Vladimir Putin’s address at the Valdai Club last week, coming on the heels of the Biden administration’s release of its National Security Strategy, shows how the battle lines have been drawn.
Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow on Oct. 27. (Kremlin)
By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s keynote address at the Valdai Club last Thursday appears to have put Russia on a collision course with the U.S.-led “Rules Based International Order” (RBIO).
The Biden administration two weeks earlier released its 2022 National Security Strategy (NSS), a full-throated defense of the RBIO which all-but declares war on “autocrats” who are “working overtime to undermine democracy.”
These two visions of the future of the world order define a global competition that has become existential in nature. In short, there can be only one victor.
Given the fact that the main players in this competition comprise the five declared nuclear powers, how the world manages the defeat of the losing side will, in large part, determine whether humanity will survive into the next generation.
“We are now in the early years of a decisive decade for America and the world,” U.S. President Joe Biden wrote in the introduction to the 2022 NSS. “The terms of geopolitical competition between the major powers will be set … the post-Cold War era is definitively over, and a competition is underway between the major powers to shape what comes next.”
The key to winning this competition, Biden declared, is American leadership: “The need for a strong and purposeful American role in the world has never been greater.”
The 2022 NSS laid out the nature of this competition in stark terms. Biden claimed:“Democracies and autocracies are engaged in a contest to show which system of governance can best deliver for their people and the world.”
American goals in this competition are clear:
“[W]e want a free, open, prosperous, and secure international order. We seek an order that is free in that it allows people to enjoy their basic, universal rights and freedoms. It is open in that it provides all nations that sign up to these principles an opportunity to participate in, and have a role in shaping, the rules.”
President Joe Biden conferring with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, at left, during a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Aug. 25. (White House, Adam Schultz)
Standing in the way of the accomplishment of these goals, Biden says, are the forces of autocracy, led by Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). “Russia,” he declared,
“poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly flouting the basic laws of the international order today, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown. The PRC, by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.”
Russia & China
Of course, Russia and China take umbrage at Biden’s world view, and in particular their role in it. This objection was voiced back on Feb. 4, when Putin met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, where the two leaders released a joint statement that served as a veritable declaration of war against the RBIO.
“The sides [i.e., Russia and China] intend to resist attempts to substitute universally recognized formats and mechanisms that are consistent with international law [i.e., the Law Based International Order (LBIO)],” the joint statement read, “for rules elaborated in private by certain nations or blocs of nations [i.e., the RBIO], and are against addressing international problems indirectly and without consensus, oppose power politics, bullying, unilateral sanctions, and extraterritorial application of jurisdiction.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin holding talks in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Feb. 4. (Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Far from seeking confrontation, Russia and China, in their joint statement, went out of their way to emphasize the need for cooperation among nations:
“The sides reiterate the need for consolidation, not division of the international community, the need for cooperation, not confrontation. The sides oppose the return of international relations to the state of confrontation between major powers when the weak fall prey to the strong.”
Russia and China believe the problems confronting the world come from pressures brought on by the collective West, led by the United States. This point was emphasized by Putin in his Valdai address.
“[I]t can be said,” Putin noted, “that in recent years, and especially in recent months, this West has taken a number of steps toward escalation. Strictly speaking, it always relies on escalation; that is not new. These are the instigation of the war in Ukraine, the provocations around Taiwan, and the destabilization of global food and energy markets.”
According to Putin, there is little that can be done to avoid this escalation, since the root of the problem is the very nature of the West. He said:
“The Western model of globalization, neocolonial at its core, was also built on standardization, on financial and technological monopolism, and on the erasure of all differences. The task was clear: to strengthen the unconditional domination of the West in the world economy and politics, and to this end to put at its service the natural and financial resources, the intellectual, human, and economic capacities of the entire planet, under the guise of the so-called new global interdependence.”
Western Supremacy
There can be no longer any concept of cooperation between Russia and the West, Putin said, because the American-dominated West steadfastly adheres to the supremacy of its own values and systems, at the exclusion of all others.
Putin took aim at this exclusivity. “Western ideologists and politicians,” he said, “have been telling the whole world for many years: There is no alternative to democracy. However, they talk about the Western, so-called liberal model of democracy. They reject all other variants and forms of democracy with contempt and – I would like to emphasize this – arrogance.”
Moreover, Putin noted, “[T]he arrogant pursuit of world domination, of dictating or maintaining leadership by dictation, is leading to the decline of the international authority of the leaders of the Western world, including the United States.”
U.S. President Joe Biden meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, June 14, 2021. (NATO)
The solution, Putin declared, is to reject the exclusivity of the American RBIO model. “The unity of humanity is not based on the command ‘do it like me’ or ‘become like us,’” Putin said, noting rather that “it is formed taking into account and based on the opinion of all and with respect for the identity of each society and nation. This is the principle on which long-term engagement in a multipolar world can be built.”
Battle Defined by Ideas
The battle lines have been drawn — American-led singularity on one side, and a Russian-Chinese led multipolarity on the other.
A direct military-on-military clash between the proponents of the RBIO and those backing the LBIO would, literally, go nuclear, destroying the very world they are competing to control.
As such, the looming Armageddon won’t be a battle defined by military power, but rather of ideas — of which side can sway the opinion of the rest of the world to come over to its side. Herein lies the key to determining who will win — the established RBIO, or the up-and-coming LBIO?
The answer increasingly seems clear — it’s the LBIO by a long shot.
America is in decline. The American model of democracy is failing at home, and as such is incapable of being responsibly projected on the world stage as something worthy of imitation. The RBIO is coming apart at the seams.
On every front, it is being confronted by organizations which embrace the LBIO vision and failing. The G-7 is losing against BRICS; NATO is fracturing while the Shanghai Cooperation Organization is expanding. The European Union is collapsing, while the Russian-Chinese vision for a trans-Eurasian economic union is thriving.
Map of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, December 2021. (Firdavs Kulolov, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
“Power over the world,” Putin declared at Valdai, “is exactly what the so-called West has been betting on. But this game is certainly a dangerous, bloody and, I would say, dirty game.”
There can be no avoiding the coming conflict. But, as Putin noted, paraphrasing the Biblical passage from Hosea 8:7, “He who sows the wind will, as the saying goes, reap the storm. The crisis has indeed become global; it affects everyone. There is no need to be under any illusions.”
To this should be added Matthew 24:6: “And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”
All things must come to pass.
But the end is not yet.
The decline of American hegemony in global affairs does not require the four horsemen of the apocalypse to be unleashed on the planet.
America has had its moments. As Paul Simon sang in his classic song, American Tune, “We [America] come in the age’s most uncertain hour.”
History will never forget the American Century, where the strength of its industry and people not once, but twice, came to the aid of the world “in its most uncertain hour.”
But the age of American supremacy has passed, and it’s time to move on to what the future holds — a new age of multi-polarity where America is but one among many.
We can, of course, decide to resist this transition. Indeed, Biden’s 2022 NSS is literally a roadmap of such a resistance. We can, as the poet Dylan Thomas penned, opt not to “go gentle into that good night”, but rather “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
But at what cost? The end of American singularity does not have to mean the end of America. The American dream, once removed from the need to dominate the world to sustain it, can be an attainable possibility.
The alternative is grim. Should the U.S. opt to resist the tides of history, the temptation to use the final weapon of existential survival — America’s nuclear arsenal — will be real.
And no one will survive.
In the end, the decision of whether to “burn the village in order to save it” is up to the American people.
We can buy into the flawed “democracy versus autocracy” suicide pact inherent in the 2022 NSS, or we can insist that our leaders use what remains of American leadership and authority to help guide the planet into a new phase of multilateralism where our nation exists as one among equals.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
“The Western model of globalization, neocolonial at its core, was also built on standardization, on financial and technological monopolism, and on the erasure of all differences. The task was clear: to strengthen the unconditional domination of the West in the world economy and politics, and to this end to put at its service the natural and financial resources, the intellectual, human, and economic capacities of the entire planet, under the guise of the so-called new global interdependence.”
Regardless of the politics, and whoever is in charge, nature simply does not work like the model shown above. Systems are interdependent, whether natural or human or technical. Monopolist control doesn’t work in the long run. It seems that we now have a “banksterism” model which demands that the world serve one currency. That has been the model since Bretton Woods in the 1940s. Luck and opportunism gave the West such a good run, to have mastery over the world’s reserve currency. With changing demographics, and technology, that simplified model does not work anymore. Western colonialism and post-WW2 (Bretton Woods) currency control provided the US and NATO countries with a good run. Luck, timing, and technology were on their side.
Now, the West must realize that the “fiat” money system is (and always has been) a farce and a flop. Instead of trying to find a reasonable currency system, a reasonable balance of trade, and a sensible balance of work output, the West has tried to overcome its lack of production over the years by managing the world with military resources, and strangling the world with economic (currency) control or financialization. This is the repetition of stupid ideas. And now we’ll pay for this stupidity, one way or another (debt, war, humility, etc.). But it is “banksterism” and elite control over Monopoly money (US ownership of the world’s reserve currency) that is creating these problems for the West. We should send all of these elite Banksters over to Ukraine to fight this war. At least we’d be rid of them.
I like your closing homily best of all, Scott, notably the part where you say that America should trust that it has taught well, through our words and example, the nations who will become our peers in a peaceful multipolar world. In fact, I think that President Putin has exemplified this well in the way he has conducted this campaign by minimizing deaths and damage to infrastructure, even at costs to his own soldiers. China, on the other hand, seems to exemplify the ultimate in a strict but placid meritocracy of 1.5 billion citizens, which may serve as an example to ourselves, too often caught up in the strife and chaos of our own designs.
In Putin’s speech at Valdai, for all its seeming harshness, there was one significant point that shows how long Putin has sought to establish contact with the United States. One of his main frustrations is that the West has stopped following at least some rules, even its own. If the US and the West as a whole adhered to the agreements, perhaps the threats to peace would not be so acute. Putin endured a lot, personal insults, the seizure of diplomatic property in the United States, blatant lies about the start of a war in Georgia, the poisoning of Skripals, the destruction of a Boeing over Ukraine, the freezing of Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves, sanctions and much, much more. But in the end, a hot phase of confrontation with the West began. Why? It’s just that the West is arbitrarily breaking all of its own rules of the game, and there is no guarantee that those rules will ever work in the West at all. In Valdai, pro-Western Putin has ceased to be pro-Western. It became an extreme and forced decision. That’s what the West should know.
Surely both RBIO and the LBI Orders depend on nations’ sovereign independence.
In the same way as bias exists in international law so too does it exist in nations’ domestic law.
Any hierarchical government/regime can be biased.
Wherever there is consciously un self-restrained subjective human behavior, bias/prejudice will always exist.
Like all human traits, bias is only an innate potential, until it is relentlessly inculcated. It is then that it magically transforms into the doublespeak language of hypocrisy, and we are hearing the “death knell” of humanity as this is being written.
Both a rules based international order and a law based international order, must represent a more egalitarian, multi-polar based consensus of order.
In this day and era of unilateral, unipolar, U.S. notions of its hegemony; regarding brute power as anything other than “the ultimate determinant of both legitimacy and legality” is nothing more than magical thinking.
On February 24th, 2022, Russia gave notice to the disregarded populations of the world that it had finally awoken from its long nightmarish dreaming of wish fulfillment.
In the international order, Unipolarity is rightly viewed as equivalent to “a State of Anarchy wherein might means right”!
Note: see human rights lawyer, Noura Arakat’s introduction to her ‘Justice for Some’ 2019
As usual Mr Ritter’s informed perspective draws comments 2 the max.
This commenter, lifelong Dem, is disappointed at right wing Joe’s $peechwriter’s “Ugly Americanism”, (& dissembling given local jurisdictions 1st Amendment contempt in demanding assembly permits).
I do, however, find hope in fellow commenter’s equally informed perspective (which seems both US & overseas sent).
Tnx CN 4 publishing Mr Ritter, as well as many other truthtellers.
“one among equals”…. The American elites will never agree to be one among equals! They want everyone to kneel prostrate to them, they want to be the only one making the rules for everyone and be the only one allowed to break those very same rules they demand others to follow. They want to be above God! Worshipped unquestionably by all others while they decide who should be sacrificed by bombs when they feel like loving the smell of burning human flesh, with every single human and every species of animals existing only for their pleasure, with every ounce of resource on the planet theirs to exploit for their insatiable indulgence.. The only way the rest of humankind can have hope of peaceful existence is to wipe all these parasites off the planet and off the memories of mankind.
Biden is such a hypocrite that he even begins by acknowledging that he offers all nations that adhere to US principles the opportunity to participate and play a role in shaping the rules that govern the world?! A very VIP club! In other words, US rules. And then he complain that Russia does not respect international law?! So if Biden also recognizes international law, why does the world need more rules? For the US to impose economic sanctions on its main adversaries or whoever it wants to do without international law? Or to invade Iraq or bomb Belgrade. An idea that Biden himself likes to claim for himself in defiance of international law and the UNSC!
Ritter’s fourth last paragraph should guide America, Americans and pro-Americans henceforth. The lovable American Dream need not die, what may, nay should, go are its addiction to exceptionalism, singularity, you are with us or against us, US or THEM; well to put it bluntly “screw like we do or be screwed” ! The emerging world, including America’s traditional closet buddy India, the guru of the Kamasutra positions, are no longer keen to buy into THAT old, boring missionary position. The world is now ready to move on to multi-polarity, America is welcome to join it !
“It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.” George Carlin
Too bad that Biden and the Deep State that he fronts for are nothing but shameless liars, both in the supposed reality that they allegedly describe and in their obscene proposals to coerce the entire globe to do things their way or else.
If these are to be Biden’s operating principles I do not see the possibility of life persisting on this planet for two more years at the most. He and his craven party of neofascists are going to be shellacked in the elections five days from now. The Republicans will control both houses of congress and the Democrats will rightfully be the objects of shame and ridicule for having incurred such wrath from the public after their purported record-smashing electoral victory in 2020.
They will be desperate to turn things around and, being inveterate war mongers as Tulsi Gabbard so articulately describes her former colleagues, they will opt to double-down on the escalation of the war they fomented in Ukraine. Of course THAT IS NOT WHAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT, but who cares, it is their modus operandi. Nobody in political power ever cares what the American people want, especially when it comes to the glories of war.
By the date of Russia’s virtually announced offensive with the onset of winter, Lord Biden will have uniformed American meddlers stationed all over Ukraine and not just to check to see if the billions in weapons aid is arriving or getting lost in the mail. There will eventually be armed skirmishes between the super powers, as thick-headed Biden (and his puppet masters) refuse to change tactics or aims, the total defeat of Russia on the battlefield.
Using the real intelligence repeatedly provided by the likes of Scott Ritter, Colonel Douglas McGregor, Moon of Alabama, South Front and other objective sources, Biden’s victory will never come into sight. With the passage of another year in basically a frozen conflict, Lord Biden and his Democratic minions will get desperate in the presidential election year of 2024 and make a dash for victory by deploying nuclear weapons which will be “justified” on the basis of how evil and nefarious the human opponents in this specific war are–never mind the greater prevalence of terrorist acts and war crimes being committed on the other side, that is on Washington’s side.
After the first few tactical nukes are unleashed, most of the rest of humanity will sue for a stand-down by both sides at the UN. Putin will agree that this is the only sane and rational thing to do. Biden and his minions never had a lick of sense, to say anything of sanity. The fool will go for the “win” and you can cue the closing music to “Dr. Strangelove.” Life on Earth will have had its chance and squandered it, after 4.5 billion years in the making. Elon Musk will have been a day late and a dollar short. Just before they fade to black a lot of fairly intelligent people scattered across this planet will agonise over the question of why they could not change the course of events even though the core problem was so damned conspicuous, ensconced as usual in Washington DC.
Excellent presentation of Putin’s speech by the man who I think should be in the White House.
Major improvement over any politician in the country and he meets his first qualification–he doesn’t want the job. But, he is a patriot so if we draft him, he will serve. Imagine having someone in the White House that loves the country more than himself.
For some weeks now I can’t help thinking about Francis Fukuyamas “End of History” and about the possibility that the neocons are determined to make it a reality, one way or the other…
I am sure the Americans believe their own lies. They only care about their own power and wealth. They have been waging wars, running coups, assassinating leaders they do not like for decades. They cannot even spell the word freedom or justice. Ask the Vietnamese, the Palestinians, the Iraqis, the Libyans, to name just a few of too many.
God save us from the Americans.
A M E N .
Another excellent analysis nay Ritter.
Putin was far more critical of the US and West in his speech at the ceremony annexing the Donbass.
And this catastrophe was all the predicted outcome of Biden’s “America Is Back” nonsense at the outset of his administration, see:
hxxps://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/02/04/remarks-by-president-biden-on-americas-place-in-the-world/
The best of your articles yet, Scott!
The author concludes that “In the end, the decision of whether to “burn the village in order to save it” is up to the American people”. I think that is right since, as far as I can tell, there are no adults in any leadership role in our government (in either political party). The problem is that the majority of the American people are kept in a state of ignorance by the great U.S. Lie Machine. For over a half century I have watched the people accept as truth the lies we are told by our government to sell one illegal war of aggression after another and, without exception, the overwhelming majority have believed the lies, notwithstanding the fact that they had learned that our government had preciously lied us into war. We have witnessed this same thing with regard to the current war against Russia, waged this time using Ukraine as our proxy. Predictably, the ignorant fools dutifully began waving their Ukrainian flags and mouthing nonsense about “defending democracy”. You betcha – overthrow a democratically elected government and call it “defending democracy”. Who will buy such nonsense? Well, the “American people”, that’s who.
The Americans can burn their own villages but leave the world alone. The world does not want the US running the planet because they can see the mess it makes of its own country. Americans may be deranged enough to believe they are on a mission from God but stay home please and let the world make its own way. You have killed and destroyed more than enough since you invented yourselves.
Most people in the world believe the US is the greatest threat to peace for a reason. It is.
I disagree with the “Most people in the world believe the US…….” There are UN speeches and meetings and organizaions. When will they stand up and do something…WHEN. The world can be a better place but not with all this silence. They are part of this world also.
I believe our world problem is the 1% (including leaders in many countries) against the people in our and their countries. The haves vs the have-nots Very sad to have such terible leadership in our world.
“Most people in the world believe the US is the greatest threat to peace for a reason. It is.” A M E N ! This sad fact has been demonstrated in worldwide polls on more than one occasion, but not reported by the MSM. Americans are dangerously ignorant of history and choose to ignore the ugly realities of our ways. As a citizen of this country, I have witnessed the reality of US military violence and aggression for the majority of my 68 years and it’s getting worse by the day, even as we tear each other to shreds right here at home. All of it right before of our lyin’ eyes.
Getting fooled can happen once, or even twice, since criminals are often quite “good”, doing their sort of business.
But getting fooled all the time, makes oneself the biggest fool ;)
Not “only” a U.S. problem.
For decades in the USA (and the West) the educational standards have been declining, illiteracy is rife.
In 2019, “54% of adults in the United States have prose literacy below the 6th-grade level” – 11 years old; In the UK the average reading age of the population is Nine years old.
So, maybe the populations of the west aren’t stupid but just badly educated and therefore ignorant (lacking knowledge). This is not. IMO, accidental but part of the establishment agenda, which means you can tell them anything and they’ll probably believe it, and they’ll support you with their votes. It’s not their fault, it’s part of the plan.
Great article as always from Scott. But as everyone knows, the US cannot give up their unipolar position due to having the worlds money printing machine, which if they give up, then America ceases to be the anything like the power it currently is. And US politicians believe the unbelievable, about their essential position in the world. So they probably will burn the village to save their own hut. No one but the US will consider first strike nukes, but given the calibre of the US govt, they will think they can “win” a nuclear conflict. Whilst the West enjoys a compliant “free” press where they are always the good guys,. I cannot see an amicable end
Well said, Sean; and I agree. Your thoughts mirror mine; for example, re. the perceived existential need to keep the dollar’s domination. For if / when that is lost (and it is inevitable so not a matter of if but only of when), the wanton deficit-financed spending’s time will come to an end. The many decades-long Party will be over and the pain will be all the more deeply felt because the fall in economic standards will be from a greater height than much of the world’s populace has ever experienced.
So you’re also right that in vain attempts to prevent or hold off that leveling, the elite-representing government will likely resort to desperate measures; and the Press, as you suggest, will not question but rather will egg them on.
At this point in time the USA has rendered itself irrelevant, openly parading a geriatric puppet in need of assisted living, who never had the ethical or intellectual capacity to govern at the best of his times, let alone now.
If all those oligarchs who own this incontinent puppet and the side show around him decide to end life on this planet, it will also mean ending their own. Let the ‘fun’ begin. I won’t loose any sleep over it in the meantime.
“[W]e want a free, open, prosperous, and secure international order. …” — Brandon
Funny coming from the leader of a nation that has very little democracy and sees 45% of its population living very near or below the poverty line, tens of millions mired in massive debt bondage due to healthcare, housing, student loans, crummy jobs; a nation that’s witnessing an expanding and grotesque inequality between the top fraction of 1% and the bottom 80% of the working population. A nation has countless deaths of despair in the heartland every yr and doesn’t do a whole lot to address it.
Yeah, “prosperous”, yeah right. OK guy.
Oh, and meanwhile, “autocratic” Russia has essentially free and universal healthcare coverage for every single Russian citizen, and great quality healthcare too! Also, Russia has very lengthy full-paid maternity leave for every citizen, greatly subsidized housing for millions, and even a bit (a bit) of high-speed passenger rail. The Kremlin even engages in genuine humanitarian interventions across the world.
So who’s population is prosperous in relation to whom again?
Thank you for pointing it out ^^
How can people in the US stomach this kind of double-speak policy when their government is actively supporting the like of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Israel? ““[W]e want a free, open, prosperous, and secure international order. We seek an order that is free in that it allows people to enjoy their basic, universal rights and freedoms.” There’s only one explanation. Washington knows how absolutely ignorant the US electorate is.
Amen, brother.
Being “one among equals” is a democratic ideal, isn’t it? The U.S. military hegemony stated goal is to keep any other military power from being developed and competitive – from at least George Kennan on – which is an undemocratic, unipolar, autocratic plan.
It’s a little confusing.
The more autocratic nations support international democracy, and the more democratic nations are asked to support an international tyranny.
Can we please put it together, before we blow it all up?
The key to winning this competition, Biden declared, is American leadership: “The need for a strong and purposeful American role in the world has never been greater.” Sorry, but this is absolutely the opposite to the truth.
The “goals” Biden states are correct, but the interpretation of them making the USA a democracy and others not is wrong. There is such a thing as international law, which the USA refuses to follow.
There can be NO victor in this calamity!
Thank you CN, and thank you Scott Ritter. This is a stellar example of leadership from the East and sophistry from the West. This cogent analysis is the true picture that the lying, babbling President thinks his words can make disappear. If Biden was a leader worth his title, he’d deliver the news to the American people and the world, that our way of life is going to change dramatically whether we seek to influence it or pretend it isn’t happening. He is acting like the pretender-in-chief.
Congratulations to Scott Ritter for this eloquent statement and to CN for publishing it. It is getting to the point where such frank and courageous statement can lead to “cancellation” or worse.
Please keep up the great work.
A united front will always beat a disunited front. Not so much of who side is right or wrong.
Having said that:
The RBIO front is trying all their might to break the unity of LBIO front. Meddling into bordering states in the Russia under belly. Restraining Iran and China. Brazil about turn. Don’t worry about India, SA and SAR, they will get their medicine soon. And they ll blink. For the rest of peripheral countries, DXY is climbing fast. Won’t stand much chance against the mighty dollar. Dollar is fading away though but not so soon.
In the LBIO front, while trying to manage some of the above, is only betting big on wait-and-see. Let’s the winter cold break the floodgate and tsunamized the RBIO front in Europe. Hoping the ordinary citizens of Europe would rise up. Well, freeze their bank accounts, like Canada did, and you break their will. Just like that. At least the majority will.
Even, for argument sake, if ‘wait-and-see’ did work, just one call from across the ocean is enough. See what had happened in Italy and Sweden after the recent elections. Congratulation. You have won, but keep in the lane and stick to the scripts. Or you ll be out. Trust me, we can. Said the ‘voice’.
But the key word here is still Europe. Yes, Europe are vassal states. Sacrificial cows. So the US is still very much insulated from the pain. All the pain is in Europe. Steadfast until the last European.
Unless….the Russian goes the Khrushchev Bluff. The US is using Nato to scare the Russian with five minutes. All the Russian need is a Cuban cigar(s). Ready to light up in three. Well, won’t that raise the nuclear threat? Like the US are not doing it now!!!
Thank goodness for your clear passionate com-passion, Scott. Thank goodness for all the powerful spokespeople and leaders at Consortium News. We will do all in our power to make the multipolar message of cooperation our livlihoods now. Because?! Indeed we must. Free Julian, Daniel, and all truth-tellers. Peace is worth living for.
Greaet column. The citizens of the United States mostly have no idea about what is going on in the rest of the world. To many of them, Russia and China are scary, mysterious and threatening countries. They believe this because of the censorship of news from any point of view other than that of the U.S. government and its shills in the mainstream media. The U.S. is not the center of the world. It is past time for it to realize this and act accordingly, or civilization comes to an end.
Nice piece, Scott. I would say that the logic of empire says that we have to keep going or those that we have screwed will come looking for compensation.
Thank you for a profoundly important article. The rules based order has always been a joke; “our rules, our orders”. The “rules based order” greatly mimics law in the US; if you are poor, if you are not, “in with the in crowd,” you are merely chattel. The “rule of law” is reserved for those who can afford to buy it. Lose hope anyone else. This is the model that the US is holding up as its shining example? Who in their right mind would choose a self-serving Western “rules based order”, a pinnacle system with the elite of the US society, government and business at the top and everyone else simply a resource to be used and discarded for elite ends? Yes, indeed, look at the brave Ukrainian people and how we use them. The term is cannon fodder. Of course, this is carried out with the enthusiastic support of Ukraine’s own elite oligarchs and neo-Nazis. Human nature can be truly sick at times. The elites of the world have to stick together, as long, of course, as they bend a knee to “Glutton Prime”.
“[W]e want a free, open, prosperous, and secure international order. We seek an order that is free in that it allows people to enjoy their basic, universal rights and freedoms. It is open in that it provides all nations that sign up to these principles an opportunity to participate in, and have a role in shaping, the rules.” [Joe Biden]. I guess they have decided to try something completely new, or, this is simply biggest “bait and switch” in history. I guess if you can believe in the Easter bunny, you can believe in this too. Best not too look too closely at history though.
Look around. The survival of our species on this planet depends on one word, “cooperation”. Nature herself has decreed this and there is no bargaining or appeals. An international laws based order of peers, all equal before the law, none above, centered on a “united nations” for resolving global conflicts is not just a good idea, it is the only idea that has a chance of working. The “might makes right” meme only worked after a fashion, and only really for a very few while resources were abundant. Now, resources are gone. There is no more buffer in the environment to absorb human foolishness; the insanity of abundance. Now it is cooperate together or die together. And it is the West led by the US that is cheering on the later. A true suicide cult; I take what I want. If I cannot have it, I destroy everything.
The US had it’s chance for 30+ years to show what it could and would do as the world’s only super power. And it has, in spades. It turned into a glutton to end all gluttons and set the world on fire while destroying its natural resources for a quick buck. Now the US binge has hit the wall of reality and it’s time for the people of the world to look ahead to building a sustainable and even prosperous, cooperative future without the perverse influence of America and its alliance of vassals.
An excellent comment ^^
Thank you.
Greets and best wishes from Berlin, for all of us :)
Most excellent!
I don’t think a collision is inevitable. There isn’t any reason why the Russian and Chinese can have their own economic sphere and the US and other so-called democracies have another sphere. The issue is who wants to rule the world? So far, the US is the only country trying to police the world. Russia does not appear to have ambitions beyond countries that touch their border. China as well.
Last march Biden signed the new United States Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) — made public only last week. The critical paragraph in that document gives the United States permission to use nuclear weapons prior to having had nuclear weapons used against it:
“The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations. For all other states, there remains a narrow range of contingencies in which U.S. nuclear weapons may still play a role in deterring attacks that have strategic effect against the Unites States or its Allies and partners.”
As the full document makes clear, “… deterring attacks …” includes “deterring” non-nuclear attacks. In other words, if Russia and Poland get into a military skirmish that has not gone nuclear and is not expected to go nuclear, the U.S. has given itself permission to use nukes against Russia in response to an anticipated “strategic effect against” Poland.
The new NPR is a craftily written document. Did Biden really understand what he signed off on last March?
Re. “Did Biden really understand what he signed off on last March?”
– I’m rather sure that was a rhetorical question, but “Not likely” is the response. Not only is he at times showing that he’s demented in the medical sense of the word, but he’s acted and spoken like a soul-less automaton for far longer- understanding only what the string-pullers (and his own ambition) allow. It’s sad that our so-called ‘democracy’ have devolved to this.
Shortly after this wonderful and incisive address by Putin the neoliberal/neocon Washington empire promptly directed its Ukie fascists to bomb Russian infrastructure under the cover of the commercial global grain shipments.
IF (and hopefully NOT) this goes nuclear…there won’t be winners, only losers. The Yanx are the biggest shit disturbers this planet ever had. America needs to be given TWO black eyes and a bloody nose. America needs to experience a war on its own territory, to see and feel first hand what horrors of war are all about. Watching war movies on TV just isn’t the same. America: the Earth’s cancer.
Bravo, Mr Ritter.
It is the duty of every citizen to demand diplomacy of our representatives and delegates .
Our offensive — literally offensive — RBIO forces every other nation to become offensively defensive .
Keep writing.