtrack

And that takes us to the heart of the geopolitical New Great Game in Eurasia: the Russia-China strategic partnership, once again reaffirmed, and the deepening of integration between the New Silk Roads, formerly OBOR, now Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAUA).

Putin is clearly positive about the benefits for Russia from this economic interpenetration. He noted how “Russia was able to overcome major crises: the collapse of prices for energy carriers and trade sanctions. But the country is moving in the right direction with a greater focus on domestic production. Our internal trade grew by 3%. This has to mean something.”

Stressing how Moscow is totally on board the BRI, Putin implied how this cooperation extrapolates to both the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) spheres as well; and that’s where we should place Moscow’s current efforts to convince New Delhi – also a BRICS and SCO member – that betting on the BRI favors India’s interests.

As recently as early this week in New Delhi, after a trilateral meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has been adamant: “I know India has problems, we discussed it today, with the concept of One Belt and One Road, but the specific problem in this regard should not make everything else conditional to resolving political issues.”

New Delhi has to be listening, as it was one of Moscow’s staunchest allies during the Cold War.

In a parallel development, Iran is bound to join the EAEU as early as February, according to Behrouz Hassanolfat, director of the Europe and Americas Department of Iran’s Trade Promotion Organization, as quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).

As Asia Times has reported, India and Iran are getting more in sync economically via a parallel Silk Road to Central Asia centered on the port of Chabahar. Iran is also an essential BRI hub, and now will become an EAEU hub as well.

As much as Beijing in relation to its BRI, Moscow has been on a charm offensive to enlarge the EAEU. Turkey – already on board the BRI – is a possible EAEU candidate for the near future, as well as India and Pakistan.

Even as Putin at his presser once again advanced the cause of these multiple cross-pollinations of Eurasian integration, India sometimes may give the impression of being the odd partner out. New Delhi has just hosted the first ASEAN-India Connectivity Summit, which can be interpreted as an attempt to go against the BRI. Yet the emergence of an anti-China bloc across Southeast Asia seems far-fetched.

In parallel, Moscow certainly does not welcome a somewhat evolving “Indo-Pacific” US/India/Japan alliance. The undercurrent narrative in Putin’s script could not be more crystal clear: The roadmap for Eurasia integration is all about the coming together of the BRI, EAEU, the SCO and BRICS.

The NSR Project is Strengthening Kazakhstan-Chinese Cooperation

In recent years there has been considerable development in Sino-Kazakh relations. Trade, tourism and cultural interaction are all actively developing between the two countries. Territorial proximity and a common border with a length of almost 1.8 thousand km, an ancient history of relations between the Chinese and Kazakh people, active development in the industries and economies of both countries – all of these things create the conditions for successful cooperation.

Another reason for the success of Sino-Kazakh relations is cooperation between the two countries in the implementation of the infrastructure project the “New Silk Road” (NSR), initiated by China in 2013.

NSR, part of the global Chinese project “One Belt, One Road”, involves the creation of a unified land transport system for conveyance between Europe and Asia. The basis of this system is an extensive and branching network of railways. As a result of the project, one of the NSR’s so-called “Eurasian land bridges” will go through Kazakhstan, through which a large flow of cargo and passengers from East and Southeast Asia will reach Europe and the Middle East. The route through Kazakhstan is very convenient for the East-West railway of Eurasia thanks to its great length in this direction and relatively smooth terrain. Also beneficial for NSR is the fact that Kazakhstan borders China, Russia (which another “Eurasian land bridge” goes through), Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and it has access to the Caspian Sea. Finally, the existing rail network is of great importance in Kazakhstan, along with railway systems of neighbouring countries. Trains from China can head to Europe (through Russia) and the Middle East through Kazakhstan’s railways, thanks to the “Kazakh-Turkmen-Iranian” railway, which was officially opened in December 2013. Cargo delivered via this railway to Iran can cross to other Middle Eastern countries, as well as to India and Africa by sea via ports in the Persian Gulf.

All this makes Kazakhstan one of the China’s key partners in the NSR project. For Kazakhstan, participation in NSR is also very beneficial as well, given their own plans for infrastructure development under the economic development program “Nurly Zhol”. In 2014, Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev addressed the Kazakh nation with a message, “Nurly Zhol – Path to the Future”. In it, he announced plans for overcoming the consequences of the global economic crisis and outlined a long-term strategy for the economic development of Kazakhstan. Special attention was paid to the development of the country’s transport infrastructure. Soon, on the basis of N. Nazarbayev’s message, a state program of infrastructure development “Nurly Zhol” was created for 2015-2019. It is reported that its main objective is to build effective infrastructure on the hub principle of integrating regions of Kazakhstan and forming a common economic market. The Kazakh state program of infrastructure development is conveniently also included in the NSR, which allows the implementation of “Nurly Zhol” with Chinese support.

The linking of Chinese and Kazakh railway systems is proceeding rapidly. Transit traffic through Kazakhstan in the direction from China to Europe has already exceeded 1 thousand flights per year. The Middle East is also developing. In January 2016, the first trial container train was launched via “China – Kazakhstan – Turkmenistan – Iran” (CKTI) from the city of Yiwu (China). This international transport corridor, the total length of which is about 10 thousand km, includes the above-mentioned “Kazakh–Turkmen–Iranian” railway which ends in the Iranian capital Tehran. The whole journey took 16 days, which is almost twice as fast as a normal delivery of goods from Asia to Europe by sea.

In April 2016 in Beijing, a presentation took place on the CKTI railway corridor, attended by representatives of the embassies of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to China, senior officials of the PRC and the China Railway Corporation. It was announced that the CKTI route has proven its effectiveness and holds great potential for both economies to develop each country as well as for the NSR project. However, it was stated that for CKTI to function at full force, work on building infrastructure in countries along the corridor needed to be accelerated and customs procedures at their borders simplified.

The next trains from China to Iran travelled along the CKTI in 2017. These trains delivered hundreds of tons of various Chinese-manufactured products worth several million dollars to Iran. In total throughout 2017 eight such trains were sent.

Now work is actively being carried out to increase cargo traffic between all the countries involved in CKTI. At the end of November 2017 a meeting was held of railway workers from Kazakhstan, China, Iran and Turkmenistan. One of the main issues discussed at the meeting was the organization of regular container transport along CKTI and setting competitive rates. Operators responsible for the transportation were appointed. The volume of transit traffic to Iran is planned to increase to up to 20 thousand containers a year.

The volume of transit traffic through Kazakhstan in the China to Europe direction is also planned to increase. In 2018, it could rise by 75%, reaching 350 thousand containers in both directions. By 2020, 800 thousand containers per year are expected to transit between Europe and China.

Cooperation in the construction of the NSR and the development of transportation is stimulating Sino-Kazakh cooperation in many sectors. The total trade volume between the two countries has grown in 2016-2017 by 29% to 31% according to various sources, and exceeds $6.5 billion according to Kazakh experts. It should also be noted that in 2017 over 250 thousand Chinese tourists visited Kazakhstan, which is also a result of cooperation in the transport sector.

Thus, we can conclude that relations between China and Kazakhstan are developing quite successfully, and the NSR project is playing an important role in this. In the near future, freight traffic is expected to grow on Kazakhstan’s existing railway networks, as well as along the road corridor from Western Europe to Western China, the Kazakh section of which was recently completed. It will further strengthen Kazakhstan’s role in a Chinese infrastructure project and will further strengthen Chinese-Kazakh cooperation.

Dmitry Bokarev, political commentator, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

OBOR and the Terrorist Threat in China

As is well known, international terrorism is a threat to the whole world. But this problem is particularly acute today in Asia, and China is no exception. In spite of being one of the most successful Asian States, PRC also has internal conflicts which are a breeding ground for terrorism.

China consists of many regions inhabited by peoples of different cultures and traditions, and separatist sentiment periodically intensifies in some of these regions. Currently first of all it is the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in Northwest China, or East Turkistan as it is also called by local advocates for separation from China. It is the largest Chinese region by area with a relatively small (by Chinese standards) population of about 22 million people. About 50% of the population in Xinjiang are Uygurs, a Turkic nation who practise Sunni Islam. Many of them dislike the Chinese, who are actively settling in the region as the result of a Beijing initiative.

Xinjiang has an ancient and complex history. At various times, independent states came into being in the region, and these states later joined larger entities, including the Chinese Empire at various periods of its history. Throughout the XVIII-XX centuries, the Uygurs revolted against Chinese rule about four hundred times. The current Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China was formed in 1955.

In 1993, radical Uygur Islamists created the armed group, the “Turkistan Islamic Movement” (TIM), which aims for the establishment of Xinjiang as an independent state governed by Sharia law as well as the spread of Islam in China. TIM has begun to cooperate with terrorist organizations from other countries, such as the Taliban operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan” and others.

Since 2001 TIM is headquartered in Waziristan, an unrecognized state in Pakistan. Since the mid-2000s TIM has been known as the “Turkistan Islamic Party” (TIP) and has established contacts with al-Qaeda, one of the most powerful international terrorist organizations. Over the years, TIM/TIP has assumed responsibility for over 200 acts of terrorism.

Actions of the TIP are supported by the Uygur population of Xinjiang since amongst Uygurs, it is widely believed that Muslims should not be ruled by anyone who do not believe in Islam. Chinese laws restricting the birth rate are an additional strain on local society as Uygurs believe that these laws contradict Muslim traditions.

The Chinese leadership in turn considers these traditions to be the basis for separatist beliefs and a hindrance to domestic policy and to the harmonious coexistence of the peoples of China and the state system. As a result, the authorities seek to control its citizens’ religious life. It is now forbidden to go to mosques in Xinjiang if you are under 18 or a civil servant. University students outwardly displaying their religion can also encounter problems. The holding of religious ceremonies, nomination of the clergy and the content of sermons should all be consistent with state religious committees.

As a result, a tense situation has existed for a long time in the Xinjiang region, control of which requires considerable effort on the part of PRC authorities. It should be noted that not only repressive measures are applied. Beijing is making large investments in the development of this region. Residents are benefitting financially from the active development of tourism in the XUAR. An extensive network of high-quality roads has been built. In addition, the Chinese global infrastructure project “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) should constitute an additional contribution to the prosperity of the region. One of the “Eurasian land bridges” (the most important rail routes connecting Europe and Asia) goes through the XUAR, which should gain from the transit of goods, infrastructure development and the emergence of new jobs as the implementation of the OBOR continues.

However, despite economic development, the situation in the region escalates. Experts attribute increased terrorist activity to the war in Syria. As mentioned, Uygur terrorists have links with other groups in South Asia and the Middle East, including those currently fighting in Syria, where Uygurs are fighting among the ranks of Daesh. It is likely that participation in the war on the side of Islamist groups has allowed Uygur militants to count on their support in Xinjiang.

The greatest concern of the Chinese authorities is Uygur links with Daesh, an expansive organisation with vast ambitions covering the whole world. Islamist groups across the globe, including Africa, Europe and South-East Asia swear allegiance to the last. Daesh shows a great interest in the countries of South and Central Asia, including Xinjiang. They plan to include these lands in a caliphate, uniting Muslims around the world. Despite the fact that Daesh has been defeated in Syria, the terrorist organization is looking for a new place to focus on.

In August 2016, there was an attack on the Chinese Embassy in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek. The perpetrator of the attack was an ethnic Uygur who, it turned out, had links with Syrian terrorists. Another Uygur who shot customers atReina night club in Istanbul on 1 January 2017 had the same ties to Syria. Daesh took responsibility for the attack.

In February 2017, a video appeared on the internet in which Daesh militants of Uygur origin promise to return home and “take revenge on China for its oppression”.

One can therefore conclude that some Uygur terrorists have established strong relationships with the Daesh, one of the most violent terrorist groups in the world. This brings the terrorist threat in China to a new level.

The Uygurs’ desire to receive help from international terrorists in the struggle for the independence of Xinjiang is understandable. However, the question remains: why should Daesh need to go to Xinjiang? It is unlikely that the participation of hundreds of Uygurs in the Syrian conflict is worthy of such gratitude. Of course, Daesh have their own goals in Xinjiang, but the creation of a “united caliphate” that includes the whole of Central Asia currently seems impossible even to them. Daesh’s current aim, or rather the aim of those standing in the shadows of this organization, the Western and Islamist “puppet masters”, may well be the failure of the OBOR project or at least the part that is associated with the Middle East and Central Asia.

It is self-evident that construction of transport infrastructure and transport of large volumes of freight require peace and tranquillity. This is why China cooperates with all the countries involved in OBOR on security, and supports legitimate governments in the fight against illegal armed groups. Among these countries are Afghanistan (which the Taliban, al-Qaeda and Daesh consider “their” territory), Pakistan (where the Taliban also feels at home), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (which is also in Daesh’s sphere of interest). In accordance with the demands of the OBOR project, all participating countries should be united by a network of railways, which shall connect to Chinese network in Xinjiang. Construction of railway infrastructure, an increase in regional trade, the emergence of new jobs and the welfare of the population all contribute to the weakening of terrorists in all these countries.

We can therefore conclude that the Chinese OBOR project, created with the purpose of uniting the transport and economic systems of all the countries of Europe, Asia and Africa, was perceived by international terrorist groups and certain anti-China forces as a threat, and to combat OBOR they decided to use the radical feelings of Xinjian’s population.

Without a doubt, their understanding that OBOR is making China a target for terrorists, has forced China to take a more active part in ensuring international security. In August 2016, the first foreign military base of China in Djibouti (an African state on the shores of Bab-El-Mandeb Strait, a strategically important maritime link between Europe and Asia) was opened. War-torn Somalia and Yemen, where Daesh are also based, are now within range of the Chinese military in Djibouti.

At the end of November 2017 China decided to send troops to Syria to fight Uygur militants fighting for Daesh. This decision, uncharacteristic of China’s normal policy, could indicate serious concerns related to the terrorist threat.

It is difficult to predict how the involvement of China in the Syrian conflict will affect the situation in Xinjiang and the future of the OBOR project. It can only be hoped that, as before, China will be able to maintain a reasonable balance between coercive and economic methods, and that the situation in the region does not worsen still.

Dmitry Bokarev, political commentator, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

Iran Joins EAEU - 45 Years Of US Foreign Policy Down The Drain

Authored by Tom Luongo,

Iran is joining the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). By early next year, February by this account, Iran will join the five founding members of the Union and open the door for Turkey to do so later in 2018.

Between this and the end of the war in Syria, it’s not hard to declare the Brzezinski Doctrine of U.S.-led Central Asian chaos as gasping its last breaths.

Iran finally joining the EAEU is a response to a number of factors, the most important of which is the continued belligerence by the U.S. Expanded economic sanctions on Iran and the EAEU’s leader Russia has created the need for greater coordination of economic and foreign policy objectives between them.

And it is creating the new realities in the region that will reshape the word for the next hundred years.

The Nuclear Gambit

In the dying days of the Obama administration it looked like the goal was to placate Iran to stop its pivot towards Russia and China. I believe that was the driving force behind Obama’s negotiating the controversial nuclear deal.

In effect, Obama tried to trade unfreezing Iran’s hundreds of billions in assets held in Western banks for Iran to ignore our atomization of Syria and the creation of a complete mess there.

When you stop to think about it like that how venal are we? After putting Iran under economic lockdown, having frozen its accounts, barring them from interbank communication with customers (SWIFT removal), inducing hyperinflation to sow regime change they would agree to allowing its ally, Syria, to be handed over to Wahabist animals.

In exchange they would repudiate Russisa and be thankful for the opportunity to get their money back by signing a deal which forbade them from obtaining nuclear weapons?

Such is the ‘logic’ of the mental midgets running our foreign policy under Obama.

So, now, having assisted Russia and the Syrian army in defeating ISIS Iran is making the smart move by further integrating its economy in need of diversification and investment by joining an economic union which should align all of Central Asia’s interests along a similar path.

Chaos no longer. Zbigniew Brzezinski isn’t just dead, his strategy is as well.

Left to the likes of Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain and the dimbulbs of the Bush the Lesser administration before them, these buffoons were outplayed at every turn by Vladimir Putin, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

And the world will soon be a better place for it.

The Status Whoa!

Everything about the status quo of the last thirty years is changing. Syria has made it clear to everyone that the U.S. is no longer infallible. In fact, it is close to incompetent in both military and diplomatic efficacy.

The Russian intervention exposed the real roots of the conflict as well as the lengths to which our leadership would lie, cheat and steal to achieve its chaotic regional goals. President Trump is changing the direction of this ship of state, but it is a slow process being fought at every level by those embedded in departments up and down the bureaucracy.

That said, Iran’s entry into the EAEU as a full member will break open the floodgates of new members into it. Russia has been courting everyone around the region as the EAEU members work on the rules and build the organization.

Adding Iran should see the union grow quickly and help facilitate China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects get completed.

Taking that one-step further, the bigger picture comes into focus with the establishment of the New Development Bank to challenge the U.S.-led Asian Development Bank, to fund infrastructure projects.

With the flurry of big projects announced recently, including the new version of the IPI – Iran/Pakistan/India – gas pipeline this announcement isn’t so much a diplomatic coup for Putin and Russia but rather a fait accompli.

It was always a matter of when not if Iran would join the EAEU. And with it on board, countries like India, Pakistan and Turkey can join and know that they have a level playing field on which to trade which will dampen down animosities and lingering disputes.

Peak U.S.

As Federico Pieraccini points out this morning at Strategic Culture Foundation, even the tensions between India and China have calmed down as it becomes obvious to all and sundry that the U.S. is simply neither willing under Trump nor able to maintain its dominance over central Asia anymore.

In this sense, the lack of interest from the Trump administration in certain areas of the globe is emblematic. While the chemistry between Trump and Modi appears to be good, the tensions between India and China, heightened by border disputes, seems to have nevertheless dissolved. Following on from the failure of the neocons to divide Russia and China, even the border tensions between India and China seem to be now dissipating. In addition, in Ukraine, even the decision to send lethal weapons to Kiev has been downplayed, and the country now faces a counter-coup led by Saakashvili (yes, him again). Ukraine is a country in a mess, experiencing first-hand the consequences of an evil Atlanticist posture with its vicious anti-Russia policies.

Pieraccini’s argument is the Trump is a mix of ineptitude and pragmatism when it comes to foreign policy. And that mix has led to the current state of affairs, where the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia are flailing about trying to remain relevant.

I won’t go nearly that far, as those countries all still have a powerful hand of cards to play, if only to stabilize most of what they currently have. And they will play those cards to the hilt in the creation of something approaching peace.

But, Iran is charting a new path, turning away from the open wounds in the West and towards the opportunities that lie all about them in every other direction. As I’ve been saying recently, the framework for a Grand Bargain in the Middle East is possible. And Iran joining the EAEU is a strong indicator that it wants to join the larger world economy as a trustworthy actor.

Putin has become the de facto negotiator for those allied against Israel and Trump is stepping up to do so for Israel. Once that deal is in place and Trump agrees to remove U.S. military presence in most of the region, then we’ll begin to see what the world can look like without manufactured conflict.