Sunday, May 18, 2014

Pepe Escobar — The Birth of a Eurasian Century

A specter is haunting Washington, an unnerving vision of a Sino-Russian alliance wedded to an expansive symbiosis of trade and commerce across much of the Eurasian land mass -- at the expense of the United States.
If you've been following the links I have been putting up on geopolitics, geostrategy, the Great Game, Mackinder's heartland theory, Spykman's rimland theory, and Brzezinski's grand chessboard, you'll immediately see why that sentence is setting off alarm bells in the National Security Council and the Pentagon, as well as NATO HQ. The significance of Ukraine and the Crimean naval base will also be clear to you, as well as the US Asian Pivot in order to encircle Russia and China to the East by NATO and to the West by the US Seventh Fleet.


What difference does this make economically? Let me count the ways. Theh first thing that obviously comes to mind is, of course, military expenditure. But infrastructure is also key in developing the potential of the land mass, as Escobar explains about Pipelineistan and the new Silk Road that China has embarked upon.


Unfortunately, Escobar is out of paradigm with MMT and miscontrues the effect on the USD, although this doesn't seriously impair the kernel of his analysis.

While we watch the spectacle unfold, with no end game in sight, keep in mind that a new force is growing in Eurasia, with the Sino-Russian strategic alliance threatening to dominate its heartland along with great stretches of its inner rim. Now, that’s a nightmare of Mackinderesque proportions from Washington’s point of view. Think, for instance, of how Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser who became a mentor on global politics to President Obama, would see it.

In his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski argued that “the struggle for global primacy [would] continue to be played” on the Eurasian “chessboard,” of which “Ukraine was a geopolitical pivot.” “If Moscow regains control over Ukraine,” he wrote at the time, Russia would “automatically regain the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”

That remains most of the rationale behind the American imperial containment policy -- from Russia’s European “near abroad” to the South China Sea. Still, with no endgame in sight, keep your eye on Russia pivoting to Asia, China pivoting across the world, and the BRICS hard at work trying to bring about the new Eurasian Century.
On geopolitical and historical terms it is rather implausible that war can be avoided given this scenario, unless "this time it is different," or there's a miracle. The Western alliance is not going to be sitting still as this plan unfolds, and the overwhelming military force and economic might still lies with the Atlantic powers and Japan.

However, the notion that a collapsing dollar will take all this down is nonsense. Escobar is off the rails here.

In addition, the onset of climate change threatening both geographical change and resource shortages makes increasing conflict practically a certainty.


Looks like we are setting up for another round.

TomDispatch
The Birth of a Eurasian Century
Pepe Escobar

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Re: the overwhelming military force and economic might still lies with the Atlantic powers and Japan.
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And yet the US has been successful only in overturning weak countries.It couldn't win the Korean war, nor the Vietnam War, not even in Afghanistan can it win. Only madmen would instigate a war in Eurasia, the West prefers to "win" by other means. No one wins a thermonuclear war, and the use of purely "tactical" nuclear weapons is like playing Russian roulette.
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Re: However, the notion that a collapsing dollar will take all this down is nonsense. Escobar is off the rails here.

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Unfortunately, most of the world believes the "off the rails" version. Most MMT commentary does not enter into the geopolitical political battlefield, as distinct from purely domestic issues or things. For instance, how many articles have appeared which constructively correct Escobar's (i.e. the general public's and mainstream) view on his specific points? I can't think of one, but I'd be happy to be corrected. Comments are usually restricted to a paragraph on a blog post--all of it rather telegraphic. Mosler is the very epitome of these telegraphic responses which appeal essentialy and purely to the choir. There is not one well-known site with podcast commentaries or interview with political commentary that has an MMT view of the economic aspects and consequences. Again, if I'm wrong, please correct me.

Tom Hickey said...

I would say that the military aspect presents a dilemma. The stated US policy is not to allow the emergence of a military rival that could threaten its global hegemony. Moreover, US policy is based on globalization under democratic capitalism on the Western model, controlled by Western transnationals and finance. How it will conduct that policy is unclear. It's true that the US and NATO have the military edge by a large margin at present, but just how useful is that. The West cannot prevail in a land invasion of Eurasia and is not foolish enough to presume it can (or at least, I believe). The other option is air and sea power, but it's not possible to win militarily with air and sea power alone, and with both Russia and China nuclear powers with delivery capacity, nuclear war seems suicidal and would result in mutual annihilation. So stay tuned. The huge wild card in the deck now is the possibility that right wing government come into power in the US and the right wing come into greater power in Europe as seems to be happening due to the aftermath of the crisis.

In addition, climate change is speeding up and is now beginning to exert political, military, and economic influence.

Parlous times, as they say.

There is not one well-known site with podcast commentaries or interview with political commentary that has an MMT view of the economic aspects and consequences. Again, if I'm wrong, please correct me.

Unfortunately, that is still true.

Most of the world either believe it is still on a gold standard or in Greenspan's terms "acts as if" on a gold standard.

Central banks still consider gold an integral aspect of the monetary system.

So, although Escobar is factually wrong about the monetary system, it is correct about how it is perceived and how policy is conducted.

Jose Guilherme said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jose Guilherme said...

Most MMT commentary does not enter into the geopolitical political battlefield, as distinct from purely domestic issues or things...Mosler is the very epitome of these telegraphic responses which appeal essentialy and purely to the choir

Sadly true.

Another instance of this is the recent debate across the (orthodox) macroeconomic spectrum on whether an increase in interest rates lead to higher instead of lower inflation (the so-called neo-Fisherite view). This topic is potentially quite relevant for the making of economic policy in general - and particularly in what concerns the role and the capabilities of central banks. Yet prominent MMTers have not seized the chance to engage and participate in this ongoing debate.

Another example is the recent developments in the eurozone - ironically, a topic on which MMT won one of its most striking early successes - by providing advance warning on the high likelihood of sovereign debt crisis breaking out in Europe as a result of the lack of monetary sovereignty of the weaker members of the euro.

The ECB, by merely promising to buy unlimited quantities of peripheral debt, has managed to bring down yields in Spain, Italy and other countries to levels similar to the UK, Japan or the U.S. It´s as if a simple, credible promise by a central bank was enough to magically transform non-sovereigns into sovereigns.

Surely, this development should deserve the close attention of MMTers. Yet it´s the likes of Paul de Grauwe who have seized the initiative in writing papers on the subject. From the MMT side one can only hear a deafening silence.

MMT cannot afford to sleep on its past laurels. It was the first post-Keynesian school of thought that managed to break out of the academic ghetto into the world at large, thanks in large measure to dedicated supporters writing in blogs and creating MMT-leaning web sites. This was a remarkable success - and it must now be followed by pro-active engagement in contemporary debates instead of the mere repeating of correct ideas already well explained in past interventions.

Anonymous said...

You'll enjoy the Sino-Soviet conspiracy stories by Greenwald and Chomsky.

Very important video.
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No Place to Hide : Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky

Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktRzyiIK1p8#t=1222

Harvard Book Store welcomed political commentators Glenn Greenwald and Noam Chomsky for a discussion of Greenwald's latest book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.

For the first time, Greenwald fits all the pieces together, recounting his high-intensity eleven-day trip to Hong Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA's unprecedented abuse of power with never-before-seen documents entrusted to him by Snowden himself.

May 20, 2014