Blackouts and Flashpoints in 2018: Who Rules America, Globalization and Geopolitics

By Prof. James Petras

The prophets and forecasters for the coming year have already set out their global vision ranging from rising economies to catastrophic global wars.

I want to argue from a different perspective, focusing on the increasing subdivision of markets, the deepening autonomy of political action from economic development, the greater threat of military interventions and increasing political accommodation.  I believe that we will experience a radical making and remaking of political and economic integration, East and West, within and without nations states.  ‘States Rights’ will re-emerge as an antidote to globalization.  Big countries will compete in regional wars with limited commitments but with global goals.

Catastrophic developments are unlikely but radical incremental changes will be frequent and have cumulative consequences.

To understand these important trends, it is important to analyze and discuss the major national actors in this panorama – starting with the United States.

Trends in the US

The present and near future of the US is and is not about the Trump Presidency and its domestic opposition.

The struggles between the Congress and the President have not produced major changes in the global position of the United States.  The US continues to impose sanctions on Russia, Iran and Venezuela.  Its trade with China grows.  The military exercises and threats against North Korea raise the specter of nuclear war.  In other words, incremental and inconsequential activity accompany the fiery rhetoric. Corporate economic policies benefit from the state’s largesse, but are divorced from everyday politics. What is most significant, ‘markets’ have fragmented or disconnected: Stocks rise, but productivity stagnates. Corporate debt skyrockets, but high tech profits boom. Exports and imports move in opposite directions. Jobs increase and wages decrease.

There are one, two, many markets, each operating on similar principles, all deepening the concentration of wealth and the interlock of corporate directorates.

Just as there are several markets, there are multiple centers of political leadership. Specifically, the US is a multi-polar ‘Presidency’. For all the talk about ‘Trump’, policy and strategy are defined, promoted and opposed in many centers of decision making. In general terms, the intelligence, military, media, financial, legislative, trade and international policy elites are mired in rivalries as well as temporary alliances, making strange bed-fellows. Moreover, new international power configurations have entered and appropriated positions of power.

Rulership

Who rules America?  This question should be rephrased to take into account the plurality of authoritarian self-serving elites totally divorced from the majority of the manipulated public.

Nominal ‘President’ Trump shifts foreign policy decisions according to the interests of multiple domestic and overseas power centers. Trump argues against and is opposed to multilateral trade agreements while favoring unilateral, US-centered pacts. Despite his rhetoric, nothing of the sort has emerged. Trade with Asia, Europe and Latin America has increased. China, Japan, India, Germany, Korea, Canada and Mexico remain centers for US exports and imports. Bankers, multinational corporations, Silicon Valley billionaires continue to over-ride Trump’s stated agenda.

Trump argued for reconciliation with Russia and was threatened with impeachment. The Congress, the intelligence agencies, the legislature and NATO contradict, reverse and redirect the US both toward and away from nuclear confrontations.

Trump proposes to renegotiate trade with Asia, particularly with South Korea, Japan and China.

Russia's Real Endgame

Authored by James Rickards via The Daily Reckoning,

Russia’s Putin has never taken his eye off the ball. His ambition is not global hegemony or European conquest. Putin seeks what Russia has always sought: regional hegemony and a set of buffer states in eastern Europe and central Asia that can add to Russia’s strategic depth.

It is strategic depth - the capacity to suffer massive invasions and still survive due to an ability to retreat to a core position and stretch enemy supply lines - that enabled Russia to defeat both Napoleon and Hitler. Putin also wants the modicum of respect that would normally accompany that geostrategic goal.

Understanding Putin is not much more complicated than that.

In the twenty-first century, a Russian sphere of influence is not achieved by conquest or subordination in the old Imperial or Communist style. It is achieved by close financial ties, direct foreign investment, free trade zones, treaties, security alliances, and a network of associations that resemble earlier versions of the EU.

Russian military intervention in Crimea and eastern Ukraine is best understood not as a Russian initiative, but as a Russian reaction. It was a response to U.S. and U.K. efforts to attack Russia by pushing aggressively and prematurely for Ukraine membership in NATO. This was done by deposing a Putin ally in Kiev in early 2014.

This is not to justify Russia’s actions, merely to put them in a proper context. The time to peel off Ukraine for NATO was 1999, not 2014.

The Russian-Ukraine situation is a subset of the broader U.S.-Russian relationship. Here, the opposition comes not just from domestic opponents but from the globalist elite.

The Globalist Roots of Today’s Brewing Conflict

Globalization emerged in the 1990s as a consequences of the end of the Cold War and the reunification of Germany. For the first time since 1914, Russia, China and their respective empires could join the U.S., Western Europe and their former colonies in Latin America and Africa in a single global market.

Globalization relied on open borders, free trade, telecommunications, global finance, extended supply chains, cheap labor and freedom of the seas. Globalization as it existed from 1990 to 2007 made steady progress under the Bush-Clinton duopoly of power in the U.S. and like-minded leaders elsewhere. The enemy of globalization was nationalism, but nationalism was nowhere in sight.

The financial crisis of 2007–2008, caused by the elites’ own greed and inability to grasp the statistical properties of risk that was covered in Strategic Intelligence, put an end to the easy gains from globalization.

Ironically, globalization gained in the short-run despite financial calamity. The same elites who created disaster were empowered to “fix” the situation under the auspices of the G20 Leaders’ Summit. This global rescue began with the first G20 summit hastily organized by George W. Bush and Nicolas Sarkozy, then the President of France, in November 2008.

Despite the financial bailouts and central bank easy money of the decade following the crisis, robust self-sustaining growth in line with pre-crisis trends never returned. Instead the world suffered through a ten-year depression (defined as depressed below-trend growth), which continues to this day.

What little growth emerged was captured mostly by the wealthy, which led to the greatest income inequality levels seen in over 80 years.

Discontent was palpable in middle-class and working class populations in the world’s major developed economies. This discontent morphed into political action. The result was the U.K. decision to leave the EU, called “Brexit,” the election of Donald Trump, and the rise of politicians such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Marine Le Pen in France, among others.

Nationalism Strikes Back at the Global Elites

What unites these politicians and political movements is nationalism. This can be defined as a desire to put national interests ahead of globalization. Nationalism can mean closing borders, restricting free trade to help local employment, fighting back against cheap labor and dumping with tariffs and trade adjustment assistance, and rejecting multilateral trade deals in favor of bilateral negotiations.

This brings us to the crux of the U.S.-Russia relationship.

Simply put, Putin and Trump are the two most powerful nationalists in the world. Any rapprochement between Russia and the U.S. is an existential threat to the globalist agenda.

This explains the vitriolic, hysterical, and relentless attacks on Trump and Putin. The globalists have to keep Trump and Putin separated in order to have any hope of reviving the globalist agenda.

Just as Trump and Putin are the champions of nationalism, President Xi Jinping of China and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany have emerged as the champions of the globalist camp. Understanding this dynamic requires consideration of the paradoxical roles of Xi and Merkel.

Xi positions himself as the leading advocate of globalization. The truth is more complex. President Xi is the most nationalist of all major leaders. He continually puts China’s long-term interests first without particular regard for the well-being of the rest of the world.

But, China’s military and economic weakness, and potential social instability, require it to cooperate with the rest of the world on trade, climate change, and supply-chain logistics in order to grow. Xi is in a paradoxical position of being nationalist to the core, yet wearing a globalist veneer in order to pursue the nationalist long game.

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany is also in a paradoxical position — but the opposite of Xi’s role. Merkel knows Germany must embrace globalism both because of its unique historical burden of being the source of three major wars (Franco-Prussian, World War I, and World War II), and the necessity of German integration with the EU and Eurozone. At the same time, Merkel has advanced her globalist agenda by promoting German interests through exports and cheap foreign labor.

For the globalists, the world breaks down into Manichean struggle between the nationalists, Trump and Putin, and the globalists, Xi and Merkel. Globalists may be playing a two-sided game of nationalists versus globalists, but they need to widen the aperture to see that the world today is really a three-party game.

There are really only three superpowers in the world today — Russia, China and the U.S. All other nations are secondary or tertiary powers who may be aligned with a superpower, neutral or independent, but who otherwise lack the ability to impose their will on others.

Some analysts may be surprised to see Russia on the superpower list, but the facts are indisputable. Russia is the twelfth largest economy in the world, has the largest landmass, is one of the three largest energy producers in the world, has abundant natural resources other than oil, has advanced weapons and space technology, an educated workforce and, of course, has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons of any country.

Russia has enormous problems including adverse demographics, limited access to oceans, harsh weather, and limited fertile soil. Yet, none of these problems negate Russia’s native strengths.

Notwithstanding the prospect of improved relations, Putin remains the geopolitical chess master he has always been. His long game involves the accumulation of gold, development of alternative payments systems, and ultimate demise of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

Unite and Rule: EU As NATO's Auxiliary Economic Alliance

Authored by Nauman Sadiq via Oriental Review,

According to a recent infographic by New York Times, 79,000 US troops have currently been deployed in Europe out of 210,000 total US troops stationed all over the world, including 47,000 in Germany, 15,000 in Italy and 17,000 in the rest of Europe. By comparison, the number of US troops stationed in Afghanistan is only 8,400 which is regarded as an occupied country. Thus, Europe is nothing more than a backyard of corporate America.

Both NATO and EU were conceived during the Cold War to offset the influence of Soviet Union in Europe. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991 and the Maastricht Treaty that consolidated the European Community and laid the foundations of the European Union was signed in February 1992.

The basic purpose of the EU has been nothing more than to lure the formerly communist states of the Eastern and Central Europe into the folds of the Western capitalist bloc by offering incentives and inducements, particularly in the form of agreements to abolish internal border checks between the EU member states, thus allowing the free movement of labor from the impoverished Eastern Europe to the prosperous countries of the Western Europe.

No wonder then, the neoliberal political establishments, and particularly the deep state of the US, are as freaked out about the outcome of Brexit as they were during the Ukrainian Crisis in November 2013, when Viktor Yanukovych suspended the preparations for the implementation of an association agreement with the European Union and tried to take Ukraine back into the folds of the Russian sphere of influence by accepting billions of dollars of loan package offered by Vladimir Putin to Ukraine.

In this regard, the founding of the EU has been similar to the case of Japan and South Korea in the Far East where 45,000 and 28,500 US troops have currently been deployed, respectively, according to the aforementioned infographic.

After the Second World War, when Japan was about to fall in the hands of geographically-adjacent Soviet Union, the Truman Administration authorized the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to subjugate Japan and also to send a signal to the leaders of the Soviet Union, which had not developed their nuclear program at the time, to desist from encroaching upon Japan in the east and West Germany in Europe.

Then, during the Cold War, American entrepreneurs invested heavily in the economies of Japan and South Korea and made them model industrialized nations to forestall the expansion of communism in the Far East.

Similarly, after the Second World War, Washington embarked on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe with an economic assistance of $13 billion, equivalent to hundreds of billions of dollars in the current dollar value. Since then, Washington has maintained its military and economic dominance over Western Europe.

Notwithstanding, there is an essential stipulation in the European Union’s charter of union according to which the developing economies of Europe that joined the EU allowed free movement of goods (free trade) only on the reciprocal condition that the developed countries would allow free movement of labor.

What’s obvious in this stipulation is the fact that the free movement of goods, services and capital only benefits the countries that have a strong manufacturing base, and the free movement of people only favors the developing economies where labor is cheap.

Now, when the international financial institutions, like the IMF and WTO, promote free trade by exhorting the developing countries all over the world to reduce tariffs and subsidies without the reciprocal free movement of labor, whose interests do such institutions try to protect? Obviously, they try to protect the interests of their biggest donors by shares, i.e. the developed countries.

Regardless, while joining the EU, Britain compromised on the rights of its working class in order to protect the interests of its bankers and industrialists, because free trade with the rest of the EU countries spurred British exports.

The British working classes overwhelmingly voted in the favor of Brexit because after Britain’s entry into the EU and when the agreements on abolishing internal border checks between the EU member states became effective, the cheaper labor force from the Eastern and Central Europe flooded the markets of Western Europe; and consequently, the wages of native British workers dropped and it also became difficult for them to find jobs, because foreigners were willing to do the same job for lesser pays.

Hence, raising the level of unemployment among the British workers and consequent discontentment with the EU. The subsequent lifting of restrictions on the Romanians and Bulgarians to work in the European Union in January 2014 further exacerbated the problem and consequently, the majority of the British electorate voted in a June 2016 referendum to opt out of the EU.

The biggest incentive for the British working class to vote for Brexit has been that the East European workers will have to leave Britain after its exit from the EU, and the jobs will once again become available with better wages to the native British workforce.

Although the EU’s labor provisions ensure adequate wages and safeguard the rights of workers, but the British working class chose to quit the EU on the basis of demand and supply of labor. With East European workers out of the country, the supply of labor will reduce hence increasing the demand. The native British workforce can then renegotiate better terms and conditions from the owners of industries and businesses, and it will also ensure ready availability of jobs.

Regardless, instead of lamenting the abysmal failure of globalization and neoliberal economic policies, we need to ask a simple question that why do workers choose to leave their homes and hearths, and families and friends in their native countries and opt to work in a foreign country? They obviously do it for better wages.

In that case, however, instead of offering band aid solutions, we need to revise the prevailing global economic order and formulate prudent and far-reaching economic and trade policies that can reduce the imbalance of wealth distribution between the developed and developing nations, hence reducing the incentive for immigrant workers to seek employment in the developed countries.

Free movement of workers only benefits a small number of individuals and families, because the majority of workforce is left behind to rot in their native developing countries where economy is not doing as well as in the developed world, thanks to the neoliberal economic policies. A comprehensive reform of the global economic and trade policies, on the other hand, will benefit everyone, except the bankers, industrialists and the beneficiaries of the existing neoliberal world order.

More to the point, the promotion of free trade by the mainstream neoliberal media has been the norm in the last several decades, but the implementation of agreements to abolish internal border controls between the EU member states has been an unprecedented exception.

Free trade benefits the industrialized nations of the EU, particularly Germany and to some extent the rest of the developed economies of the Western Europe; but the free movement of labor benefits the cheaper workforce of the impoverished Eastern and Central Europe.

The developed economies of the Western Europe would never have acceded to the condition of free movement of labor that goes against their economic interests; but the political establishment of the US, which is the hub of corporate power and wields enormous influence in the Western capitalist bloc, must have persuaded the unwilling states of the Western Europe to yield to the condition against their national interests, in order to wean away the formerly communist states of the Eastern and Central Europe from the Russian influence.

Had there been any merit to the founding of the EU, the Western Europe would have promptly accepted Turkey’s request to join the EU. But they kept delaying the issue of Turkish membership to the EU for decades, because with a population of 78 million, Turkey is one of the most populous countries in Eurasia.

Millions of Turks working in Germany have already become a burden on the welfare economy of their host country. Turkey’s accession to the EU would have opened the floodgates of immigrant workers seeking employment in the Western Europe.

Moreover, Turkey is already a member of the NATO and a longstanding and reliable partner of the Western powers; while the limited offer to join the EU, as I have already described, serves as an inducement to the formerly communist states of the Eastern and Central Europe to forswear their allegiance to Russia and to become the strategic allies of the Western powers.

Thus, all the grandstanding and moral posturing of unity and equality of opportunity aside, the hopelessly neoliberal institution, the EU, in effect, is nothing more than the civilian counterpart of the Western military alliance against the erstwhile Soviet Union, the NATO, that employs a much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare to win over political allies and to isolate the adversaries that dare to sidestep from the global trade and economic policy as laid down by the Western capitalist bloc.

Finally, the fabled divide-and-rule policy that has been deployed by imperialist powers to weaken resistance movements against imperialism in their former colonies is a historically proven fact, but at the same time, neocolonial powers also use unite-and-rule strategy to create friendly alliances and to institute a centralized command and control structure in order to buttress the global neocolonial world order.

A War On Globalism

Have you ever wondered why Donald Trump is so deeply hated by the elite?  It isn’t because he is a Republican.  In fact, there are lots of Republicans out there that the elite absolutely love.  The truth is that the reason the elite have such deep animosity toward Trump is because he is fighting their globalist agenda.  When Trump talks about a border wall or a travel ban, the elite hate that because they ultimately want a world where national borders have been made meaningless.  And when Trump talks about tearing up trade agreements that really freaks them out because they have been working very hard to try to merge the economies of the planet into a single global economic system.  Worst of all for the globalists was when Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreement.  For decades the elite have been using such international agreements to impose their values on the entire planet, and now the leader of the most powerful nation in the world is standing up to them.

Unfortunately, most of the members of Congress are still embracing the globalist agenda, and this puts them directly at odds with Trump.  So just because someone is a “Republican” does not mean that they care about American sovereignty.  Sadly, sometimes Republicans are actually some of the worst offenders when it comes to pushing globalist causes.

This is why we need a new political war against globalism.  It wasn’t enough just to get Trump into the White House, because the globalists in Congress seem determined to block most of the things that he is trying to do.  So we need to kick the globalists out and replace them with true patriots that truly want to restore our republic.

Most Americans don’t understand that these issues can have a really dramatic impact on their daily lives.  For example, the reason why someone in your extended family may not have a good job right now is because that job was shipped to China.

According to Politifact, more than one study has found that the United States lost more than 60,000 manufacturing facilities after China joined the WTO in 2001…

In 2001, the year China joined the WTO, the Census counted 352,619 manufacturing establishments. In 2014, the most recent year for which data is available, it counted 292,543. That’s a drop of 60,076 over those three years.

Another Census series, its Business Dynamics Statistics, tallied 348,513 manufacturing establishments in 2001 and 274,756 in 2014 — a drop of 73,757 manufacturing establishments.

And another study found that the U.S. lots a whopping 2.4 million manufacturing jobs after China joined the WTO…

A  a 2014 report out of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute found that the U.S. trade deficit with China has cost 2.4 million manufacturing jobs between 2001 and 2013. The report cites illegal Chinese policies that encourage exports and keep labor cheap, as well as a failure of the WTO agreement that endorsed China’s membership to prevent these sorts of actions.

Slowly but surely merging the United States into a global economic system has cost American workers dearly.  Today, American workers have to compete for jobs with workers on the other side of the planet that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  This is driving down wages and eroding the middle class.

The middle class dipped under 50 percent of the U.S. population for the first time ever in 2015, and if current trends continue the middle class will just continue to get smaller and smaller in the years ahead.

But the global elite are not concerned about the middle class.  They love shipping jobs overseas because it enables them to make bigger profits.

Our daily lives are affected by our lack of border security as well.  For decades, globalists in both major parties have been perfectly fine with neglecting border security because ultimately they want national borders to essentially become meaningless.  But this has allowed millions upon millions of people to enter our nation illegally, and communities all over America are suffering the consequences.

For example, there are 150,000 gang members now living in Chicago, and a lot of that growth can be attributed to illegal immigration.  The gang members now outnumber the police by more than 10 to 1, and more illegal immigrants are pouring into Chicago with each passing day.

In other parts of the country, the federal government is forcing local communities to take refugees from the Middle East whether they want them or not.  Here in Idaho, a five-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by three Islamic refugees, but incidents such as this are not going to stop the globalists in Washington from forcing us to take even more.

And we aren’t even supposed to say “Islamic terror” anymore because the global elite are trying to foster “cooperation” between all of the major religions of the world.

If the global elite have their way, America will continue to be merged into a global economic system, a system of “global governance”, and a system of “global religious cooperation”.  International bodies such as the UN and international treaties such as the Paris climate agreement will be used to impose globalist values on literally the entire planet.

If we do not stop the globalists, American sovereignty could eventually be eroded away almost completely.  Yes, the “United States” may still technically exist, but all of the important decisions would potentially be made by a “North American Union” or a “global government”.

The European Union and the African Union are models for what the elite hope to do to the entire world.  Many Americans don’t even know that all 55 nations in Africa belong to the African Union.  And of course the elite eventually hope to unite all of the regions under a single international banner.

If we hope to defeat the globalists, now is the time.  We already have Donald Trump in the White House, and now we need to kick the globalists out of Congress and out of important positions in our government agencies.  We also need to withdraw from a whole host of international agreements that have already significantly eroded American sovereignty.

We will always want to maintain positive working relationships with other nations, but we do not ever want to merge into a single global system.

Our founders risked everything to break free from tyranny and to establish a free and independent republic, and we aren’t about to willingly hand this country over to the globalists now.

Bernie Sanders: Corbyn Surge in UK Proves the World is Rising Up

“People in the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%,” Sanders said.

(COMMONDREAMS) — Responding to the results of the U.K. election, which commentators have already deemed a “political upset” for the ages and a stunning backfire for Prime Minister Theresa May, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday congratulated Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the British people for “rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality.”

People “all over the world” are fighting the same battle, Sanders added, concluding:

“People in the U.K., the U.S. and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1%. I congratulate Jeremy Corbyn for running a very positive and effective campaign.”

Corbyn’s strong run—which culminated in an additional 31 seats for Labour and a hung parliament—was, in many ways, reminiscent of the Sanders “revolution” in the United States, which posed a stark challenge to “the billionaire class” and a political establishment flush with corporate money. Sanders himself drew the comparison between his campaign and Corbyn’s recently on a three-day U.K. speaking tour, during which he praised the Labour leader’s “willingness to talk about class issues.”

“These problems are not unique to the U.S.,” Sanders noted. “Globalization has left far too many people behind. Workers all over the world are seeing a decline in their standard of living. Unfettered free trade has allowed multinational corporations to enjoy huge profits and make the very rich even richer while workers are sucked into a race for the bottom.”

“Globalization has left far too many people behind.” —Sen. Bernie Sanders

Corbyn utilized similar messaging. Under his leadership, the Labour Party this year published one of the most left-wing manifestos in its history, adopting a slogan Sanders backers surely recognized: “For the many, not the few.”

It is unsurprising, then, that British voters were seen donning Sanders apparel as they cast their ballots for Labour.

Peter Bloom, writing for Common Dreams, argued the campaigns of Sanders and Corbyn both successfully harnessed similar forces, and thus “exposed the beginnings of a potentially new political mainstream.”

Bloom concluded:

“Corbyn’s strong campaign is no small political achievement. Historically, he has altered the public discussion on major issues of the economy and foreign policy. He has also shown that a full throttled progressive agenda is not only not suicidal but potentially downright popular.”

For many, Corbyn’s remarkable surge in recent weeks and his performance in an election that was prematurely viewed as a landslide opportunity for the Conservatives is a strong indicator of the electoral viability of left populism and of the strong desire for systemic change.

Corbyn is way to the left of Bernie, smeared more by the media (& Bernie has way more legislative accomplishments). Bernie would have won.

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 9, 2017

UK voters weren"t voting against the US President; they came out to vote FOR progressive policies that build a better future for their kids. https://t.co/bcV9Et2BIe

— Our Revolution (@OurRevolution) June 9, 2017

LONG lines of young voters all across U.K. As w/@BernieSanders, @jeremycorbyn draws a new generation to the polls.https://t.co/bGtrPw6ny9

— John Nichols (@NicholsUprising) June 8, 2017

Pollsters and analysts—even those who had for weeks closely documented Corbyn’s rapid rise in the polls—were openly startled by the results.

“No major left-wing politician had been so often accused of being unelectable—not even Sanders,” wrote the Washington Post‘s Dave Weigel. “All through election night, the BBC and other organs of an infamously Corbyn-skeptical media marveled at how Labour had gained ground.”

In a triumphant rally on Thursday, Corbyn argued that his party’s gains portend a seismic shift in the landscape of British politics.

“Politics has changed,” Corbyn declared as the results rolled in. “Politics isn’t going back into the box where it was before. What’s happened is people have said they’ve had quite enough of austerity politics.”

By Jake Johnson / Creative Commons / Common Dreams / Report a typo

Globalization 2.0: China Ushering in Newer, Shinier New World Order!

By: Corbett Report |

Two weeks ago I discussed the baby steps that China and Russia are taking toward creating an alternative financial infrastructure to the SWIFT Network and the Washington Consensus (read: Wall Street Consensus). The steps may be small, but they’re all going in the same direction: away from a US/NATO-led world order and toward a world where there is a China/Russia-led alternative.

The latest example of this Chinese-led world order will be on display in Beijing in mid-May, when heads of state from 28 different nations convene the first Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation. The forum comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity between China and a bevy of countries along China’s proposed trillion-dollar “Silk Road Economic Belt” and “Maritime Silk Road” known as the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI).

This diplomatic activity, much of which has been making headlines in recent weeks, includes:

• A pledge to deepen cooperation between Greece and China as part of the BRI.


• A commitment to strengthen ties between Egypt and China under the BRI framework.


• An offer to involve India in the BRI, starting with the BRI forum in Beijing next month.


• An agreement between Russia and China to “conjugate” their relationship in the BRI and in the Eurasian Economic Union.


• And even, incredibly, an invitation for the US to join the “symphony” of the BRI and the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

And that’s just the headlines from April. You may not know it if you’re only consuming #fakenews from the western MSM propaganda outlets, but the American-led world order of the post-WWII era is being severely tested right now.

So it looks like freedom is on the march and the globalists are on the run. Right, gang? We’ve got this globalism thing licked! Bye-bye, American Empire and hello, peace, cooperation and stability!

…If only. Sadly, as I stressed last month, these new initiatives aren’t really steps away from globalism, they’re just steps toward the creation of a different global order. Globalization 2.0, if you will.

For free access to this editorial, please CLICK HERE.

TPP is Dead, But It’s About to Be Replaced by Something Much Worse — TISA

The president has a huge PR problem on his hands. How Donald Trump keeps his campaign promise to kill the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and remains on good terms with our Asian allies and trading partners may be as simple as a change in semantics. In other words, he’s simply going to call it another name; The Trade-in-Services Agreement (TISA). And some are saying the deal is much worse than the TPP ever was.

According to the source who has inside documentation, the TISA, “if passed would prohibit regulations on the financial industry, eliminate laws to safeguard online or digital privacy, render illegal any ‘buy local’ rules at any level of government, effectively dismantle any public advantages to be derived from state-owned enterprises and eliminate net neutrality.” Some have said that keeping financial institutions in check has been the only thing preventing another global financial crisis. And while the citizens’ right to privacy is currently somewhat tenuously protected by privacy laws, hardly anyone can imagine the impact losing those privacies would entail.

TISA’s specifics are shrouded in secrecy, with Wikileaks and Bilaterls being the only ones to have published any information related to its details.

According to Counter Punch, “Earlier draft versions of TISA’s language would prohibit any restrictions on the size, expansion or entry of financial companies and a ban on new regulations, including a specific ban on any law that separates commercial and investment banking, such as the equivalent of the U.S. Glass-Steagall Act. It would also ban any restrictions on the transfer of any data collected, including across borders; place social security systems at risk of privatization or elimination; and put an end to Internet privacy and net neutrality.”

READ MORE:  Secret Corporate Government Merger -- Known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- is Finally Dead

Just in case one might be tempted to think the TISA is just hearsay, rumor, or the fodder of conspiracy theorists, the facts are that over 50 countries are actively engaged in negotiations to enact TISA. “The European Union is negotiating TISA on behalf of its 28 member countries, along with, among others, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Norway, Switzerland, Pakistan and Turkey,” according to the documents.

It’s possible some countries are already making moves to allow for the financial takeover. Over the last few months, India has reclaimed most of its currency in circulation by forcing its holders to surrender their currency to the banks or lose their wealth forever. The new currency will replace the old but in order to make the exchange, all cash holding citizens must surrender their bills to the banks to have its value sustained.

According to the Government of Sweden’s fact sheet on TISA, the goal of the agreement is pretty straightforward, largely resembling (for lack of a better analogy) a global NAFTA. They write:

The basic premise is to further develop the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and create a better and more predictable agreement. The aim is for the agreement to eventually be integrated into the WTO. New countries are officially welcome and a number of countries have joined in since the start. If more countries joined, the benefits of TiSA would increase. This would also be a step towards integrating TiSA into the WTO. One key issue is the participation of China, which requested in 2013 to be allowed to take part in the negotiations. China’s entry to TiSA has clear political support from the EU.

TISA’s internet regulations, which have been dubbed “a virtual copy-and-paste out of the TPP’s Electronic Commerce chapter,” will most likely be rammed through by those who stand to gain from it — mega corporations and government who want to control the flow of digital information.

READ MORE:  Despite Relentless Attacks from Frightened U.S. Tyrants, Wikileaks is Back and Bigger than Ever

As the European Digital Rights (EDRi) stated in a letter opposing the Orwellian data measures in TISA:

Fundamental rights must be respected and not negotiated upon. Therefore, data flows–which refer to transfers of individuals’ personal data–must not be part of trade agreements. Trade negotiations are not suitable for shaping rules affecting fundamental rights and the rule of law in a democratic society.

The Globalization Debate (Video)

By EconMatters

We examine the Globalization Debate and its effects on Financial Markets, applying Zero Sum Game Theory, Nuanced Analysis, and Donald Trump`s impact on the global economy in this video. China, Mexico and the Middle East are very fragile right now, and Trump policy has the potential for tipping these areas into an outright recession, and by extension the Global economy into a prolonged recession.

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Jack Ma Accuses The US Of Spending $14 Trillion On War Instead Of Its People

In a CNBC clip, which slipped between the cracks last week,  Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who has been busy trying to get into Donald Trump"s "circle of trust", spoke in Davos and blamed the problems of the United States on the United States itself, as a country which has spent trillions of dollars to wage war, instead of investing in infrastructure and its own people.

Asked by Andrew Ross Sorkin about Trump"s decision to impose new tariffs on Chinese imports to protect domestic American manufacturers, Ma said blaming China for any economic issues in the U.S. is misguided. If America is looking to blame anyone, Ma said, it should blame itself.

"It"s not that other countries steal jobs from you guys," Ma said. "It"s your strategy. Distribute the money and things in a proper way."

According to Ma, the US wasted over $14 trillion in fighting wars over the past 30 years rather than investing in infrastructure at home. Ma named this as the main reason that the US economy is weakening.

Ma was not the only critic of the costly U.S. policies of waging war against terrorism and other enemies outside the homeland, however, the Alibaba founder said this was the reason America"s economic growth had weakened, not China"s supposed theft of jobs. In fact, Ma called outsourcing a "wonderful" and "perfect" strategy.

"The American multinational companies made millions and millions of dollars from globalization," Ma said. "The past 30 years, IBM, Cisco, Microsoft, they"ve made tens of millions — the profits they"ve made are much more than the four Chinese banks put together. ... But where did the money go?"

One answer: a couple of offshore bank accounts, or - now that Rothschild is managing Nevada tax havens - onshore.

He added that the U.S. is not distributing or investing its money properly, and that"s why many people in the country feel wracked with economic anxiety. Ma added that too much money flows to Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Instead, the country should be helping the Midwest, and Americans "not good in schooling," too.

 At least in theory, much of this forms the basis of Trump"s policies. 

"You"re supposed to spend money on your own people," Ma said. "Not everybody can pass Harvard, like me." In a previous interview, CNBC said that Ma said he had been rejected by Harvard 10 times. Along those lines, Ma stressed that globalization is a good thing, but it, too, "should be inclusive," with the spoils not just going to the wealthy few.

"The world needs new leadership, but the new leadership is about working together," Ma said. "As a business person, I want the world to share the prosperity together."

Globalization's Reality - World Trade Has Increased By Less Than 1% Annually In The Last Decade

Submitted by Eric Bush via Gavekal Capital blog,

There are fears that the world is on the precipice of turning back the clock on globalization. In some ways, the case can be made globalization has been retreating since the financial crisis.

One of the strongest supporting data points of that argument is world trade data.

According to the CPB World Trade Monitor, the value of world exports (volume * price) has increased by less than 1% annually since making a high on 7/31/2007 compared to more than a 5% annualized growth rate since 1991 (beginning of the data series).

If we look at just volume data, the story doesn’t improve very much.

World export volume has increased at less than 1.5% annually since 7/31/2007. This is about 1/3 of the annual growth rate world export volumes has increased by since 1991.

Even with extraordinary global monetary easing in the post financial crisis world, world trade has been unable to find the extra gear it hit during the pre-crisis era.

* * *

So next time the mainstream media, economists, and liberal left blame Trump for collapsing world trade, let"s look in that rear-view mirror of reality... and see what global trade did during Obama"s "free trade is awesome" reign.

25 Years Of Neocon-Neoliberalism: Great For The Top 5%, A Disaster For Everyone Else

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

It cannot be merely coincidental that the incomes and wealth of the top 5% have pulled away from the stagnating 95% in the 25 years dominated by neocon-neoliberalism.

One unexamined narrative I keep hearing is: "OK, so neocon-neoliberalism was less than ideal, but Trump could be much worse." Let"s start by asking: would Syrian civilians agree with this assessment? The basic idea in the "OK, so neocon-neoliberalism was less than ideal, but Trump could be much worse" narrative is that the modest problems created by neocon-neoliberalism will pale next to what Trump will do, implying jackbooted Waffen SS troops will soon be marching through America on Trump"s orders.

This narrative is yet another example of American parochialism: since neocon-neoliberalism didn"t cause American cities to be bombed and its institutions demolished, it"s really not that bad.

Try telling that to the Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians who have been on the receiving end of neocon-neoliberalism policies. The reality is very unpleasant: for those targeted by America"s neocon-neoliberalism, nothing worse is imaginable, because the worst has already happened.

The cold reality is America"s 25 years of neocon-neoliberalism has been great for the top 5% and an unmitigated disaster for everyone else in the U.S. and the nations it has targeted for intervention.

Those defending the Democratic Party"s 16 years of neocon-neoliberalism (Clinton and Obama) and the Republican Party"s 8 years of neocon-neoliberalism (Bush) are defending a system that benefited the few at the expense of the many.

Rather than admit the past 25 years have been catastrophic for the bottom 95%, the apologists speak darkly of fantastical visions of a Nazi America as a diversion to the grim truth that they have blindly supported an evil Empire that has stripmined the bottom 95% in America and laid waste to entire nations abroad.

Neoconservatism"s malignant spores hatched in the Reagan years, and spread quickly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Stripped to its essence, Neoconservatism is American Exceptionalism turned into a global entitlement: it"s our right to intervene anywhere in the world we choose to defend what we perceive as our interests, and it"s our right to impose our version of democracy and a market economy on other peoples.

Self-interest melds seamlessly with moral superiority in neocon-neoliberalism. The moral justification is: since ours is the best possible system, we"re doing you a favor by tearing down your institutions and imposing our system on you. The self-interest is: garsh, the "market" we imposed extracts your resources and benefits our banks and corporations. Amazing, isn"t it, how "free markets" benefit everyone?

But not equally. The claim of neoliberalism is: everything is transformed for the better when it is turned into a market. Once buyers and sellers can meet in a transparent marketplace, everybody prospers and everything becomes more efficient.

Stripped to its essence, neoliberalism is: the markets we set up are rigged to favor those at the top. All that talk about free markets is just public-relations cover to mask an intrinsically rigged quasi-market that has features of "real" markets while beneath the surface, it"s rigged to the advantage of big players at the top of the wealth-power pyramid.

Neoconservatism and neoliberalism are both inherently global, and so globalization is the necessary outcome. There is no market that cannot be skimmed for outsized profits once it has been globalized, and so once bat guano becomes a global tradeable commodity, Goldman Sachs establishes a bat guano trading desk. (This is a spoof, but you get the point.)

Neoconservatism entitles the U.S. to have an "interest" (as in profitable interest) in every nook and cranny of the planet. Policy changes in Lower Slobovia? It"s in our "interest" to monitor those changes and intervene if the policies are "not in our interests."

Neocon-neoliberalism is brilliantly evil because it masks its true objectives behind such warm and fuzzy PR. Those looking for enemies of the people will find them not on the streets of America in cartoonish display but in the corridors of financial and policy power.

Dear apologists of the status quo: do you understand you"re defending this?

Notice how the wealth of the bottom 90% nosedived once neocon-neoliberalism became the de facto policy of Democrats and Republicans alike. No wonder Obama"s two terms seemed like Bush terms 3 and 4--in terms of a continuation of neocon-neoliberalism, they were.

Yes, profound changes in technology, automation, and geopolitics have influenced finance and wealth, but it cannot be merely coincidental that the incomes and wealth of the top 5% have pulled away from the stagnating 95% in the 25 years dominated by neocon-neoliberalism:

Is China About to Dethrone the US as the World’s Economic Leader?

January 18, 2017   |   James Holbrooks

(ANTIMEDIA) Davos — Marking the first time a Chinese head of state has attended the World Economic Forum — an annual meeting of financial and political juggernauts from around the globe — China’s President Xi Jinping gave a landmark speech in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday, in which he vehemently defended free trade and globalization.

“No one will emerge as a winner in a trade war,” Xi said in his near-hour-long speech. He also likened protectionism to “locking oneself in a dark room” out of fear, which cuts out “light and air.”

Though he never mentioned Donald Trump, it was fairly obvious who Xi was referring to, as several news agencies have highlighted. NPR writes:

“U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, days away from his inauguration, was not in attendance in Davos, and Xi never uttered his name. But many of the Chinese president’s statements were clearly responding to rhetoric from Trump and his supporters, who have sharply rejected globalization and many existing trade deals.”

Xi said there was “no point” in blaming all the world’s problems on economic globalization, suggesting the problems that can be linked to the system are “no justification to write it off altogether.”

Reuters, noting the historic and symbolic significance of Xi’s attendance at Davos — particularly in the current geopolitical environment — summarized the situation as such:

“As Trump vows to focus on American interests, Europe is increasingly preoccupied with its own trouble, from Brexit and militant attacks to the string of elections this year in which anti-globalization populists could score gains.

“This has left a vacuum that China seems eager to fill.”

A journalist for The Telegraph wrote Xi’s speech was akin to him “throwing down the gauntlet.”

In an interview with the Washington Post, Fred Bergsten, former director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, suggested the world may very well be looking at a significant shift in global economic structure:

“If we look back five years from now, ten years from now, you could say this was a turning point, at which China did move up in the direction of asserting the kind of global leadership role that the U.S. has had for about a century and might willfully be abdicating.”

Whether or not Bergsten is correct in his assessment, at this point, it’s impossible to deny the facts as they stand — a sentiment WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab made sure to highlight as he welcomed the Chinese president to the stage at Davos:

“In a world marked by great uncertainty and volatility the world is looking to China.”

---

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These Are The Top Global Risks For 2017 According To The World Economic Forum

Ahead of next week"s Davos meetings organized by the World Economic Forum, in which the world"s top politicians, financers, and celebrities will mingle, today the WEF released its annual report on what it believes are the top global risks for 2017.

For those who would prefered to just focus on the charts, please skip this part.  For the rest, and especially those pressed for time, and unable to read the 78 page report, here is the exeutive summary:

For over a decade, The Global Risks Report has focused attention on the evolution of global risks and the deep interconnections between them. The Report has also highlighted the potential of persistent, long-term trends such as inequality and deepening social and political polarization to exacerbate risks associated with, for example, the weakness of the economic recovery and the speed of technological change. These trends came into sharp focus during 2016, with rising political discontent and disaffection evident in countries across the world. The highest-profile signs of disruption may have come in Western countries – with the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union and President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election – but across the globe there is evidence of a growing backlash against elements of the domestic and international status quo.

The Global Risks Landscape

One of the key inputs to the analysis of The Global Risks Report is the Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS), which brings together diverse perspectives from various age groups, countries and sectors: business, academia, civil society and government. This year’s findings are testament to five key challenges that the world now faces. The first two are in the economic category, in line with the fact that rising income and wealth disparity is rated by GRPS respondents as the most important trend in determining global developments over the next 10 years. This points to the need for reviving economic growth, but the growing mood of anti-establishment populism suggests we may have passed the stage where this alone would remedy fractures in society: reforming market capitalism must also be added to the agenda.

With the electoral surprises of 2016 and the rise of once-fringe parties stressing national sovereignty and traditional values across Europe and beyond, the societal trends of increasing polarization and intensifying national sentiment are ranked among the top five. Hence the next challenge: facing up to the importance of identity and community. Rapid changes of attitudes in areas such as gender, sexual  orientation, race, multiculturalism, environmental protection and international cooperation have led many voters – particularly the older and less-educated ones – to feel left behind in their own countries. The resulting cultural schisms are testing social and political cohesion and may amplify many other risks if not resolved.

Although anti-establishment politics tends to blame globalization for deteriorating domestic job prospects, evidence suggests that managing technological change is a more important challenge for labour markets.  While innovation has historically created new kinds of jobs as well as destroying old kinds, this process may be slowing. It is no coincidence that challenges to social cohesion and policy-makers’ legitimacy are coinciding with a highly disruptive phase of technological change.

The fifth key challenge is to protect and strengthen our systems of global cooperation. Examples are mounting of states seeking to withdraw from various international cooperation mechanisms. A lasting shift  in the global system from an outward-looking to a more inward-looking stance would be a highly disruptive development. In numerous areas – not least the ongoing crisis in Syria and the migration flows it has created – it is ever clearer how important global cooperation is on the interconnections that shape the risk landscape.

Further challenges requiring global cooperation are found in the environmental category, which this year stands out in the GRPS. Over the course of the past decade, a cluster of environment-related risks – notably extreme weather events and failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as water crises – has emerged as a consistently central feature of the GRPS risk landscape, strongly interconnected with many other risks, such as conflict and migration. This year, environmental concerns are more prominent than ever, with all five risks in this category assessed as being above average for both impact and likelihood.

Social and Political Challenges

After the electoral shocks of the last year, many are asking whether the crisis of mainstream political parties in Western democracies also represents a deeper crisis with democracy itself. The first of three “risks in focus” considered in Part 2 of the Report assesses three related reasons to think so: the impacts of rapid economic and technological change; the deepening of social and cultural polarization; and the emergence of “post-truth” political debate. These challenges to the political process bring into focus policy questions such as how to make economic growth more inclusive and how to reconcile growing identity nationalism with diverse societies.

The second risk in focus also relates to the functioning of society and politics: it looks at how civil society organizations and individual activists are increasingly experiencing government crackdowns on civic space, ranging from restrictions on foreign funding to surveillance of digital activities and even physical violence. Although the stated aim of such measures is typically to protect against security threats, the effects have been felt by academic, philanthropic and humanitarian entities and have the potential to erode social, political and economic stability.

An issue underlying the rise of disaffection with the political and economic status quo is that social protection systems are at breaking point. The third risk in focus analyses how the underfunding of state  systems is coinciding with the decline of employer-backed social protection schemes; this is happening while technological change means stable, long-term jobs are giving way to self-employment in the “gig  economy”.

Managing the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The final part of this Report explores the relationship between global risks and the emerging technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). We face a pressing governance challenge if we are to construct the rules, norms, standards, incentives, institutions and other mechanisms that are needed to shape the development and deployment of these technologies. How to govern fast-developing technologies is a complex question: regulating too heavily too quickly can hold back progress, but a lack of governance can exacerbate risks as well as creating unhelpful uncertainty for potential investors and innovators.

Currently, the governance of emerging technologies is patchy: some are regulated heavily, others hardly at all because they do not fit under the remit of any existing regulatory body. Respondents to the GRPS saw two emerging technologies as being most in need of better governance: biotechnologies – which tend to be highly regulated, but in a slow-moving way – and artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, a space that remains only lightly governed. A chapter focusing on the risks associated with AI considers the potential risks associated with letting greater decision-making powers move from humans to AI programmes, as well as the debate about whether and how to prepare for the possible development of machines with greater general intelligence than humans.

The Report concludes by assessing the risks associated with how technology is reshaping physical infrastructure: greater interdependence among different infrastructure networks is increasing the scope for systemic failures – whether from cyberattacks, software glitches, natural disasters or other causes – to cascade across networks and affect society in unanticipated ways.

And now, for the visual summary, first the The Risks-Trends Interconnections Map:

Next, the WEF"s summary of The Evolving Risks Landscape, 2007-2017. It shows how the "world"s most important people" have seen the transformation of risks over the past decade. We find it curious that after years of Social issues dominating the top spot, suddenly it is "extreme weather events" are the biggest risk for the world. Ironically, this takes place just as the social upheavals of the past year have converged to result in the biggest fallout against the status quo in modern history.

Next, is a simple summary of the WEF"s Global Risks Landscape of 2017.

It"s not just standalone risks - the next chat shows how global risks are interconnected.

Finally, here is a breakdown of all the various global risks the WEF can envision, which likely means that if anything threatens the system, it won"t be on this list.

Full presentation below (pdf link)

The United States And The Race For Global Hegemony

Submitted by Federico Pieraccini via Strategic-Culture.org,

The previous article focused on the definition of an international order, globalization, geopolitical theories and how this has changed the notion with which a nation exercises control over a foreign country. In this second part I intend to examine the various geopolitical theories, their translations into modern concepts, and practical actions that the United States have undertaken in recent decades to aspire to global dominance.

The Strategy Of Rimland

Keeping in mind the geopolitical theories discussed in my previous article, we understand that in order to achieve control over the so called-Heartland, Washington has often resorted to the Spykman theory (Rimland). This is because the US has repeatedly found it extremely difficult to directly control the powers that occupy the geographical space described in the Heartland theory of Mackinder, namely Iran, Russia and China.

The US has repeatedly tried to ensure that nations composing the Inner Circle (Rimland) remained under their control so as to indirectly control the Heartland and encircle it.

In this sense, Europe was conquered thanks to the Second World War and the American intervention against Nazi Germany. The end of World War II saw Europe become an integral part of the US Atlantic system, an important part of surrounding the Heartland.

The expansion and conquest of other areas of the Rimland (Inner Crescent) continued during the Cold War in Asia through wars in Korea and Vietnam. But its failure left serious doubts about Washington"s ability to sustain its military power projection so far away from home, trying to occupy foreign countries with troops on the ground. There were limits to seeking to rule the world.

In the Middle East, another area of paramount significance, Washington has always had as its primary goal the prevention of post-revolutionary Iran conquering the area. For this reason the Saudis have always been great American allies. They are the chosen regional power, thanks to oil and the financial system of petrodollars, with the purpose of ensuring a constant pressure on Iran and surrounding nations in the interests of Washington’s against Heartland nations such as Iran. In this sense, Turkey is unsurprisingly a NATO member incorporated into the Western system of power.

The final strategy has always been the same: to control nations neighboring the Heartland (Rimland countries) through direct military intervention, economic and financial terrorism, or cultural soft power -- all for the purpose of putting pressure on Russia, Iran and China.

The American unipolar moment began in earnest following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, thereby offering the American elite the crazy idea of seeking to achieve total global hegemony by conquering the nations of the Heartland, especially through economic and military means.

During the Cold War, the more realistic goal was to prevent other nations from forming an alliance that would manage and occupy the heart of the land. With the end of the Soviet Union, the main occupier of the Heartland and main rival to the United States had collapsed. This led to the idea of world domination by Washington becoming reality.

From Mahan to MacKinder

The United States has always placed great importance on Mahan’s theory, considering it a complement to physical invasion by land as well as economic domination of the countries composing the Heartland and Rimland. For nearly a century it has been a fundamental pillar of American doctrine in matters of foreign policy.

The US Navy has often played a decisive role in US victories from the beginning of the twentieth century up to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the First and Second World Wars included. In the years that followed, its decline has had direct consequences for the implementation of the plan for global domination based on the three geopolitical theories analyzed above, practically setting aside Mahan’s theory in particular in order to focus on domination of land.

From 1990 to 2005, the importance of aircraft carriers and air support during the many US wars have been fundamental. Nevertheless, the bulk of the work has always been done by ground troops. Fighting took place not between countries or between ships or aircrafts but on the ground with the assistance of ships and aircrafts. It is a fundamental difference.

Since 1989, the influence of Mahan’s theory has been gradually decreasing in the strategies employed by policy-makers in the Pentagon, favoring instead land invasions, such as with Iraq and Afghanistan, or favoring the so-called soft power approach in the form of revolts, coups or armed insurrections as in Ukraine, Libya and Syria. The relative decline of the US naval fleet has therefore been a predictable consequence.

Forget about Mahan, here is MacKinder + Globalization

A powerful instrument for subduing the nations of the Heartland, in addition to boot on the ground and the dollar, has been globalization. To work, world globalism requires the absence of sovereignty for individual nations, regardless of whether they are allies or not, as well as massive economic interdependence, dictated by a financial system based on the dollar and completely arranged in favor of Washington and the Federal Reserve. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States forged ??a global neo-liberal model, based on the concept of consumerism and a parasitic capitalist economy, in combination with the unbridled use of military power.

With the collapse of the former Soviet republics, Washington began to move closer to the Heartland, mainly over land, increasingly moving up to the borders of the Russian Federation. The EU widened the membership of these countries in 2004, then incorporated them into NATO.

To achieve global domination Russia has to be controlled in virtue of the position it occupies in the Heartland. Given the military power of the United States in 1989, lacking any credible rivals, the MacKinder theory began to take shape in terms of a strategic approach from Washington’s perspective. This happened to the detriment of the Spykman theory, which preferred focusing on the Rimland countries and seas and oceans surrounding them using the Mahan theory of sea power to control the commerce and routes of rimland countries, thereby indirectly controlling the Heartland. This change in approach, with less naval power and more boots on the ground, together with economic power, continued to expand until the Obama administration.

With the ultimate goal of controlling Russia, the economic war by the Western elites in the early 1990s, thanks to Gorbachev and Yeltsin, ought to be revisited. This attitude revealed the intentions of Western elites, and only after a blatant refusal by Putin in 2000 to surrender the sovereignty of Russia to bow down before Washington, relations plummeted. Putin opposes economic and financial globalization, a western ploy to obtain a military surrender by getting the gobalists’ hands on the most valuable piece of the Heartland: Russia. With this concept in mind, it is easy to understand why Putin is so misrepresented by the Western media, all owned by large publishing groups, part of the international financial oligarchies.

The war in Afghanistan, the opening of NATO bases around Russia’s borders, the use of soft power in Ukraine for regime change through a coup, and destabilization using terrorism in Asia and in the center of the Caucasus, are part of a wider strategy to encircle and contain Russia, with goal of forcing Moscow to cry uncle and be incorporated into the Atlanticist network, by hook or by crook.

The ultimate goal always leads back to the question of being able to control the heart of the earth and its resources, represented largely by Russia, Iran and China. The ultimate goal is to gain a stranglehold on the rest of the continents, from Europe to Asia, enabling virtual control of the entire globe. The mission is always the same. It never changes. It is world domination. The approach alone changed once the Berlin Wall fell. The United States’ confidence in its own cultural, economic and military resources from 1989 has led it to construct an international system based on the principle of corrupt turbo-capitalism in combination with a strong dose of military bullying. Washington’s neoliberal ideas have often enjoyed strong momentum and huge support thanks to the military. Washington found itself in a position to intervene in almost every global situation using tools like soft power in regime change (Ukraine), the Arab Spring (Tunisia and Egypt), and even resorting to hard power through military aggression in so-called nation-building projects (Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan).

The aim, as always, is to put the Heartland under pressure coming from every direction, until its economic collapse and the final military conquest.

Even the US military bases follow this logic, surrounding the Heartland through the nations of the Rimland. Not surprisingly, Iran, China and Russia appear to be completely surrounded in a land-based approach a la MacKinder. Another example is the ABM Systems (Anti-Ballistic Missile) targeting China, Russia and Iran in order obviate their ability to inflict casualties on the United States in the event of war.

In this sense, another vital nation for US Interests is Japan, which represents a formidable containment towards China. On the island of Okinawa alone, about 400 kms from the Chinese coast, about thirteen US military bases are hosted. Similarly, all the countries overlooking the seas bordering the Rimland are strategically important countries for Washington. No wonder panic has been induced by Duterte’s victory in the Philippines. Special attention continues to be given to the nations of Southeast Asia, like Vietnam and Malaysia. Washington fears having fewer allies in its strategy of subduing the Rimland in order to contain China.

Looking at a map it is easy to see how the American empire pushes towards the Heartland from all directions, directly or indirectly, together with its allies. Against the Republic of China there is pressure from the south-east, courtesy of Japan and the US naval presence in the China Sea. From the west pressure is exerted against Russia by expanding NATO/EU. From the south-west, pressure is brought to bear on Iran through the Saudis, Qatar, and US bases in the Middle East. To the south, in addition to NATO member Turkey, Washington would like to team up with India to complete the encirclement of Russia, representing a huge missing piece that makes clear the importance of New Delhi in American strategy.

The last twenty-five years were dominated by policy makers in the US who, firstly, had the idea that direct conquest of the Heartland nations (and some Rimland nations) was possible and, secondly, that it was preferable to pursue a conquest by land of the relevant area and that this was the perfect historical moment to do so. Hitler thought the same way. Not only cultural and economic control was being suggested, but a real military approach to impose a solution acceptable to the elites in Washington. The countless wars since 1989 -- Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Iraq -- have been a strategic choice employing ground forces for the purpose of conquest. At the same time we must not forget the soft power used during the Arab Spring and in Ukraine. These are complementary approaches, updating a hundred years later the theory designed by MacKinder to the technology now at our disposal, while offering the military option to conquer the nations of the Heartland. This doctrine has placed to the side the naval approach, theorized by Mahan, which provided the use of ships to block commercial routes, and using the supremacy of the seas to contain the Rimland, thereby dominating the Heartland and mastering the world.

The most recent doctrines, from the administrations of Bush to Obama, have used a mix of MacKinder’s theory in combination with the latest tactics that apply human rights, known as soft power. The consequences of this approach have led to unimaginable disaster for the United States, where we see the Middle East sinking deeper into chaos and increasingly pushing countries of the region into a Shia alliance. This has led to increasingly united objectives for nations like Iran, China, India and Russia (a complete failure of the the Cold War objective that aimed to prevent an alliance between China and Russia). More generally, India still remains an ally of Moscow and on good terms with Washington, deciding not to openly side with one or the other.

The next article will focus on the reactions that Iran, China and Russia have adopted over the years to repel the continual assault on their sovereignty, and how the American drive for global hegemony has actually accelerated the end of America"s unipolar moment, giving birth to the multipolar reality in which we live. The fourth and last article will focus on the new Trump administration, and how it will probably change the approach to US foreign policy that has prevailed over the last 30 years – a throwback to the last century.