Cold War 2.0

[TsarSamuil]

Russians’ attitude to Western nations continues to deteriorate - poll.

RT.com
2 Dec, 2015 10:39

An overwhelming majority of Russians profess increasingly negative feelings about the USA, the EU and other Western nations, a poll shows. At the same time, 65 percent of respondents think Russia should stay its independent course regardless of sanctions.

The research conducted by the independent polling center Levada in late November shows the proportion of Russians with a negative attitude to the United States increased from 68 percent to 70 percent over the past two months. Negative attitudes to the European Union remained at 70 percent, while negativity towards Ukraine increased from 56 percent to 63 percent.

The results are still lower than the data from January this year when negative attitudes to Western nations reached all-time high. However, researchers register the change in tendency about two months back – now the number of people with negative sentiments about the West is growing again.

Some 54 percent of respondents said Russia was right when it expected aggressive actions on the part of the NATO bloc, while 36 percent said such approach was wrong. At the same time, 51 percent of Russians said NATO shouldn’t fear their country and 39 percent said such fear would be justified.

Levada researcher Karina Pipiya told Izvestia daily that the increasing negative attitude towards Western countries was caused primarily by the latest political actions of their leaders. She also noted that more Russians think that the relations with the West must be repaired. She said that this must be due to the fact that the poll took place after the downing of the Russian jet liner in Egypt and terrorist attacks in Paris – people understand better that Russia and the West have a common enemy.

Now 75 percent of Russians said that their country should do more to improve the relations with the West and 70 percent favor additional efforts to improve relations with Ukraine.

At the same time, most Russians (65 percent) said their country should continue implementing independent policies. Those who said Russia needs to find a compromise that would lead to the lifting of mutual sanctions comprised just 26 percent. Some 58 percent of those polled answered that they didn’t expect any improvement in Russia-West relations anytime soon, noting that their country should learn to live in new economic conditions.

The latest research results released by the other major Russian polling agency – government-owned VTSIOM - are similar to those mentioned by Levada. In late August, VTSIOM said the perception of the US in Russia had drastically deteriorated and 59 percent of respondents think the current Washington administration is extremely hostile toward Russia and its people. In February VTSIOM stated that about 68 percent of Russian citizens thought the likelihood of foreign military aggression towards their country has increased. At the same time, 49 percent considered the state of Russian military ‘good’.

[TsarSamuil]

‘US made 1st move to worsen ties with Moscow’ – ex-Pentagon chief.

RT.com
4 Dec, 2015 12:14

Washington initiated the aggravation of dialogue with Moscow by making a number of strategic mistakes, a former Defense Secretary under Bill Clinton has told US media. Among such errors were the “premature” expansion of NATO and the breaking off of military ties.

The chain of events that led to the rapid deterioration of US-Russian relations started in the early 1990s, The Hill cited William Perry as saying.

Perry, who served as Secretary of Defense under Clinton from 1994 to 1997, spoke at a roundtable hosted by the US-based Defense Writers Group on Thursday.

At the time, Washington championed the expansion of NATO and decided to deploy a US-led NATO contingent to Bosnia, once part of the former Yugoslavia – a move that unleashed bloody wars in the Balkans with thousands of civilian casualties.

“We were on the way to forging a really positive and solid relationship between the US [and Russia], and then in 1996 we announced we were going to expand NATO, which, as I said, I’m not opposed to in general, but it was premature,” said Perry. “That was the first move down the slippery slope.”

“It’s as much our fault as it is the fault of the Russians, at least originally,” he said. “And it began when I was secretary.”

Although Perry accused Russia for “entering Ukraine [and] threatening Baltic nations,” he admitted that “if you look over a 20-year period and put the scoreboard together, there are at least as many American mistakes as there were Russian.”

Perry also recalled the situation in the former Yugoslavia, when the US and Russian military managed to cooperate within a unified command chain to avoid any potential accidents, which he said was far from being an option in Syria today.

Despite Washington’s failures in policymaking, it was “stupid” to break military-to-military cooperation with Russia, Perry argued. “It’s a political statement, ‘We’re going to cut off a military-to-military relationship.’ It’s stupid, but that’s what we do,” Perry said. “That’s the time when you need your military-to-military relations most of all.”

Military relations between Russia and the US have been suspended since the Ukrainian crisis. However, since the launch of Russia’s anti-terror operation in Syria, Moscow has proposed cooperation with the US-led forces in their ongoing military campaign in Syria.

In October, Moscow and Washington signed a bilateral agreement with the US on preventing dangerous incidents over and on Syrian soil, as both Russian and American air contingents are operating there.

The agreement currently in force includes establishing 24/7 ground communication line between Russian and American military staffs and enacting a set of radio frequencies both sides can make use of, as well as appointing a temporary working group to facilitate any issue that may arise.

So far this is the only sign of a collaborative military effort between the two countries in Syria, as the US is still reluctant to join forces with Russia in the fight against Islamic State (formerly ISIS/ISIL). In the meantime, the US-led coalition force is conducting its own aerial campaign, which Russia sees as illegitimate without a specific UN Security Council mandate or Syrian government approval.

[TsarSamuil]

Empire of Chaos preparing for more fireworks in 2016.

Pepe Escobar, RT
24 Dec, 2015 10:45

In his seminal 'Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization,' Bryan Ward-Perkins writes, "Romans before the fall were as certain as we are today that their world would continue forever... They were wrong. We would be wise not to repeat their complacency.”

The Empire of Chaos, today, is not about complacency. It’s about hubris – and fear. Ever since the start of the Cold War the crucial question has been who would control the great trading networks of Eurasia - or the “heartland”, according to Sir Halford John Mackinder (1861–1947), the father of geopolitics.

We could say that for the Empire of Chaos, the game really started with the CIA-backed coup in Iran in 1953, when the US finally encountered, face to face, that famed Eurasia crisscrossed for centuries by the Silk Road(s), and set out to conquer them all.

Only six decades later, it’s clear there won’t be an American Silk Road in the 21st century, but rather, just like its ancient predecessor, a Chinese one. Beijing’s push for what it calls “One Belt, One Road” is inbuilt in the 21st century conflict between the declining empire and Eurasia integration. Key subplots include perennial NATO expansion and the empire’s obsession in creating a war zone out of the South China Sea.

As the Beijing-Moscow strategic partnership analyses it, the oligarchic elites who really run the Empire of Chaos are bent on the encirclement of Eurasia – considering they may be largely excluded from an integration process based on trade, commerce and advanced communication links.

Beijing and Moscow clearly identify provocation after provocation, coupled with relentless demonization. But they won’t be trapped, as they’re both playing a very long game.

Russian President Vladimir Putin diplomatically insists on treating the West as “partners”. But he knows, and those in the know in China also know, these are not really “partners”. Not after NATO’s 78-day bombing of Belgrade in 1999. Not after the purposeful bombing of the Chinese Embassy. Not after non-stop NATO expansionism. Not after a second Kosovo in the form of an illegal coup in Kiev. Not after the crashing of the oil price by Gulf petrodollar US clients. Not after the Wall Street-engineered crashing of the ruble. Not after US and EU sanctions. Not after the smashing of Chinese A shares by US proxies on Wall Street. Not after non-stop saber rattling in the South China Sea. Not after the shooting down of the Su-24.

It’s only a thread away

A quick rewind to the run-up towards the downing of the Su-24 is enlightening. Obama met Putin. Immediately afterwards Putin met Khamenei. Sultan Erdogan had to be alarmed; a serious Russian-Iranian alliance was graphically announced in Teheran. That was only a day before the downing of the Su-24.

France’s Hollande met Obama. But then Hollande met Putin. Erdogan was under the illusion he fabricated the perfect pretext for a NATO war, to be launched following Article 5 of the NATO Charter. Not by accident failed state Ukraine was the only country to endorse – in haste – the downing of the Su-24. Yet NATO itself recoiled – somewhat in horror; the empire was not ready for nuclear war.

At least not yet. Napoleon knew history turns on a slender thread. As much as Cold War 2.0 remains in effect we were, and will remain, just a thread away from nuclear war.

Whatever happens in the so-called Syrian peace process the proxy war between Washington and Moscow will continue. Hubristic US Think-Tank Land can’t see it any other way.

For Exceptionalist neocons and neoliberalcons alike, the only digestible endgame is a partition of Syria. The Erdogan system would gobble up the north. Israel would gobble up the oil-rich Golan Heights. And House of Saud proxies would gobble up the eastern desert.

Russia literally bombed all these elaborate plans to ashes because the next step after partition would feature Ankara, Riyadh – and a “leading from behind” Washington – pushing a Jihadi Highway all the way north to the Caucasus as well as Central Asia and Xinjiang (there are already at least 300 Uyghurs fighting for ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.) When all else fails, nothing like a Jihadi Highway plunged as a dagger in the body of Eurasia integration.

In the Chinese front, whatever “creative” provocations the Empire of Chaos may come up with, they won’t derail Beijing’s aims in the South China Sea – that vast basin crammed with unexplored oil and gas wealth and prime naval highway to and from China. Beijing is inevitably configuring itself by 2020 as a formidable haiyang qiangguo – a naval power.

Washington may supply $250 million in military “aid” to Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia for the next two years, but that’s mostly irrelevant. Whatever “creative” imperial ideas would have to take into account, for instance, the DF-21D “carrier killer” ballistic missile, with a 2,500 km range and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

On the economic front, Washington-Beijing will remain prime proxy war territory. Washington pushes the TPP – or NATO on trade pivoting to Asia? It’s still a Sisyphean task, because the 12 member nations need to ratify it, not least the US featuring an extremely hostile Congress.

Against this American one-trick pony, Xi Jinping, for his part, is deploying a complex three-pronged strategy; China’s own counterpunch to the TPP, the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP); the immensely ambitious “One Belt, One Road”; and the means to finance a tsunami of projects, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) – the Chinese counter-punch to the World Bank and the US-Japan-controlled Asian Development Bank (ADB).

For Southeast Asia, for instance, the numbers tell the story. Last year, China was the top ASEAN partner, to the tune of $367 billion. This will grow exponentially with One Belt, One Road – which will absorb $200 billion in Chinese investment up to 2018.

Heart of Darkness – revisited

Prospects for Europe are nothing but bleak. French-Iranian researcher Farhad Khosrokhavar has been one of the few who identified the crux of the problem. A jihadi reserve army across Europe will continue to feed on batallions of excluded youth in poor inner cities. There is no evidence EU neoliberalcons will be fostering sound socio-economic policies to extract these alienated masses from the ghettos, employing new forms of socialization.

So the escape route will continue to be a virus-like version of Salafi-jihadism, sold by wily, PR-savvy profiteers as a symbol of resistance; the only counter-ideology available on the market. Khosrokhavar defined it as the neo-umma – an “effervescent community that never existed historically”, but now openly inviting any young European, Muslim or otherwise, afflicted by an identity crisis.

In parallel, on our way into a full 15 years of the endless neocon war against independent states in the Middle East, the Pentagon will be turbo-charging an unlimited expansion of some of its existing bases – from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa to Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan - into “hubs”.

From sub-Saharan Africa to Southwest Asia, expect a hub boom, all of them merrily hosting Special Forces; the operation was described by Pentagon supremo Ash “Empire of Whining” Carter as “essential”; “Because we cannot predict the future, these regional nodes – from Moron, Spain to Jalalabad, Afghanistan – will provide forward presence to respond to a range of crises, terrorist and other kinds. These will enable unilateral crisis response, counter-terror operations, or strikes on high-value targets.”

It’s all here: unilateral Exceptionalistan in action against anyone who dares to defy imperial diktats.

From Ukraine to Syria, and all across MENA (Middle East and North Africa), the proxy war between Washington and Moscow, with higher and higher stakes, won’t abate. Imperial despair over the irreversible Chinese ascent also won’t abate. As the New Great Game picks up speed, and Russia supplies Eurasian powers Iran, China and India with missile defense systems beyond anything the West has, get used to the new normal; Cold War 2.0 between Washington and Beijing-Moscow.

I leave you with Joseph Conrad, writing in Heart of Darkness: "There is a taint of death, a flavor or mortality in lies....To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe....We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign - and no memories...”

[TsarSamuil]

2014 vs. 2015: Russia’s place in the world.

IN THE NOW
Dec 28, 2015



Back in 2014 it felt like the entire world was trying to isolate Russia politically. But 2015 is looking a whole lot different. It’s not ideal but a better year for Putin and politics.

[TsarSamuil]

Bulgarian President Labels Russia-West Relations 'Cold Peace'

POLITICS 15:42 26.01.2016

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said that relations between Russia and the West have entered a new phase, which could be described as "cold peace."

STRASBOURG (Sputnik) – The relations between Russia and the West have entered a new phase, which could be described as "cold peace," where nobody wants a military conflict, but the rhetoric resembles those of the Cold War, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev said Tuesday.

"We have entered a phase which I call cold peace, it is peace because nobody wants to have a war, and nobody wants to go back to Cold War time. But it is cold peace, because unfortunately we are seeing elements, rhetoric, propaganda from the Cold War times," Plevneliev said, addressing the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

According to the Bulgarian president, the "game" in Europe has changed due to the Ukrainian crisis.

Relations between Russia and Western states, including the United States and the European Union, deteriorated in 2014 amid the crisis in Ukraine, when the West accused Moscow of fueling the conflict and imposed several rounds of sanctions against Russia. Kremlin has consistently denied the allegations.

In response, Russia announced a one-year food embargo in August 2014 on some products originating in states that imposed anti-Moscow sanctions. The ban has been extended for another year since then.

[TsarSamuil]

Pentagon lists Russia as top global threat, seeks fourfold boost in defense budget.

RT
Feb 2, 2016



The Pentagon chief Ashton Carter has announced a four-fold increase in the US's defence budget for Europe - citing Russian aggression as the main reason. Washington plans to spend a whopping 3.4-billion dollars countering it.

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U.S puts Russia and ISIS in same threat box for 2017.

IN THE NOW
Feb 4, 2016



Almost 6 hundred billion dollars - the biggest defense budget in the world. 2017 - will be another year of war for the US. With who?

Russia maybe, the Pentagon named it among top threats and is ready to spend 3.4 billion dollars to fight it next year. More than four times last year's budget. ISIS will cost America 7.5 billion dollars.

[TsarSamuil]

Western nations see Russia as competitor, majority of Russians say in a poll.

RT.com
4 Feb, 2016 15:15

Over 40 percent of Russians think that Western nations perceive their motherland as a competitor, while 30 percent think Russia is viewed more as a foe by the West, according to a recent public opinion poll.

Thirty percent of Russians said that, in their view, Western countries treated Russia as an enemy, while 15 percent said that relations were an equal partnership. Five percent of participants in the poll answered that Westerners did not have any special approach to their country; four percent said that the West treats Russia as a friend.

The research was conducted by the independent polling service Levada-Center in January this year. It also showed that the number of Russians who consider their country to be one of the most influential states in the world has increased from 27 percent last year to 36 percent.

This year 25 percent of respondents said that the Russian economy was not developed enough for the country to be included in the list of leading nations. Four percent of respondents said that they blamed the resistance of Western states for Russia’s lagging behind, and three percent thought that the main reason was in the lack of democracy in the country or, on the contrary, the lack general stability in Russia’s political system. Twenty-six percent of those polled could not answer the question.

At the same time, 54 percent of respondents think that Russia should strengthen ties with Western nations, compared to 40 percent a year ago; 33 percent hold the opposite opinion, and believe it would do Russia good to further distance itself from the West.

Levada researcher Karina Pipiya said in comments with Izvestia daily that in 2007 and 2008 – when the Russian economy was booming – the number of citizens who thought that the West considered Russia mostly as a competitor also peaked. Over the past year, as the state of the Russian economy and the well-being of its citizens has decreased, the share of people with this view has also fallen.

Pipiya added that the growing share of those who support stronger cooperation between Russia and the West could be explained by the fact that the main causes of negativity – the conflict in Ukraine and the Western sanctions introduced in reply to Crimea’s accession into the Russian Federation – were no longer big news, and there was less anti-Western sentiment in the Russian mass media.

The researcher pointed out that the average Russian believes his country and the rest of the leading world nations now have a common enemy – the Islamic State terrorist group (IS, previously known as ISIS and ISIL).

[TsarSamuil]

The American Empire is Turning on Itself: Zsolt Bayer, László Bogár 2016.02.11.

Kittensinurface
Feb 12, 2016



This is a short clip from yesterday's episode of Háttér-kép on Echo TV. The topic of discussion is the upcoming US election and what it means to the world.

[TsarSamuil]

'Is it 2016 or 1962?' PM Medvedev urges Russia & West end ‘Cold War’ amid terror rise.

RT
Feb 13, 2016



The relationships between NATO and Russia have slid down toward a new Cold War, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said at a panel discussion during the Munich Security Conference, describing NATO's policy as 'unfriendly and not transparent.'

[TsarSamuil]

Just blame Moscow! Declassified papers reveal UK policy of accusing Soviets of everything.

RT.com
19 Feb, 2016 13:30

Declassified papers from the British Cabinet Office have put an end to the long-standing myth of Moscow's unwillingness to cooperate with the West, revealing the UK's efforts to blame every problem on Russia.

The papers date back to 1983, when the UK Foreign and Cabinet offices were ecstatic at the outcome of the Madrid review conference on the implementation of the Helsinki Final Act on security and cooperation in Europe.

"… We now have a provisional mandate for a CDE (Conference on Disarmament in Europe) which establishes four basic criteria, all of which have required concession on the part of the Soviet Union and her allies," officials in Whitehall wrote at the time.

But it was the fourth of the criteria that was the most exciting for the West.

"The fourth [proposal-NG] is a significant breakthrough for the West. It represents recognition for the first time that the West has a legitimate security interest in the whole of the European part of the Soviet Union."

But although Moscow showed its cooperation, the West wasn't as eager to be a team player, with one memo indicating how the Soviet Union had failed to gain “a corresponding concession in the exercise of the droit de regard [ right of access/inspection ] over Western military activities beyond Europe.”

The West's unwillingness to cooperate with Russia didn't stop there.

When Moscow confirmed it was willing to discuss the extension of Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) with NATO to European Russia, its proposal that NATO should agree to include the US and Canada in the plan was called a “geographic ploy” by the alliance, and was rejected.

'It's all Russia's fault'

And when Soviet leader Yuri Andropov – who had been portrayed as an ex-KGB hardliner in the West – made a goodwill gesture to allow the extension of CBMs up to the Urals, the move was seen as a sign of weakness. Indeed, a memo shows how Western leaders felt they could use the situation to “put pressure to bear on the East” and leave the Soviets with the problem of “explaining publicly why the eminently sensible measures proposed are not acceptable to them.”

Another memo stressed that if any problems were encountered, those issues would be promptly blamed on Moscow.

“Any failure to resolve existing problems (or even to engage in meaningful debate) should be seen to be attributable to the Soviet Union (and its allies) and not to the West," reads a Steering Brief for the UK delegation at the CSCE Cultural Forum in Budapest, issued by the Foreign Office on October 15, 1985.

Such words seem bizarre, considering they were written at a time of thawing relations between the West and the USSR, particularly since former President Mikhail Gorbachev had visited the UK and taken part in a conversation with then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher regarding disarmament and improving international security. He went so far as to show Thatcher a secret map of Soviet missile targets in the UK, in an effort of transparency.

'Criticism worth preserving'

Despite the appearance of cooperation between the West and Russia, there was another mission taking place behind the scenes in London.

Assessing the value that the Madrid review of the Helsinki process had on Britain, a Foreign Office memo stated: "This standing to criticize the Eastern European governments’ policies, both domestic and foreign, in an international forum is well worth preserving."

A similar memo was passed around ahead of the Budapest Cultural Forum, stating: "…We must be ready to...refute any assertion by the East that they must protect themselves from Western cultural pollution – pornography, propaganda for racialism and violence.”

[TsarSamuil]

‘We’re in a new Cold War’ – Stephen Cohen on mounting US-NATO military on Russia border.

RT America
Feb 18, 2016



The Obama administration’s and NATO’s recent ramp up of forces on the Russian border has raised many questions on why the mainstream media and the presidential campaigns have failed to acknowledge the growing military presence in the region. RT’s Ed Schultz speaks with Stephen F. Cohen, professor and author of The Nation article called “The Obama Administration Recklessly Escalates Confrontation With Russia,” about the situation.

[TsarSamuil]

Carter defends $583bn budget, says Russia now ‘No 1 challenge’, ISIS well down the list.

RT.com
18 Mar, 2016 15:34

Russia is now the US’ number one threat, followed by China, North Korea, Iran and Islamic State, Pentagon Chief Ash Carter said at a Senate hearing on the DoD’s budget request. It comes as the Pentagon struggles to keep the budget to 2017 levels.

Challenges arising from the “great power competition” and Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) still require a $583-billion military budget, Carter said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the 2017 defense budget request, according to a Pentagon press release.

“The first such challenge is in Europe, where we’re taking a strong and balanced approach to deter Russian aggression – we haven’t had to devote a significant portion of our defense investment to this possibility for 25 years, and while I wish it were otherwise, now we do,” Carter argued.

The Russian Defense Ministry believes that calling Russia a primary threat has become a habit in Washington’s top circles, as it happens every year prior to debate on the Pentagon’s annual budget requests.

“It is not a thing to be impressed by,” General Igor Konashenkov, spokesman for the ministry, said in February. “The reason is simple – the discussion of the military budget in Congress for the next year.One needs to remember that the ‘Russian threat’ has been the best-selling threat delivered by the Pentagon not only to Congress, but also to NATO partners since the middle of the previous century.”

Carter’s repeated warnings of the “Russian threat” are echoed by a chorus of top commanders and military officials, who recently lamented what they called America’s unpreparedness to counter Russia or China at sea, land and in the air.

On Thursday, Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley told the House that the military’s ability to counter any two out of China, Iran, North Korea and Russia at a time is depleted. “I think the cost, both in terms of time, casualties in troops, and the ability to accomplish military objectives would be very significant.”

Earlier in March, commanders of US forces told the Senate they needed more funding to procure “very expensive” ballistic missiles, as Russian strategic rocket forces “are the only foreign military threat that could imperil our nation’s existence.”

Russian and Chinese policies are seen by the Pentagon as a return to the Cold War era, therefore justifying the need for a giant military budget.

In 2014, President Barack Obama listed the “Russian threat” only second after Ebola virus. IS, which had been gaining momentum in Iraq and Syria, surprisingly was number three on the list. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Obama’s ranking of global threats looked bizarre: “That's the worldview of a country that has spelt out its right to use force arbitrarily regardless of UN Security Council's resolutions or other international legal acts in its national defense doctrine.”

This year IS appeared at the very end of the Pentagon’s priorities list. The terror group was eclipsed by China, Iran and North Korea respectively, all described as “aggressive” countries.

Retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski told RT that portraying Russia and China as top threats is a justification of supporting arms sales and corporate sponsors. “I do believe that this is a justification for us to continue the flow, the pipeline of taxpayer money into these major weapon systems and their corporate sponsors, which of course are heavily influential.”

[TsarSamuil]

Vid,
www.rt.com/usa/336501-trump-russia-relations-putin/

Trump: ‘I want to get along with Russia’

RT.com
21 Mar, 2016 23:23

Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2016 presidential nomination, said he favors better relations with Russia and the rest of the world. He also questioned the need to spend a “fortune” on NATO, advocating a non-interventionist foreign policy.

Trump held a press conference in Washington, DC on Monday afternoon against the backdrop of a hotel he is building at the Old Post Office just blocks from the White House, which he hopes to occupy come January 2017. He is scheduled to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference later in the day.

Asked by RT’s Caleb Maupin if he wanted a better relationship with Russia, Trump seemed open to the idea.

“I want a better relationship with everybody. And with Russia, yeah,” he said. “If we can get along with Russia, that’s very good.”

“[Russian president Vladimir] Putin says very nice things about me. I think that’s very nice. It has no effect on me, other than I think it’s very nice,” the Republican front-runner added.

On the subject of Russia’s military operation in Syria, which was scaled back last week after President Putin declared that its main objectives had been accomplished, Trump appeared a lot more enthusiastic than White House officials.

“If Russia wants to spend millions of dollars a day dropping bombs on ISIS, I’m OK with that,” he said, referring to the Islamic State terror group. “Some people don’t like it. They say ‘No, no, that’s our job.’ It’s not our job. Let Russia… if they want to do that, I’m all for it.”

Trump then digressed into condemning the US loans that were extended to China while that country was building up its military bases in the South China Sea, before concluding that under his leadership, the US would do better in the world.

“I want to get along with all countries. And we will,” he concluded.

‘NATO, military deployments costing US a fortune’

In an interview with the Washington Post on Monday, Trump revealed the names of his foreign policy advisors and his “unabashedly noninterventionist” approach to world affairs. He spoke against engaging in expensive nation-building projects around the world while the US infrastructure is disintegrating, and questioned the wisdom of conducting massive troop buildups in Europe and East Asia.

“We certainly can’t afford to do this anymore,” Trump said, later adding, “NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of money.”

The billionaire businessman also had some harsh words for NATO’s European members concerning the conflict in Ukraine.

“Ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it affects other countries in NATO, and yet we’re doing all of the lifting,” Trump said. “Why is it that Germany’s not dealing with NATO on Ukraine? Why is it that other countries that are in the vicinity of Ukraine, why aren’t they dealing? Why are we always the one that’s leading, potentially the Third World War with Russia.”

Sending the Washington establishment into shock once again, Trump dismissed the idea that the US benefited from its military deployments all over the planet. “I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country, and we are a poor country now. We’re a debtor nation.”

Trump’s foreign policy team is led by Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions and includes retired General J. Keith Kellogg, Walid Phares, George Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Joseph E. Schmitz.

Papadopoulos previously worked at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington that is often critical of Russia and its leadership, while Page was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations focusing on the Caspian Sea region and the economic development in former Soviet states, according to the Post.

[TsarSamuil]

Vid,
www.rt.com/news/337828-russia-challenge-threat-hammond/

Relentlessly critical: UK’s Hammond brands Russia a ‘challenge & threat,’ rejects cooperation.

RT.com
31 Mar, 2016 04:28

The British foreign secretary has rejected cooperation with Moscow until it “respects” the rules of the international system, to which Philip Hammond said Russia continues to pose a challenge and threat.

“Russia ignores the norms of international conduct and breaks the rules of the international system. That represents a challenge and a threat to all of us,” Hammond said during a two-day visit to Georgia. “There has to be a way that respects the rules of the international system if we are going to be able to do business together.”

The foreign secretary went on to say that it is time for Russia to play a “constructive” role on the world stage and follow the rules, accusing it of “aggression” in Ukraine, but he acknowledged the common goal between Britain and Russia of fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria and Iraq.

“I have no doubt that Russia is sincere in its desire to defeat Daesh [the Arabic name for IS] in Iraq and Syria,” Hammond told Reuters on Wednesday. “But we need to work together on these things and we can only work in partnership with countries which accept the international rules by which we all have to live. We can't be working in partnership with a country one day and find that it is doing just exactly whatever it wants.”

The latest criticism is not the first time Hammond has attacked Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin in particular. Earlier this month, he pointed the finger at Moscow for supposedly being the only country that wants Britain to leave the European Union.

“None of our allies wants us to leave the EU – not Australia, not New Zealand, not Canada, not the US. In fact, the only country, if the truth is told, that would like us to leave the EU is Russia. That should probably tell us all we need to know,” he said during a speech at the Chatham House think-tank.

The UK stance on Russia’s role in Syria seems strange, a number of experts have told RT, considering that even the Pentagon has acknowledged Russia’s “constructive role” in the Syrian peace process.

“It's clear that they have focused more of their military attention on ISIL. We think that is a good thing. We encourage that from the start,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said during a briefing on Tuesday. “They're playing a constructive role with regard to the cessation of hostilities,” he added.

“It’s very interesting to see the increasingly different approaches towards Moscow, [from] Washington in comparison with London,” British Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski told RT. “I’ve never known such a divergence between the two capitals in their approach towards Russia.”

Kawczynski acknowledged that Hammond “unfortunately” is “reflecting the general mood” of the Conservative party and the House of Commons, which views Russia in a “somewhat cautious way and are very fearful about Russian motives.”

At the same time, the MP said the Foreign Affairs Selective Committee understands the “importance of Anglo-Russian relations...[and] it is our responsibility to hold the government to account on foreign policy.”

Michael Raddie, co-editor of BSNews, told RT that not too many people in the UK view Hammond’s comments seriously.

“He hasn't made sense since he has been in the job. So either commenting against Russia or not commenting on Syrian and Arab bombing and Russian achievements in their campaign against terrorists within Syria – it does not surprise me at all,” Raddie said.

The UK does not side with Washington in its assessment of the Russian achievements in Syria, especially liberating Palmyra from the jihadists, because London ultimately continues to pursue regime change in Syria, Raddie believes.

“It is really deplorable that there has been no government spokesman from the UK at least praising the liberation of that historic town,” Raddie said. “I know that Phillip Hammond in particular and Michael Fallon [have] been relentlessly critical of Russia and in particular President Putin.”

For geopolitical reasons the UK “still has a plan of regime change in Syria,” to defend London’s financial interests in the region, which he says include building a natural gas pipelines from Qatar, across Syria into Turkey.

“They [UK politicians] do not care what the Syrian people want. They don’t care what the Syrian people have voted for. Their idea of democracy is that we will impose who they deem fit to run the country,” Raddie said, calling it a trend that has dominated British politics for decades.

“The British government all the way back to the 1950s was colluding with radical Islam,” Raddie explained. “Our proxy armies in the region they’ve done us proud. The British government is very supportive of ISIL. Whatever they say publicly, we know they have been arming them, supporting them, financing them with their allies in the region like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE. So it is a charade now. People are beginning to realize that whatever the British government say, you [may] as well just flip it around and the opposite is probably going to be the truth.”

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Philip Hammond has a funny way of showing his commitment to ‘international norms’

Danielle Ryan, RT
31 Mar, 2016 11:27

Gone are the good ol’ days when Russia was only a ‘threat’ to countries on its periphery. Moscow now represents a threat to “all of us” according to British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.

Speaking to Reuters during a trip to Georgia, Hammond said Russia was a threat to all countries on the basis that it “ignores the norms of international conduct and breaks the rules of the international system” — and this, he said “represents a challenge and a threat to all of us.”

The first, but most minor point to make here is that Russia’s allies would probably beg to differ. Hammond’s comments are a prime example of the flippant way in which leaders and representatives of Western nations make sweeping statements about “us all” or the “international community” when what they actually mean is “us and our friends.”

But, like I said, that is a minor issue in comparison to the outrageously hypocritical reasoning Hammond gave to justify his opinion.

International law, except not for us

In March 2014, Curtis FJ Doebbler, a professor of international law in the Faculty of International Relations at Webster University in Geneva wrote for CounterPunch that “like any source of law, a large part of the legitimacy of international law depends on its equal application to all.” This, demonstrably, has not been the case when it comes to the United States.

American lawyers and diplomats, Doebbler continued, have attempted to twist international law “into an instrument justifying the actions of the United States, while criticizing the actions of other States based misinterpretations or misapplication” of that law.

There simply can be no question mark here. It is incontrovertibly true. To get through all the examples of Washington’s blatant disregard for international law would take an eternity. But let’s do a quick recap of some of the more egregious examples:

∙ US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, illegal under international law: Civilian death toll up for debate, a Guardian report estimated that as many as 20,000 could have been killed in the first year of conflict alone.
∙ US invasion of Iraq in 2003, illegal under international law: Left one million dead, according to various reports.
∙ NATO intervention in Libya in 2011 violated the parameters of the UN resolution permitting NATO action, hence also illegal. The intervention left scores of civilians dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Libya, once the richest country in Africa, is now a failed state.
∙ US bombing of Syria in 2014, illegal under international law. Washington has been given no authority to carry out airstrikes in Syria. Nor, by the way, has the United Kingdom (maybe someone should tell Hammond?)
∙ Ongoing use of drone strikes, killing hundreds of innocents, including children.
∙ Continued use of Guantanamo Bay for indefinite detention and torture of people ‘perceived’ as threats. In one of the grossest injustices, Shaker Aamer was held at Guantanamo for 13 years without trial or charge before finally being reunited with his family in the UK.

None of this is up for debate — and yet Hammond has not, to my knowledge, classified the United States as a threat to “all of us”. If breaking international law is the benchmark here, it would follow that he probably should.

What’s an invasion or two among friends?

Unfortunately, as Hammond has just displayed, Western nations often confuse ‘consensus among friends’ to mean ‘legal’. As such, they believe that none of their actions deserve to be scrutinized in the same manner as the actions of their declared enemies. This however, does not stop them from using the subject of international law as an “instrument of political rhetoric” to condemn other countries.

Washington has displayed such flagrant disregard for international “norms” and the “rules of the international system” so consistently and so appalling that the world has become desensitized to it. To acknowledge the sheer scale of the horror that has been unleashed by our collective indifference is too uncomfortable. Our best bet is to distract ourselves with a convenient bogeyman.

Hammond might be happy to bury his head in the sand, but it doesn’t make what he is saying any less ridiculous when all the facts are laid on the table.

What Hammond really means

And it’s not the first time Hammond has hugely exaggerated (or fabricated, if you prefer) the threat Russia poses to the UK. In March of last year, he said Russia could potentially pose the “single greatest threat” to Britain’s security. It’s unclear what kind of alternate universe you need to be living in to believe this, but what is clear is that Hammond has upped sticks and taken residence there.

The truth is, what Hammond and his neighbors in cuckoo-land really mean when they say these things is that Russia is a threat to Western dominance; the dominance that allows their own breaches of international law to go unchecked and unpunished and anyone else’s to be amplified a thousand-fold. Any threat or challenge to that hegemony in international affairs is unacceptable. And that, more than anything, is the threat which Russia represents.

The funny thing is, Hammond probably doesn’t think that’s what he means. He probably genuinely believes that Russia threatens the security of Britain. Whether he thinks this conflict might take the form of an invasion, an unprovoked nuclear attack, information warfare or something else, he has probably convinced himself that there really is cause for huge concern. After all, he has admitted that for “anyone over the age of about 50” fearing Russia is familiar territory. He is not an expert on today’s Russia, its political system or its foreign policy. All he really has to go on are his bad memories of the Cold War and whatever terribly misinformed advice he is being given.

But threat or no threat, if the “rules of the international system” are really that important to Philip Hammond, he’s got a funny way of showing it.

[TsarSamuil]

Pentagon chief seeks reforms, calls Russia ‘No. 1 strategic threat’

RT.com
6 Apr, 2016 05:35

Seeking to make the US military more efficient and better coordinated in the face of “strategic threat” from Russia, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is looking for “practical updates” to the Pentagon’s organizational framework established in the 1970s.

Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC, Carter said the reforms were necessary to make the US military more “agile” and able to address the five strategic challenges, which he named as “Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and terrorism.”

The current organization of the US military, from the territorial organization of Combatant Commands to the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff outside the chain of command, is a product of the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act, signed into law in October 1986.

While the 1986 reform was driven by the lessons of Vietnam and the botched 'Desert One' hostage rescue in Iran, Carter said the updates were not driven by failure.

“I am deeply proud of how our people operated in Iraq and Afghanistan over the 15 years,” he said.

The changes, proposed by the Pentagon’s Deputy Chief Management Officer Peter Levine and Joint Staff Lieutenant-General Thomas Waldhauser after a months-long review, seek to give the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) more authority to advise and coordinate between different services and commands, make the commands more efficient, and improve the acquisition process, among other things.

“Over the coming weeks, we will execute some of these decisions under our own existing authority,” said the Defense Secretary, adding that others may require legislative action.

The reforms envision expanding the authority of the CJCS to “help synchronize resources globally for daily operations around the world,” coordinating forces across the seams of combatant commands; provide military advice for current operations, not just future planning; and to advise the Secretary of Defense on military strategy and operational plans, taking into consideration possible “overlapping contingencies.”

Carter defended keeping the CJCS outside the chain of command, arguing this would ensure preserving his integrity as the principal military adviser to the civilian authorities.

Redundancies between the Combat Commands will be eliminated by integrating some of their functions at the Joint Staff level, Carter said. The DOD is committed to reducing headquarters management by 25 percent, while pouring $35 billion into Cyber Command over the next five years.

To ensure the service chiefs are more involved in the acquisition process, the reforms would give them a seat on the acquisition board. With the greater responsibility will come increased accountability, Carter warned.

“The chiefs themselves, and their military staffs, will need to sharpen this skillset, which in places has atrophied over the years, to be successful in discharging their new acquisition responsibilities,” he said.

‘Russia a threat to US world hegemony concept’

Gerry Sussman, professor of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University, explained to RT that Russia, just as the Soviet Union in the past, has become a “unifying theme” for US foreign policy strategists, allowing them to put together “a very disunified foreign policy around a common target.”

Without a coherent foreign policy strategy and with a lack of leadership on behalf of the current US president, Russia “serves as a unifying force to build a kind of a new Cold-War consensus to give some semblance of direction to American foreign policy where there really isn’t any.”

“The US has actually lost quite a bit of power over the years in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and I think it’s just a way of creating an old boogeyman in the person of President [Vladimir] Putin and in Russia itself,” he argued, adding that to make matters worse, various US defense and intelligence agencies are in “disarray” over policy making.

The disproportionate attention given by the US media to Putin in connection with the Panama Papers leak – despite the fact that his name was not even mentioned in the batch – is the latest example of Russia’s demonization, according to Sussman.

“The main focus was on President Putin rather than some of the American allies, including Mr Poroshenko in Ukraine, who has been actually listed,” he said.

Responding to the question of what threat Russia could possibly present to the USA, the expert said that Moscow poses “a threat to American global interests…to its hegemony around the world” by challenging Washington’s concept of “hegemonic power that seeks global domination.”

It’s not by accident that terrorism was last on the Pentagon’s list of threats, Sussman said, calling it an “instrumental threat” which, however acute at the moment, is not much of a danger to the American superpower concept – unlike Russia and China.

Since Russia started playing the central role in fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Syria, the Syrian Army has achieved major advances supported by the Russian Air Force, including the recent liberation of Palmyra. Such conduct, according to Sussman, directly interferes with the US image as the main anti-terror warrior and undermines its long-term interest of undisputed global power.