The eagle has conveniently forgotten that the original, Ancient Silk Road linked the dragon with the Roman empire for centuries – with no interlopers outside of Eurasia, muses Pepe Escobar.
By Pepe Escobar
Special to Consortium News
Once upon a time, deep into the night in selected campfires across the deserts of Southwest Asia, I used to tell a fable about the eagle, the bear and the dragon – much to the amusement of my Arab and Persian interlocutors.
It was about how, in the young 21stcentury, the eagle, the bear and the dragon had taken their (furry) gloves off and engaged in what turned out to be Cold War 2.0.
As we approach the end of the second decade of this already incandescent century, perhaps it’s fruitful to upgrade the fable. With all due respect to Jean de la Fontaine, excuse me while I kiss the (desert) sky again.
Long gone are the days when a frustrated bear repeatedly offered to cooperate with the eagle and its minions on a burning question: nuclear missiles.
The bear repeatedly argued that the deployment of interceptor missiles and radars in that land of the blind leading the blind – Europe – was a threat. The eagle repeatedly argued that this is to protect us from those rogue Persians.
Now the eagle – claiming the dragon is getting an easy ride – has torn down every treaty in sight and is bent on deploying nuclear missiles in selected eastern parts of the land of the blind leading the blind, essentially targeting the bear.
Dragon bridge, Ljubljana. (Ali Eminov/Creative Commons)
All That Glitters is Silk
Roughly two decades after what top bear Putin defined as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20thcentury”, he proposed a form of USSR light; a political/economic body called the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
The idea was to have the EAEU interact with the EU – the top institution of the motley crew congregated as the blind leading the blind.
The eagle not only rejected the possible integration; it came up with a modified color revolution scenario to unplug Ukraine from the EAEU.
Even earlier than that, the eagle had wanted to set up a New Silk Road under its total control. The eagle had conveniently forgotten that the original, Ancient Silk Road linked the dragon with the Roman empire for centuries – with no interlopers outside of Eurasia.
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So one can imagine the eagle’s stupor when the dragon irrupted on the global stage with its own super-charged New Silk Roads – upgrading the bear original idea of a free trade area “from Lisbon to Vladivostok” to a multi-connectivity corridor, terrestrial and maritime, from eastern China to western Europe and everything in between, spanning the whole of Eurasia.
Facing this new paradigm the blind, well, remained blind for as long as anyone could remember; they simply could not get their act together.
The eagle, meanwhile, was incrementally raising the stakes. It launched what amounted for all practical purposes to a progressively weaponized encirclement of the dragon.
The eagle made a series of moves that amount to inciting nations bordering the South China Sea to antagonize the dragon, while repositioning an array of toys – nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, fighter jets – closer and closer to the dragon’s territory.
All the time, what the dragon saw – and continues to see – is a battered eagle trying to muscle its way out of an irreversible decline by trying to intimidate, isolate and sabotage the dragon’s irreversible ascent back to where it has been for 18 of the past 20 centuries; enthroned as the king of the jungle.
A key vector is that Eurasia-wide players know that under the new laws of the jungle the dragon simply can’t – and won’t – be reduced to the status of a supporting actor. And Eurasia-wide players are too smart to embark on a Cold War 2.0 that will undermine Eurasia itself.
The eagle’s reaction to the dragon’s New Silk strategy took some time to swing from inaction to outright demonization – complementing the joint description of both the dragon and the bear as existential threats.
And yet, for all the spinning crossfire, Eurasia-wide players are not exactly impressed anymore with an eagle empire armed to its teeth. Especially after the eagle’s crest was severely damaged by failure upon hunting failure in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Eagle aircraft carriers patrolling the eastern part of Mare Nostrum are not exactly scaring the bear, the Persians and the Syrians.
James Audubon and His Journal, published in 1899 in the Public Domain. (Wikimedia Commons)
A “reset” between the eagle and the bear was always a myth. It took some time – and much financial distress – for the bear to realize there won’t be any reset, while the dragon only saw a reset towards open confrontation.
After establishing itself, slowly but surely, as the most advanced military power on the planet, with hypersonic know-how, the bear came to a startling conclusion: we don’t care anymore about what the eagle says – or does.
Under the Raging Volcano
Meanwhile, the dragon kept expanding, inexorably, across all Asian latitudes as well as Africa, Latin America and even across the unemployment-infested pastures of the austerity-hit blind leading the blind.
The dragon is firmly assured that, if cornered to the point of resorting to a nuclear option, it holds the power to make the eagle’s staggering deficit explode, degrade its credit rating to junk, and wreak havoc in the global financial system.
No wonder the eagle, under an all-enveloping paranoid cloud of cognitive dissonance, feeding state propaganda 24/7 to its subjects and minions, keeps spewing out lava like a raging volcano – dispensing sanctions to a great deal of the planet, entertaining regime change wet dreams, launching a total energy embargo against the Persians, resurrecting the “war on terra”, and aiming to punishlike a Bat Out Of Intel Hell any journalist, publisher or whistleblower revealing its inner machinations.
It hurts, so bad, to admit that the political/economic center of a new multipolar world will be Asia – actually Eurasia.
As the eagle got more and more threatening, the bear and the dragon got closer and closer in their strategic partnership. Now both bear and dragon have too many strategic links across the planet to be intimidated by the eagle’s massive Empire of Bases or those periodic coalitions of the (somewhat reluctant) willing.
Friedrich Johann Justin Bertuch, the mythical creature dragon, 1806. (Wikimedia Commons)
To match comprehensive, in-progress Eurasia integration, of which the New Silk Roads are the graphic symbol, the eagle’s fury, unleashed, has nothing to offer – except rehashing a war against Islam coupled with the weaponized cornering of both bear and dragon.
Then there’s Persia – those master chess players. The eagle has been gunning for the Persians ever since they got rid of the eagle’s proconsul, the Shah, in 1979 – and this after the eagle and perfidious Albion had already smashed democracy to place the Shah, who made Saddam look like Gandhi, in power in 1953.
The eagle wants all that oil and natural gas back – not to mention a new Shah as the new gendarme of the Persian Gulf. The difference is now the bear and the dragon are saying No Way. What is the eagle to do? Set up the false flag to end all false flags?
This is where we stand now. And once again, we reach the end – though not the endgame. There’s still no moral to this revamped fable. We continue to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Our only, slim hope is that a bunch of Hollow Men obsessed by the Second Coming won’t turn Cold War 2.0 into Armageddon.
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times. His latest book is “2030.” Follow him on Facebook.
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This is a wonderful article – and great mythical poetry as well.
What’s up with the rampant antisemitism in the comment section? Is it an alt-right reaction to Mr. Escobar sharing his name with their icon, or a knee-jerk rage response to his jab at fundamentalist Christianity?
Very insightful, I believe the hollow men is Israel, but, could be US Pentagon. As Americans we have seen the ‘Evil Empire’ and it is U.S. corrupt criminal Racket in DC.
The fable, a literary genre, so much out of fashion today. But it has great relevance for these times, crystalizing the moral issues: a race driven by the desire for power, blinded by that desire it will do anything to get power, and anything to hold on to it. But power brings a blindness – instead of bringing strength and victory it is ultimately leading the race towards impotence and defeat: the very war it seeks to avoid – Armageddon.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
We had better come up with more than just hopes that the madmen in DC will come to their senses. Getting the truth out as you are doing Pepe, is part of what needs to happen to save us all from total disaster. But even if we somehow avoid nuclear war, climate change and ecological collapse would still be facing us. The industrial machine that is eating up the planet has to be scaled way back – or else!
Great assessment Pepe!
The creature missing from this otherwise brilliant analysis is the snake that wants the war with the Persians and rides the eagle.
Israel??? :)
Thank you, Pepe. How much easier to understand the high points in international relations when they’re cast in fable form. All my degrees are in English literature, not PoliSci or International Studies. Moreover, as a collector and student of Northwest Coast Aboriginal art, I am beginning to understand the important role of animals in conveying the story of the cosmos. I’ve always loved your prose style and have kept up on just about everything since your earliest pieces on Pipelinestan. Thank you for speaking my language.
Bilhões de estrelas vezes n constelações em y dimensões… e de todos os confins maravilham-se com uma humanidade que traça uma parábola como esta. Os psicopatas serão parados e a multipolaridade introduzirá a raça humana na comunidade universal.
This fable sounds like real politique. Could US politicians, or diplomats if we still have any, learn from it?
whether speaking american, english, russian ,chinese or any other language, capital speaks to private profit first, subject to market forces, and public good – if any – second…as long as that prevails, humanity is in great trouble whether we call its capitalist nations animals, birds, or other forms of identity group…clearly, china especially and russia and iran and others represent growing capitalist power that will surpass the usa in the near future, as long as there is one..but a continued capitalist world is a failing enterprise, again, no matter what real or metaphorical language is used…communist controlled capitalism may be a lesser evil than social democratic controlled capital and both are lesser evil to fundamentalist market religious fanaticism but unless the political economic system becomes one that puts humanity and the public good before, not after private profits – if any -we are and remain in trouble…as for china being able to mess with the financial power of the usa, an old adage still has meaning: if you owe the bank-money lender ten thousand, you have a problem..if you owe the bank-money lender ten million, the bank has the problem..if china calls in its massive loans to the usa and the usa doesn’t pay? no profits, all loss, and watch out world.
“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.
With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our country…” Ben Franklin letter to his daughter
Au contraire. I think your description of the Bald Eagle fits the USA to a tee.
Thank you for this, Maureen O’Brien O’Reilly.
As Dan Kuhn points out, Old Ben may well have been more prescient than he imagined, especially in terms of how a “republic” might be more readily lost than kept.
YES…Great quote from Ben.
Thanks
The cast of characters is not complete without the Serpent who controls the Eagle and has plans to destroy the world to honor its mythical “god.” While it is possible to have a reasonable dialogue amongst the characters, the Serpent is interested only in bringing about destruction in the name of its non-existent deity. You just can’t reason with poisonous serpents. My Grandmother would take a very sharp spade and stalk them until just the right moment to behead the creatures. I preferred to avoid them and allow them to go about as intended eating rats.
Sadiki: This anthropomorphous transference of all things human upon the animal kingdom has very severe limitations. As Rousseau said – ” Nature, red in tooth and claw…” My little cat, a runt with a deformed paw was on a tear last week, bringing to my doorstep, first a small toad, then a small brown snake. I, in my gentle but pointless fashion admonished him for capturing and torturing these creatures so necessary to our pest-surrounded domicile. Last Friday night I let him out after we were gone for the evening, and that was the last we have seen of him. Our best guess is that a coyote got him.
Very true and an elegant metaphor.
Rather than inspired, I found it rather half-baked, but in reality I think it reflects the exasperation, and desperation we all are feeling at the ominous approach of another human tragedy, if not the onset of a final conflict. I’m not dissing Pepe: I do half-baked all the time, and am able to conjure similar disjointed parables after ingesting something similar to whatever may have been passed around the campfires in the deserts in SW Asia. Of course this is Pepe’s response to the stage-managed open escalation announced by the psychopaths of the Trump administration.
Last week reader and commenter Brian James relayed the info here that India and China were forming a “buyers club” to circumvent the US effort to completely cut off Iranian oil sales, and this I suspect is the actual “credible threat” the sick bastards in DC are responding to.
So now it comes down to it, and the hour of decision approaches. In 2003 the Bush administration basically told the rest of humanity: “If you don’t like what we’re doing, then stop us.” And no-one did. Not that there weren’t protestations, recriminations, and denouncements, but no-one put their soldiers, sailors, airmen and all their military on the line to stand against an illegal aggression. And this is what Pepe is wondering about with the dragon and the bear as this hour approaches. What shall we call India – the Elephant? They will be the most immediate loser of this new aggression (after of course Iran) and they are neither militarily nor politically competent to stand up to the turkey vulture of US aggression.
Will the rest of humanity again stand idle in hapless appeasement, just as in the last century, as a sick twisted collection of “hollow men” drag the rest of humanity into a maelstrom of carnage? There is no time left to try to energize US citizens to stop this madness; most are so befuddled by decades of lies and propaganda that they wouldn’t recognize the truth if they tripped over it.
No, the frightening and compelling reality is that China and Russia in the lead and the rest of humanity not yet infected with the insanity gripping the cancerous tumor that Washington has become, must stand up militarily – pre-emptively and unequivocally – to this naked aggression. This is the stark reality, and the only remedy to what could surely be a final conflict. Please, no bravado laced assertions of the damage the Iranians could do if attacked: without the blunt support of what the Saurumons of the US call “near peers” Iran will be destroyed and occupied.
Pepe is spot on referring to Europeans as blind. They don’t seem to recognize, even now, that the perverted insane cabal pushing our species to a final conflict are nobody’s friend.
Dear Pepe,
I read all your analysis and find them right on the spot for most of the time.
Love the way you express yourself with a great sense of humor and ease that is the hallmark of people coming from the land of samba and bossa nova; my compliments.
In this article however, I believe you missed another key player, predator, even though you did mention and allude to; namely the Lion (the iranians).
More weight and importance, attention ought to be paid to the lion as they will in the near future be the ones who will rule over the land and masses once they did since the first empire they established.
Although currently they wear the cloak of Islam, remember that Iranians in their soul and spirit are Zoroastrians and their belief system has its nexus in that moral philosophy. Islam as an abrahamic – bad copy of and usurping zoroastorian ethics, concepts and way of life – will soon disappear by being devoured digested and disposed of by Iranians just as it happened to the Greeks, arabs and mongols.
The dragon and the bear without the lion, will not achieve the common goal of the ancient civilizations’ dream of a harmonious world which the Chinese Iranians and Russians have in their spiritual DNA.
Keep up the excellent work.
It’s worth mentioning that in Chinese mythology, dragons are benevolent rain gods, not the fierce guardians of treasures in Western lore.
http://www.angelfire.com/zine/cetaceandragon/UNICORNS.htm Historical timeline of unicorns http://www.angelfire.com/zine/cetaceandragon/UNICORNS.htm
Excellent chit Pepe .
I sent it to Grim at the Intercept and asked thst they run this piece?
“Keep scribbling ”
At least till we blow up the planet.
Looks like we need free trade instead of fascist trade controlled by either the “dragon” the “eagle” or the “bear”…
“Free Trade” exists in your imagination only.
It’s a synonym to the “International Banksters” controlled trade, so GFY together with your “Free” trade.
The current version is very much like the previous version, just updated, although the addition of the “hollow Men” make today more dangerous.
Yes, Pepe, I think we are all waiting for the false flag “provocation” which will be provided by the little fox terrier with the biggest stake.
Think Pearl Harbour or 9/11 or some such “outrage”.
Well Notre Dame sure fizzled …… looks like naked desperation and panic is setting in
I smell the stench of an impending FF.
The glorious dispatch of American servicemen and women will surely get things going.
What is the name of our oldest Carrier and where is it presently patrolling?
Nothing is too low for these crimminals.
Superb, Pepe. Thank you.
I like the simple storytelling narrative using the animal analogies of the Eagle, the Bear & the Dragon to describe the current World Powers of America, Russia & China? It’s like the editorial cartoons from old newspapers published back in the late 18th- Early 19th Century depictions of visualising great Powers as animals including the British Empires Lion & their domination of the World, probably inspired by the Bible representations? The now, Tatty Eagle, representing the American Empire, is crashing out of the Sky, faster than a feeble Boeing 737 Max, heading into a uncertain future? The Russian Bear & Chinese Eagle know this for a fact as the US Eagle is lashing out in its final death thoes using Worldwide sanctions, threats, bullying behaviour & pathetic sabre rattling using outdated Military machines & regime change oil theft, like in Venezuela? And the one thing that really stood out for me in this article? That the Bear , the Dragon & everyone else in the Multipolar World are thinking, is that the US is becoming totally irrelevant & we just “DON’T CARE ANYMORE, WHAT THE EAGLE SAYS OR DOES”, the American Eagles time in the Sun is OVER, done & dusted!
Sorry meant Chinese Dragon?
Chinese dragons arcalled long. They are totally different creatures from Western dragons. Not violent, not dangerous, associated with rain clouds, rivers, lakes, seas, etc.
Escobar’ fable is true as true can be.
May your hope, Pepe, become so.
The Eagle has become mad with power, long since, and the avarice, greed, and lust for absolute power which drives the pathology is shared by an elite quite as insane as any this weary world has ever yet seen.
That some perverted and twisted religiousity promises to fulfill their every mindless and vicious wish is, one should think, imagine, even hope, sufficient to awaken their vassals and serfs from a long and bloody stupor, a fog of denial and hubris, that bodes only ill and, mayhap, the end of all that humanity has, world enough, if we choose to care for it, and time to become mature enough to realize that the featherless bipeds costumed like an eagle are sorely in need of finding their own humanity, simply as fellow beings with those named the bear and the dragon.
May there arise, in the land of the eagle, full consciousness, a true understanding of what is at stake.
And the will to thwart the pathology now fully exposed and evident in that land of myth and deceit, of ludicrous claims and insular carelessness.
This avid and appreciative listener awaits the next chapter in this fable …
In May of that year, he said “We are finally on our own”. .. And, that we “Gotta get down to it”.
Then in September of that year, he had an absolute smash album. .. But, there was one particular song from that album, it just haunted me. I listened to it for about 25 years. .. And, then one day I thought of not just a bird, but right or wrong, I thought of The Eagle.
…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km5SvbIvJYI
N.Y.’s 1st and 3rd lps are, indeed, the ones.
Yes. The 1st and 3rd are definitely the ones for me; as well.
After the 60’s, as the industry became more of a monopoly of the labels, etc., and the artist became much harder to find, I became much less interested with each decade for all of the commercialized products. But Neil, even though I didn’t buy the albums, he has always held my deep respect, because he still had some great truths to express throughout his whole career.
But yes, over time I have come to see ‘Birds’, with it’s truly unique approach, as a traditional love song, and as a love song more in the broad macro sense; as well. .. Neil, he is just so incredible.
Thanks geeyp!
Thank you so much, both of you, for that reference. I’d never heard that track. One of the many activities of my life has been designing and building (wood) furniture. I have always understood that an essential ingredient of elegance is surely simplicity, and that NY piece confirms that observation. My (younger) son is a gifted musician and wrote just such a simple chart (instrumental) as he waited for a flight to take him home when his lover abandoned him. “Another Chance” which was recorded with SounDocrtine on their album “Source.” Another such offering is Red Rodney’s “A Prayer Answered” as recorded on his album “No Turn on Red.” His lifelong struggle with heroin addiction. Again, thanks for leading me there.
Very good. Possibly the influence of the rogue tribe over the eagle’s forces and also Gustave Le Bon and the nature of crowds and mass hallucination might be a worthwhile end-note. Good essay on the rogue tribe? Here> Adeyinka Makinde’ essay “An Examination of the History of the Pro-Zionist Lobby” http://adeyinkamakinde.blogspot.com/2019/05/an-examination-of-history-of-pro.html
Sorry, Walter, but no “rogue tribe” made us exterminate the native Americans or murder millions in Viet Nam. We make our own bad decisions for our own reasons.
I did not say that they did. friend. Read more carefully, please. It may be that you, as well as the esteemed Pepe, might benefit from becoming familiar with Gustave Le Bon’s work on the methods of control of mass-opinion and deception, as you seem to be in a deception so far as it may obscure critical reading abilities. Our Brothers Lenin, and Freud, and of course the intrepid agents of a variety of “interests” are… And Mr Zhu?
As to rogue tribe, is the Anglosaxon tribe also rogue? Does one rogue tribe curate another? Is the sun warm?
If only you knew more about reality you would not write silly things. For example, do you understand how “zionism” was curated in Palestine by MI6, how the organization of OSS/CIA was shaped by MI6…no, of course not. Pity.
A very lengthy but interesting and informative article, Walter.
I hope it might be read by commenters here and even discussed, as it provided critically important perspective around a number of issues and incidents.
Thank you for providing the link to the article and suggestion that its range of subjects are most worthy of serious study and consideration.
DW
Many Thanks!
I might also suggest a series “Manipulation der Massen (Teil 1,2,3) (in German @ https://vera-lengsfeld.de/2019/05/05/manipulation-der-massen-teil-2/ (you can gt there that way).
And Eric Cline’s book “1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed” His lectures along these lines are also on youtube. Also Kitto’s “The Greeks”…
And, mirable dictu, just today @ offguardian >https://off-guardian.org/2019/05/08/above-us-the-waves/
(From the latter is get the idea that the multitudes are beginning to twig to the futility of political process, getting close to that. Of course their reflex is emotional, and futile, which plays into the system of manipulating minds and crowds.)
If one take the large view, rapid environmental change, sweeping changes in population distribution, it soon becomes clear that the very idea that man has any significant political control becomes absurd…and the objective fact is revealed, “we” are at the end of the Anglosaxon or Thalassocratic era. Setting aside the dozens (possibly hundreds) of nuclear power stations and petrochemical plants that are 100% sure to suffer “Fukushimas”, and the likelihood of atomic explosives being used fairly soon on cities – setting such appalling things aside – we remain helplessly in the 6th mass extinction and we are 100% part of the extinction. Withal, Ethics is entirely dependent upon the interplay of circumstance and ideology or perhaps a-priori assumption, sometimes mitigated by character. Those who the gods would destroy… The “leaders” are barking insane and foolishly ignorant, and helpless, well, those in “The West” certinly.
The lessons for us may, in a small way, be suggested in the way the Bronze Age ended, and in the arising of new peoples and cultures from the ruins. Of course it is merely an assumption that people will continue.
My wife and I, being old, yet also active, moved 15 years to high riparian ground in Polis-sized village blessed with homogeneous people and viable agronomic process and potential. I expect to see the “collapse of the 21st Century” continue and accelerate, and perhaps even the beginnings of the Slavo-asian Era…ultimately it’s geographic.
Bless us all, it’s over. The denouement remains to be revealed.
Don’t count on it Pepe. Those neo-cons are crazy.
Pepe, your journalism is so inspired, it’s like high literature. Homeric even. It’s a real shame that most Americans–those who could best profit from it–never get to read it as the corporate media run nearly a closed shop on this continent.