Russia:
It seems that the American withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was the straw that broke the glass. Ever since the American remark of withdrawing, the speech dynamic in Moscow has worsen to the point that Putin’s adviser, Andrei Belusov, ominously said in late October that “Yes, Russia is preparing for war, I have confirmed it” and “Russia is preparing for war, and the U.S. is preparing for war”. Moreover, a few days before, Putin’s himself said on the possibility of Russia being stroked by a nuclear aggression “The aggressor should know that retribution is inevitable... And they just die. Because even repent will have not time”.
But threatens are not exclusive of the Russian side; the U.S. took the lead on its warmonger momentum threatening Russia. A month before their Russian counterparts commented on war, in September 28, U.S. Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, publicly threatened Russia with a naval blockade (does that meant impeding Russian vessels to navigate?) as an option to prevent Russia from selling its energy. The same week, in October 2, U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey, threatened to “take out” Russian missiles (if that doesn’t mean a strike on Russian soil then what else can it be?) that Washington believes are in breach of the INF treaty.
If we put into context that Russia has been viciously attacked (through an eastward expansion of NATO since 2000, economic sanctions since the take over of Crimea in 2014, provocative and huge NATO military drills right on her borders (where the Tridant Venture drills happening right now carrying 40,000 NATO troops in the Baltic Sea) and with proxy wars in the Ukraine (with the U.S. selling offensive weaponry to the country) and Syria), then we can understand the Russian certainty that a NATO offensive against her is in the making.
There are two possible theatre of operations that pass through the destruction of Russia: The Syria-Iran conflict in the Middle East, and the Ukraine, in Russia’s western border. Even if the Syrian war has the potential to spread out to Iran, it’s still doubtful the U.S. will carry on in such an adventure because such war will likely expand pulling Saudi Arabia and Israel in, sending the oil price towards the stratosphere, something the Western economies can’t afford or stand, since that will compromise European supplies of oil. Additionally, Russia could simply step aside once it realises the conflict is out of control and that a winning is no longer a possibility, abandoning the U.S. on his own trying to fix its own mess (a new version of the Iraki post-war that drained out a trillion dollars from the American tax-payers.
On the contrary, the most likely theatre of operations for the upcoming war against Russia will be, therefore, the Ukraine / the Baltic states / Poland, which will be the cannon fodder of the massacre. In these terms, the American crave of seeing Russia destroyed passes through a conflict Russia cannot avoid for simple national survival.
China:
Unfortunately, the war rhetoric is not exclusive of the Russian and American sides. Chinese president has said recently that China is prepared for war in either the South China Sea or Taiwan, while a U.S. Military Times poll showed that half of American servicemen consider the U.S. will be at war next year. If we take into consideration that the servicemen are insiders within the American military-industrial complex, that signifies that their opinion comes out from what they have heard and see within the walls of their military headquarters.
Following the same logic as against the Russians, to stick Russia in a war on its borders to exhaust her economy and bring her to collapse so the U.S. can maintain its control over the world, will be the same recipe for China: To attract China into a war that distracts her from her unstoppable economic success that is challenging American economic supremacy over the world. For accomplishing that, the U.S. needs, following the same Russian parallel, to fabricate a proxy war in the South China Sea. And what are the aces that America holds under its sleeve in the region? North Korea and Taiwan.
The North Korean matter has been in the freeze since the Singapore summit that gathered Trump and Kim Jung-un in June this year. Ever since, little has happened and Trump has let his South Korean counterpart to court Kim Jung-un gaining some good momentum reaching an all-times-high relations between the two Oriental countries. However, with Trump in the Oval Office, that momentum can be broken with a twit.
What Trump looks more comfortable with, is by playing the Taiwanese card. Knowing that by meddling with Taiwan Washington can pull Beijing into a hot war with the land China considers nothing less but a Chinese rebel province. A conflict in the border between the South and East China Seas will definitely punish China right in the core of its vital trading routes. In a classic ‘carrot or stick’ policy, the U.S. is counting that in such scenario some South Pacific countries China has territorial disputes with (Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam), will support Taiwan.
On the other hand, it is unlikely and would be reckless for any of those five countries to bite the trap and join such a madness mission if we consider that China is the major trade partner of all these nations. Nevertheless, the U.S. is playing its cards with the certainty that a big issue (China’s preponderance in the South China Sea that is also challenging the U.S. economic power) deserves bigger solutions. In both cases – Russia and China – the U.S. current policy is sabotaging (no matter by what means) both countries success before is too late. The good news for America is that Russia and China don’t want war and are trying to avoid it through diplomacy, the one hasn’t been successful whatsoever since Trump assumed office two years ago. The bad news for America is that provocations are getting tougher day by day and that, eventually, the bear or the dragon, or both, can say enough is enough and call out the shots. The shots that the American deep-state “feels certain” will never touch American soil.
The Sino-Russian special relationship, the U.S. sabotage of itself
It is obvious that the Sino-Russian special relation is inversely proportional to the U.S. multi-war form aggressiveness against the two regional powers. For each new wave of American acts of wars (aka sanctions by the UN) on Russia, China provides her with a new life guard to Russia in oil, gas or any other financial form of cooperation to keep Russia guarding China’s northern front (in the East it has Japan as its historical adversary, in the Southwest India, with whom it has territorial disputes over the Kashmir, and in the South it has the U.S., meddling in the South China Sea trying to create a wedge against its neighbours).
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping ties have grown exponentially since the Chinese took in office in 2012. The irony is that the all-time-high ties between the two former Communist adversaries were largely caused by Barack Obama's Geopolitics myopia of pushing both big powers into a de facto alliance that can’t spell its name yet. Obama's personal despair for Russia and Putin, together with his 'Pivot to Asia' agenda trying to counter China in the South China Sea to corner it from its vital sea trade roads, did nothing but uniting the second Geopolitical and military world power with the second geo-economic power of the world. If Security Adviser to Richard Nixon Henry Kissinger was the genius behind the split of the Sino-Russian relationship in 1971 that enabled the U.S. to focus in countering the USSR, Obama reversed it, and Trump reinforced it! Not only that, in doing so, Trump also worsen the U.S. relations with its major allies since WW2. Thus, the U.S., having being the master of the 'divide and rule' Geopolitics principle that provided America with enormous successes for 50 years, has ended up isolating itself from the rest of the world. There are dozens of examples that show this but the most significant are:
- The withdraw of the International Climate Treaty
- The withdraw of the Iran nuclear deal - that put in tatters not only the oil supply of the EU and the world but threatens to burn the wick in the Middle East
- The withdraw of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia that endangers a nuclear war in European soil
- Trump's pressures on his NATO “allies” to fulfil the 2% of their GDP expenditure in American weaponry contracts
- Trump’s threats of sanctions on some EU (Germany, France, the U.K., the Netherlands, Austria) members if they continue the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline that will fulfil Europe’s energy’s needs for the decades to come
- Trump’s economic wars against Russia, China, the EU, Turkey, Canada, Mexico and warnings against India, the Philippines and Indonesia
That being said it is easy to understand who is the isolated and who is in wedges with a considerable part of humanity.
In sabotaging its own historical alliances with Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands) and Turkey, Trump has improved ties with a bunch of countries of doubtful reputation: Saudi Arabia and Israel in the Middle East and the "New Europeans" (call them hysterical anti-Russians) mini-bloc within the EU: The Baltic states + Poland. It hasn't been on the news and nothing has been said on the media but if the Trump administration maintains its collision course it won't be long for Russia and China to realise that their existence lies in its political and economic association (already there) and a military formal alliance (natural next step in a world full of conflict). It goes beyond the goal of this article but other countries happy to unite and feel militarily protected from the U.S., will be Syria, Iran, North Korea and of course, the new tripartite states that Trump’s National Security adviser, John Bolton, harshly named as the new “axis of evil”: Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela.
A Sino-Russian military alliance
Without any doubt such an alliance will be a game changer in international relations. From day one the Russian military will count with billions of dollars for new weaponry development and mass production manufacturing that will enable Russia to compete against NATO. From the Chinese side, China would be armed with state-of-the-art Russian nuclear and conventional weaponry and would be capable to nullify American air superiority in case of a hot war in the South China Sea . And for both countries, such an alliance will make the West thinking thrice before deciding meddling against each of them. At the same time, Europe will think harder if they are willing to drain their budgets on competing in an arm race not only against Russia, as they have profited from in letting the U.S. paying for their own protection, but against a Sino-Russian alliance Europe would be forced to participate more actively sacrificing their nice living standards of their populations. For the U.S., challenging Russia and China together would disseminate its forces and will urge its tax-payers to pay more and live less. Extreme situations like the one we are in right now, in the verge of one or two major wars (against Russia in Europe, and China in the South China Sea / Taiwan) deserve radical solutions. The Russian diplomacy has been overtaken against Obama’s and Trump’s imperial stances. The U.S. has been deaf to such efforts for so long now and everything is pointing at that Russia and China have come to a point of no return and are aware that they can’t expect different results by doing the same things. The paradigm of diplomacy, negotiations and treaties have been trashed by Obama and Trump. Perhaps we have arrived to the point where the only way to avoid war is preparing for war. Putin and Jinping’s recent remarks about conflagration and war preparedness make me think that we may have entered turbulence zone.
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