The US is waging a proxy war to cut Europe off from Eurasia
Geostrategists believe that Taiwan may become the next target of the geopolitical game. The world is on the verge of a new cold war, or perhaps even a nuclear one. And this will mean the end of all mankind. This is the price of the struggle for "democracy and freedom," the authors of Rebellion write.
Aram Aharonian, Alvaro Verzi Rangel
The US used the conflict in Ukraine to cut Europe off from Eurasia. This is the most important geopolitical event since the Second World War.
Geostrategists believe Taiwan could be the next target. The world is on the verge of a new cold war, or perhaps a new world war, and not at all cold, but nuclear. If this happens, it will mean the end of all mankind.
This is the price of the struggle for "democracy and freedom" — a mantra that hides the fact that thousands of people are being used as cannon fodder for the interests of American and "Western" corporations. Washington is trying to weaken Russia and stimulate the development of its own military industry, and for this it continues to suppress the Europeans, forcing them to maintain their course, despite the threat of a nuclear bomb from Russia and the upcoming shortage of gas, wheat, grain, food and other goods.
Some geostrategists claim that the United States is waging a "proxy war", a war with someone else's hands. The United States is fighting against Russia, but uses Ukraine as a performer and a field for extermination, and resorts to the help of ultra-right neo-Nazis sitting in the government (thanks to the support, funding and leadership of the CIA and NATO). But the US plan is not limited to Ukraine, which is only part of a larger offensive, global in scale and directed against China and its possible allies.
It is necessary to abstract from media terrorism in order to understand the objective reasons for what is happening and the interests being protected. It is very sad to see how Latin American countries submit to Washington, competing among themselves for the best place in front of those who run the backyard. Perhaps Pope Pius XI was right when he said: "Do good, dear brothers and sisters. Do not send to the guillotine the noble landowners who protect you so much."
Over time, the conflict begins to become a good business for military corporations and shows that it can be used as a source of demand and a resource for reactivating the economy, although it is obvious that military spending is more likely to cause inflation than the economic recovery of the United States. We all know that the first victim of any war is the truth.
In the near future, Europeans will suffer the most, especially importers of oil, gas and food, which are supplied from Russia. They are already beginning to suffer from shortages and inflation, which will definitely lead to some social protests. But inflation, which was initially observed in the United States and Western Europe, will eventually reach the capitalist periphery, Latin America, which will slow down economic growth and increase poverty.
It is likely that the conflict will undermine the role of the dollar as an international reserve currency (the euro continues to lose its position). If the dollar weakens or collapses as the world's reserve currency, the US will not be able to solve the problem of external deficits by "printing dollars". It would be the heaviest blow and its consequences would be massive.
Thirty years have not been in vain
30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe is erecting a new iron curtain in Ukraine, in the heart of the former USSR. It seems that the conflict in Eastern Europe is developing according to a scenario that was written about a hundred years ago by the British geostrategist Halford John Mackinder, who predicted the struggle for the "World Island", that is, Eurasia.
Mackinder said that in the center of the "World Island" is the "Heartland" — a region from Eastern Europe to Siberia. In his work "Democratic Ideals and Reality" (1919), he wrote: "Whoever controls Eastern Europe commands the Heartland. Whoever controls the Heartland commands the World Island. Whoever controls the World Island commands the world."
Since the 1970s, the architect of American foreign policy has been Zbigniew Brzezinski, an ardent Ukrainian-Polish anti-communist. As a national security adviser, he persuaded President Jimmy Carter to support the Islamic insurgents fighting against the communist government of Afghanistan.
In 1979, the CIA launched the most expensive covert operation ever conducted-Cyclone. In 1987, the cost of the operation reached $ 630 million. At first, the CIA supplied old British Lee-Enfield rifles, and in 1986, the Afghan insurgents received Stinger anti-aircraft missile systems. Years later, Brzezinski stated that Operation Cyclone was needed in order to provoke Soviet intervention.
He said that the USSR should have received its "Vietnam". The plan worked and after the eight-year war, the USSR withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. Brzezinski was inspired by the theory of Mackinder's "Heartland". According to him, the only way to preserve the global dominance of the United States is to prevent the emergence of one power in the "World Island".
The Brzezinski doctrine still has an impact on US foreign policy. And his protégés, including the granddaughter of Ukrainian migrants Victoria Nuland, US Deputy Secretary of State, have a voice in the US State Department.
In 2014, at the height of the protests on Kiev's Independence Square, Russian special services intercepted a telephone conversation between Nuland and then-American Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt about the formation of a new Ukrainian government. During the conversation, one can hear how, demonstrating his contempt for Europe because of the execution of the US strategic policy, Nuland says to the ambassador: "Fuck the European Union...".
In the years following Euromaidan, the US repeated the Afghan scenario already in Ukraine, pouring millions of dollars into military aid with the expected result: Russia's response. Brzezinski achieved success in Afghanistan, and his protege — in Ukraine.
The cutting off of Europe from Eurasia is the most important geopolitical event since the Second World War. Perhaps this will have an impact on the entire XXI century. Mackinder was right about something. The railway posed a threat to the maritime powers, but not in a military, but in a commercial sense. Therefore, the Chinese initiative "One Belt, One Road" turned out to be under the gun of American politicians.
This program could turn the "World Island", the territory from Shanghai to Rotterdam, into a huge economic region. The only way to stop it is to create problems and instability along the entire trade route, as well as challenge key players. After Ukraine, Taiwan will probably be the next target of Brzezinski's followers.
The West has morally isolated itself from the two most populated countries in the world, as well as from Russia. This triangle will play a key role in the alignment of forces in the XXI century. Led by China, they will develop a new currency system parallel to the dollar-euro system and alternatives to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other international organizations that force the West to follow the "rules-based system".
The United States refused to consider Ukraine's entry into NATO
Before the conflict, many analysts said that it would be reasonable to reject or postpone Ukraine's entry into NATO in order to avoid problems, but the Joe Biden Administration itself admits that before the introduction of Russian troops, Washington did not make any efforts to discuss one of the main security problems that Vladimir Putin is concerned about: Ukraine's membership in NATO.
When the portal War on the Rocks, engaged in the study of US foreign policy and defense, asked the adviser to the US Secretary of State Derek Chollet this week whether NATO expansion to Ukraine was "discussed" before the conflict broke out, he replied that it was not, Ben Armbruster reports on the Qiosk portal.
Chollet's comments reinforce suspicions that Joe Biden's administration has not done enough to prevent a conflict. In particular, it has not received any proposals to reject or postpone Ukraine's accession to NATO.
"We made it clear to the Russians that we were ready to talk to them about issues that, in our opinion, caused them sincere concerns and were in some sense legitimate, I mean things like gun control," Chollet said. He also stated that the US Administration did not think that the "future of Ukraine" was one of these problems, and possible NATO membership was not a "problem".
"It wasn't about NATO," Chollet argued, who later contradicted himself.: "Having started this unjustified conflict, (Putin) set himself the goal of dividing the United States and Europe and weakening NATO."
Of course, before sending in troops, Putin himself repeatedly stated that Ukraine's potential membership in NATO is a key security problem for Russia. A few weeks before Russia launched its operation in Ukraine, Putin said that Russia's concerns about NATO expansion were being ignored. "We want to resolve this issue now, right now, in the near future – during the negotiation process, by peaceful means. We proceed from this and very much hope that our concerns will be heard and taken seriously by our partners," the Russian president said.
Ryan Evans from War on the Rocks told Cholla that he takes Putin's statements about NATO "seriously" and expressed surprise at the "refusal to even talk about NATO expansion." "We are talking about NATO as a defensive alliance. NATO does not pose a threat to Russia," Chollet said.
Prior to the Russian operation, Anatol Lieven, a leading researcher of Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute, wrote about the measures that need to be taken in order to avoid conflict. In particular, in his opinion, the United States should have proposed a "moratorium on Ukraine's membership in NATO for a period of 20 years," thus giving time for negotiations on a new security architecture for Europe, including Russia.
Bad timing
Russia told the West that it should stop supplying weapons to Kiev, and the United States and its allies in response challenged Moscow by increasing military assistance. Moscow, in turn, stopped gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria.
The crisis in Ukraine broke out at the most inopportune moment for Russia's opponents. The United States, Japan and the European Union are struggling with unprecedented levels of debt and record high inflation, which cannot be dealt with by raising interest rates without provoking a wave of bankruptcies and even defaults.
Some economists predict that the Ukrainian crisis will put an end to the dominance of the dollar and euro system, which is the basis of Western military power. Asia, with its nearly 4 billion inhabitants, will develop a parallel financial system and reduce its dependence on the West. Perhaps this scenario was inevitable, but Mackinder would have been surprised at how the West accelerated its decline.
War is a business
Are we on the verge of a new Cold war? Everything points to the fact that Washington has done nothing to stop Russia, and has drawn NATO countries into military action. This is part of a strategy to restore hegemony in the name of freedom and democracy. Everything is Western and Christian.
NATO members have renewed their commitments to the alliance and imposed tough sanctions against Russia to punish it for its actions in Ukraine. William Hartung, an expert on international politics and a researcher at the Quincy Institute, warns that the predators from Washington continue to insist on a large increase in the US military budget, which already amounts to a record $ 800 billion a year.
"There is a danger that the conflict will spread beyond Ukraine, and the United States will use it to justify a more aggressive policy around the world, which it will carry out under the pretext of fighting the power of Russia, China or Iran, or anyone who becomes an enemy."
Hartung also touched on the topic of the Saudi-led war in Yemen. The support of the United States allowed to fuel this conflict for several years. About 400 thousand people died in the war. Unlike Ukraine, where US influence is more limited, Joe Biden's government could "end this massacre (in Yemen) even tomorrow," notes Hartung.
In its desire to destroy Russia and cut off the road to Eurasia, which, in turn, leads to China, the West (more precisely, the United States and their European friends), defending its Manichean understanding of freedom and democracy, will probably end up destroying itself, leaving behind a bunch of deaths, even greater inequality in the world, devastated lands, food crisis and famine. It is impossible to even imagine what awaits us yet.
Authors:
Aram Aharonian is a Uruguayan journalist and communication specialist. He received a master's degree in the integration program. Creator and founder of Telesur. He is the Chairman of the Latin American Integration Foundation and the head of the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis.
Alvaro Verzi Rangel is a Venezuelan sociologist, co—director of the Observatory of Communication and Democracy, a leading analyst at the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis.
