Berlin, for its part, wants, tentatively, to go the diplomatic way, although there’s a clear split between stony Atlanticists and German captains of industry – who have identified clearly how Washington is aiming no holds barred to destroy the Russo-German economic synergy. The Empire of Chaos’s game is to erect a wall between them, manifested in practice by a Russian “invasion”. It’s true that Moscow could easily pull a Samantha and invoke R2P to protect Russians and Russophones in Ukraine. But chessmaster Putin knows better than to invent a new Afghanistan in his western borderlands.For Berlin all that matters is the economy. Germany will grow by 1.9% at best in 2014. With 6,200 German businesses in Russia and over 300,000 German jobs depending on two-way trade, American-style sanctions are beyond counter-productive, although Russophobia and Cold War 2.0 hysteria remains somewhat rampant.
Paris, for instance, has seen the writing on the wall. The US$1.66 billion contract to sell two Mistral-class helicopter carriers to Russia will go ahead, as Paris diplomats admitted the cancellation – in terms of penalties and lost jobs – would hurt France much more than Russia.What's really going on geopolitically and geostrategically? Washington's worst nightmare is an economic interdependence arising among Europe, Russia, Central Asia and China — the countries of the Eurasian land mass that comprise "the heartland" as the geographical pivot of history — ending US economic dominance.
Over a month ago, on April 10, Putin sent a crucial letter to the 18 heads of state (five of them outside of the EU) whose countries import Russian gas via Ukraine. He was more than explicit; Moscow could not by itself keep financing the about-to-default Ukrainian economy. Between discount after discount and failing to impose penalty after penalty, since 2009 Moscow has subsided Kiev to the tune of an astonishing $35.4 billion. Europeans, Putin wrote, would also have to come to the table.
"Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
who rules the World-Island controls the world."
— Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality, p. 194)See also Rimland and Nicholas John Spykman
Eldar Ismailov and Vladimer Papava, The Heartland Theory and the Present-Day Geopolitical Structure of Central Eurasia
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard
Counterpunch
Ukraine: the Waiting Game
Pepe Escobar
2 comments:
Russia is the epitome of the Grand Dragon Rentier Oligarch. They rent their pollution fossil fuels and Germany provides the tools.
They are not great socialist humanists no matter what this blog says.
I thought this blog was about MMT.
?
Who said they were socialists humanitarians? This is Realpolitik with different interest groups pursuing advantage.
This blog is about economic as in Mike Norman ECONOMICS, and one of the big mistakes of conventional economics lies in thinking that economics can be studied independently of social and political conditions, especially power relationships.
There are no good guys in politics. or very few anyway, and usually the few good ones don't get high enough up the ladder to make a difference.
Geopolitics and geostrategy are a chess game about power and control, territory and resources, wealth and trade. Understanding this game is necessary for understanding economics and finance.
MMT is an aid in this, in the sense of the quote attributed to Henry Kissinger: "Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.” Whether Kissinger said it or not, it is pretty accurate.
It used to be, "Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the oil can control whole continents; who controls gold can control the world.” A lot of people still think that way, even though gold is no longer determinative, although food and oil are. We know that is crazy thinking, and we can fill in the dots about where it is leading, and we also know how the issue could be dealt with creatively if it were acknowledged that affordability is not the issue, but rather real resources.
A huge issue in the Ukrainian crisis is who is going to pay to support the country, which is an economic basket case. Putin is willing to do so at the cost of Russia real resources in order to keep Ukraine in the Russian orbit, and the West is only willing to extend IMF loans on the condition of austerity and selling the countries resources to Western capital in the name of privatization.
It really comes down to who is going to control the territory and resources of the Ukraine, and finding out could lead to war, which would alter the economic landscape in a huge way. Of it would lead to the formation of different power blocs that would also have a large bearing on globalization and the world economy.
Right now, the trend is neoliberalism, neo-imperialism and neocolonialism under the aegis of the American Empire and Western capital. The question is whether this will prevail or another configuration of power. This will have wide repercussions economically and financially. Since the world is now on a floating rate regime, it will translated into currency markets and PPP, thence to trade and national wealth. Some countries will think they are increasing national wealth by accumulating foreign reserves instead of real resources. Etc.
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