via The American Majority!

A significant development this week with respect to Iran. Russia has agreed to enter into a bilateral strategic pact with Iran.

Iran has been a target of U.S. and Israeli intelligence operations for several decades. These efforts appear to have accelerated over the last ten years because of shared Israeli and U.S. fears that Iran was edging towards becoming a nuclear power.

Both sides stressed their commitment to the fundamental principles of the Russian-Iranian relations, including unconditional respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, which will be confirmed in the major intergovernmental treaty between Russia and Iran as this document is being finalised already.

After China, Iran became the next major “player” who signed such an agreement (or is about to sign). This is a huge development in world politics and will further shift the balance of power and influence away from the U.S. I cannot overstate how big of an impact this will have. It means that Israel and the United States will face the risk of going to war with Moscow if either openly launch a military attack on Iran. This puts a new arrow in Iran’s quiver. Iran already has an array of ballistic missiles – non-nuclear – that can strike Israel and many U.S. military bases in the region. In addition, Iran has been conducting joint military exercises with Russia and China for the last four years.

On Monday, the Russian Defense Minister, Army General Sergey Shoigu, held a telephone conversation with the Minister of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani.

I suspect a similar agreement is coming between Iran and China. That will create a group of three very strong states, looking for each others’ geopolitical interests. This is not an actual alliance (defensive or otherwise), but it shows just how far the “Global South” has come on their journey of mutual cooperation. This agreement, unlike the one Russia and Iran signed on mutual free trade, is a clear signal to the West and exists to counter the various Western infrastructures that exist to bully countries into obedience.

The question now is how will our State Department react. They can either continue on this path of self-destruction, or realize that the world isn’t what it used to be and they can no longer do whatever they want without consequences. My fear is that the former will be the case and our neo-cons will continue pushing for war with China and Iran, while the Democrats do the same with Russia, plunging us into an unwinnable, catastrophic war on three massive fronts. The time until the November elections will be critical. If Donald Trump is serious about disbanding NATO, he has my vote. It’s because it doesn’t exist as a “defensive alliance”, but rather as an instrument of our foreign policy which has been highly aggressive for decades and needs to end if any of us are to live peacefully. It’s not us who are defending ourselves, it’s everyone else who is defending themselves against NATO. It needs to stop.

The economic and strategic alliances to give countries an alternative to the the American post-war system will only grow. But while our system offers very little, theirs offers fair trade and no strings attached. All we offer is subservience for very little gain. If we want to stay relevant in this world, we need to fundamentally re-think our attitude towards everyone else.

We can either live and prosper in the new world, or die in the old, taking everyone else with us to hell.

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By Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the Valdai Club via RT

Relations between Russia and the United States have entered a prolonged phase that can be described as a “long confrontation.” If the interaction between Moscow and Washington were still the central process of international life, as was the case during the Cold War, this new phase might be considered temporary. But the Moscow-Washington confrontation is now one of many. More importantly, it is taking place in conditions that occur once every few centuries – a period of global redistribution of power and resource potential.

This process affects our country and the US only in part. Within a few decades, the center of global production and consumption will finally shift to Asia, and the center of world economic gravity will be on the border of India and China. In this context, the long-standing Russian-American confrontation will remain one of the main fault-lines, but certainly not the only one.

Why do I think this confrontation will be protracted? Despite significant resource advantages and strong positions in key areas, the US finds itself in a situation where its pursuers are catching up fast. Washington is faced with an increasingly dense international environment that poses obstacles to previously unfettered American action.

The four US strengths that underpin its offensive strategy are: first, its still-advanced military power; second, its central global financial system, which provides an international settlement infrastructure and a convertible currency; third, its strong position in a number of technological fields; and fourth, its ideology and values platform, which, together with the other three dimensions, provide what can be tentatively called a “pyramid of credibility” for American strategy in the world.

This pyramid exists in the economic and financial spheres as well as in foreign policy. Trust explains the irrational behavior of some European states. Incapable of a balanced analysis of the consequences of their decisions, for example on the Ukraine crisis, they are now forced to ask themselves, as the German magazine Der Spiegel does: “What if the United States has no permanent allies? Western Europeans trusted the logic offered by the United States, they literally ‘bought’ the proposal. It was that the West would deal Russia a quick defeat, a lot of economic resources would be freed up, and relations with Moscow would be rebuilt on a different platform, more favorable to the EU. The belief was that it would be an effective strategy.”

The US has one of the most advanced schools of strategic thought – the European classical school received its greatest impetus in the first half of the 20th century in American universities, research, and expert circles. Analysts such as Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, and a few other native Europeans were able to systematically outline their ideas and then integrate them into the practice of US foreign policy. This inoculation of European strategic thinking fitted well with the classic American maritime strategy and bore fruit that enabled Washington to achieve its goals in the second half of the 20th century. Now, however, we see that this strategic school is faltering: sober, realistic thinkers are in the minority in the establishment. Is this the result of post-Cold War “giddiness,” the feeling that this brief moment of military and political dominance would be endless?

At the end of 2021, in the acute phase of the Ukraine crisis, the US made a big mistake, in my opinion, by deciding to apply a strategy to crush Russia instead of a positional strategy. In world history these have been the two classic military-political variants. The strategy of crushing is always based on significant material, power, and ideological advantages, the possession of the initiative, and belief in the rapid defeat of the opponent. This was the idea of Alexander the Great when he began his campaign: a very advanced army, possession of advanced military technology for the time, the principle of the phalanx developed by the Thebans and then adopted by the Macedonians, with strong cavalry units. They did not suffer a single defeat during the entire campaign. The main obstacle for the Macedonians was the confrontation with the Greek mercenaries from Athens, who used the classic positional strategy. What is the point of such a plan? It gives up the initiative, allows the other side to act, and relies on the need to mobilize and concentrate resources. It avoids a decisive battle for as long as possible and only engages in it when it is impossible to lose. From this description we can see the typical strategic behavior of Russia in different periods of war.

The US tried to crush our country while not possessing superior resources and misjudged the capabilities, both its own and those of its allies, to achieve its goals – which were to isolate Russia, to stimulate internal protests and undermine support for the government, to create major obstacles on the front lineand, as a result, to defeat the country as quickly as possible. Now the confrontation in the military sphere has entered a different phase and the Americans are forced to look for a way out of this situation.

US strategic culture is characterized by a transitional approach to allies, and it is to be expected that at some point the cost of owning ‘the Ukrainian asset’ will be too high for the Americans to continue to benefit from it.

The RAND Corporation’s paper Avoiding a Long War, published in January 2023, is very telling in this regard. It explicitly states that the relative benefits of owning the Ukrainian asset have generally already been realized, while the costs of maintaining it continue to rise. This does not mean that after the conditional end of the Ukraine crisis the US will stop trying to use an offensive strategy of crushing our country. For them, we are a key rival in determining the crucial question of the 21st century: will American hegemony continue, or will the world move towards a more balanced polycentric system? And while few of us expected to find ourselves in a military crisis so soon into the process of resolving this issue, it’s now accelerating developments.

The drama of “hegemony or polycentricity” will not be resolved in Ukraine, because there will be other points of tension in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and eventually the Western Hemisphere, where Russia and the US will be on opposite sides of the barricades.

Our confrontation with the Americans will last for a long time, although we will see certain pauses, which the US will use to propose issues of common interest for discussion. From the experience of the Cold War, we recognize a common responsibility for the survival of mankind, and I consider the risks of nuclear escalation in the confrontation to be relatively low. Russia’s task will be to create a network of relationships with like-minded states, which may even eventually include some from the West. The US strategy is to forcibly extinguish points of strategic autonomy, which Washington succeeded in doing in Western Europe in the first phase of the Ukraine crisis, but that move was one of the last successes in this regard.

UK Defense Minister Grant Shapps said that in five years the British and their allies will wage a global war against Russia, China, Iran and North Korea, so the time for peaceful investment is over, and it’s time to invest in the military-industrial complex and increase military spending whose weapons proved to be junk in Ukraine…

LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – This year must mark an “inflection point” to decide the future of British defence, minister Grant Shapps said on Monday, setting out steps to better protect the nation against threats posed by a number of conflicts that are “likely to grow”.
In a speech setting out his view that 2024 will see the world become more dangerous and require Britain and its allies to deal with “irrational” powers, Shapps said the government was striving to increase defence spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product – something he urged other democratic nations to follow.

“In five years’ time, we could be looking at multiple theatres including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Ask yourself … is it more likely that that number grows or reduces? I suspect we all know the answer. It’s likely to grow,” the defence minister said. “So 2024 must mark an inflection point.”
He said Britain was spending more money in cash terms on defence than it ever had, adding the government was increasing funds for modernising its nuclear deterrent and replenishing stocks and should continue to do so, while studiously refusing to call directly for additional funds.
“We’ve made the critical decision to set out our aspiration to reach 2.5% of GDP on defence and as we stabilise and grow this economy, we’ll continue to strive to reach that as soon as possible,” he said.
“But now is the time for all allied and democratic nations across the world to do the same thing and ensure their defence spending is growing too,” he said in reference to those NATO members, which are not reaching the goal of spending 2% of GDP.
Asked whether the government would go beyond current spending, a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was a matter for the finance minister but the government was expanding defence spending.
Keen to underline Britain’s engagement in the world, Shapps said Britain was committing 20,000 military personnel to serve across Europe in a major NATO exercise in the first half of this year, as well as warships and fighter jets.

He also said Britain had shown it will “step up to the plate when it is needed” through its strikes, coordinated with the United States, against the Houthis in Yemen to protect international shipping.
“We intended it as a single action and we will now monitor very carefully to see what they do next,” he said, adding such action was harder for other European countries to take.
“The United Kingdom is one of those countries which has always traditionally, and continues to, step up to the plate when it is needed.”

Reporting by Elizabeth Piper and Andy Bruce Editing by Tomasz Janowski

by Claudiu Secara

Here is another case of opposite scenarios being played out simultaneously while obfuscating the real scenario that is in effect.

One is the inevitability of WWIII if Biden is re-elected against Trump, who nominally stands for peace. More people are openly talking not about “if“ but “how soon” WWIII will be upon us, given the belligerence of the lunatic left and Biden’s unrelenting rhetoric of arming Ukraine and then going after the Houthis on the new front opened in the Middle East. You can hear that scenario from Margarita Simonyan of RT or from the German Chief of Staff as presented by the tabloid Bild, etc. The secondary question, more or less unsettled, is about the place and the time of the start of the major war, whether in Eastern Europe when “Putin attacks NATO,” as more and more people suggest, or in the Middle East when the Houthis, or the Iranians, or ISIS attacks the US. It is never the US or Israel that is named as the initiator of WWIII, it is always the underdogs who are itching to start a war that they cannot win.

But on the other hand, it is now acknowledged by a different set of informed people that the partition of Ukraine has become inevitable (it is always “inevitable”). As Scott Ritter tells us, and Gilbert Doctorow sums it up, “Continuation of the war will likely lead to further territorial losses for Kiev, with the Russians taking the Black Sea littoral while Hungary, Romania and Poland all seize their historic territories where their own ethnic groups are strongly present today.” — That partition of Ukraine means that all the neighboring antagonists to Russia are getting their wishlist fulfilled and that implicitly precludes any casus belli against Russia by default.

Could these two scenarios, war or no war, both be possible? And how does the war in Gaza fit into this equation? Is Israel fulfilling its goal of ethnic cleansing and does it get away with murder in the name of Greater Israel, emerging on the ruins of Gaza? Or is this the momentous historical end of Jewish supremacy in the West and the establishment of the Palestinian state on the basis of a discredited Israel, its lies and criminal behavior exposed at the ICJ?

What should we expect?

Africa is another interesting region where incredible events are taking place, unthinkable just last year, never mind 5, 10 years ago.

The Central African Republic is asking Russia to build a military base for 10,000 Russian troops on the territory of the country and has already allocated a special plot of land for this purpose. This statement was made by Mr. Fidel Ngouandika, Advisor to the President of the Central African Republic (CAR), in a conversation with the African Initiative:

“We’d like the Russian Federation to build its military base in CAR, the government has already provided a plot in Beringo, 80 kilometers from [the capital] Bangui, where there is an international airport.”. 

Mr. Ngouandika sees the role of the Russian military as “to teach our soldiers to be disciplined, to respect human rights, to teach our soldiers to protect the territory, because the Russian Federation is the leading nuclear military power in the world”. Mr. Fidel Ngouandika is convinced that there is “no country in the world that can dominate Russia militarily”.

At the same time, 2024 is the first year since 1897 when France has no military presence on the territory of Niger. Just as Russia and Niger have agreed to develop military cooperation and work together to stabilize the security situation in the West African Sahel region, which has been plagued by jihadist violence for more than a decade.

These and scores of similar events create the unmistakable impression that the West must be in panic mode. It is not only the war in Ukraine that they are bound to lose, but we seem to be witnessing a creeping worldwide uprising against the West from every corner. And that includes most of Latin America, Argentina being the exception as it is going fully insane, having elected a perverse sex coach as President.

The BRICS economies have already overtaken the G7 economies in terms of GDP, on the basis of PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) while NATO armies are an embarrassment. The one aircraft carrier that the Brits planned to deploy in the Red Sea against the Houthis couldn’t make it for “lack of personnel”. Nice excuse, so we don’t have to find out their real military failures. By contrast, the American carrier apparently lost one of its F22s in the first shootout with the sandal-wearing Houthis, with two navy Seals lost at sea.

In Davos, the circus of chest beating and hubris is at its climax, although, behind the scenes, it is mostly an eventful charade of illegitimate sex and drugs, with many attendees proudly claiming that no self-respecting person would sit through the boring sessions; they’d rather attend the parties of dubious debauchery.

Now, all of this landscape does resemble the infamous turn-of-the-century malaise which preceded WWI. No one seemed prepared for the immediate start of hostilities, just like now, while in fact the preparations for war were surely underway. 

Remember the war in Libya? Not only was Gaddafi on good terms with France, he actually bankrolled the election of Sarkozy just as France was drawing up the plans to kill him. Saddam Hussein got a friendly nod from the American ambassador to attack Kuwait, an act which the US then used as the casus belli for invading Iraq.

We do, don’t we, have the illusion of appeasement just as the knives are being sharpened in the world’s arms factories. Before we had WWII, Chamberlain came out of Munich waving the famous piece of paper meaning “war was averted”; back to sipping wine at the dinner parties.

And then we have the upcoming American elections. Trump or Biden? Biden or Trump? 

But have you heard what Nikki Haley is saying lately? She went from literally zero annnual income a few years ago to $12 million income recently. Who is paying her this kind of money? Why? Just imagine that Biden drops dead – I mean drops his last wits. And just imagine that either Trump is indicted, or videos emerge showing him in inconvenient situations at Epstein’s Paradise Island, or something else that makes him unqualified to run in November.

Who is going to be next in line? No, not DeSantis. He is a straw-man. Here comes New Hampshire and who comes in the second in the Republican primary there? Nikki Haley!

Listen to what she has to say. 

But Nikki Haley means war. Not just war, but war, war, war.

War is indeed creeping up on us. A big war which will make us miss the days of the turn-of-the-century malaise. And if “past performance” in the wars of the twentieth century is any indication of the future outcome, then, if we survive, the war will end with the aggressor as the loser. And the aggressor in this instance is unmistakably the United States.