Christina Lin — US war hawks’ Eurasia goal: Prevent Russo-German coalition, China’s OBOR project

According to STRATFOR chairman George Friedman who advises the US security and intelligence community, while the US sees Russia as a threat, it sees Germany as a potential threat.

In his February speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Friedman stated the primordial interest for US is to stop a coalition between Germany and Russia, because the combination of German capital and technology with Russian natural resources and manpower is the only one that can counter US dominance.

Given NATO’s goal is “to keep the Russians out, the US in, and the Germans down,” US is now beefing up NATO and focused on establishing a “cordon sanitaire” or buffer zone (see map below) from the Baltics to the Black Sea in Central and Eastern Europe, and separate Germany from Russia.[8]….

Since US lacks the resources to occupy all of Eurasia, [Stratfor's George Friedman] assessed the best policy is to support various contending powers (e.g., India, Pakistan) so they concentrate on themselves with political, economic, and military support, or conduct “spoiling attacks” such as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to “throw them off balance like we did with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.”

However, al-Qaeda is stronger than before in Afghanistan and now Syria, and US support for Syrian jihadists have spawned IS that now threatens the three continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia.[9] US strategy of throwing countries “off balance” to maintain dominance in the Mideast is actually what has helped fuel the global jihadi movement.

Moreover, destabilizing and throwing countries “off balance” in Eurasia threatens China’s “One Belt, One Road” project (see map below) that would help Eurasian economic integration and reduce ungoverned space for terrorist organizations to thrive.…

…one ponders if it is prudent for US interventionists from both the neoconservative and neoliberal camps to still focus on a geopolitical chessboard of Cold War “great games” to throw more countries ‘off balance” to create more ungoverned spaces.

Unfortunately, as Amb Chas Freeman from Brown University’s Watson Institute observed in his article “The end of the American Empire”, the US is in a habit of using military power to supplant rather than support diplomacy, and has not yet cultivated the habit of asking “and then what?” before beginning military campaigns.[11]

Pretty much the same Cold War plan that has been unfolding since Zbig convinced Jimmy Carter to send Osama Bin Laden "freedom fighters" into Afghanistan to destabilize the region and make mischief for the USSR.

On a side note, it seems that Bill Clinton decided to expand NATO eastward chiefly for domestic reasons. Faded with WWII veteran Bob Dole, Clinton decided he needed more macho credentials and announced the NATO expansion shortly before the election as an "October surprise," much to the approval and satisfaction of neoconservatives. but opposed by foreign policy realists like George Kennan.

Asia Times
US war hawks’ Eurasia goal: Prevent Russo-German coalition, China’s OBOR project

Christina Lin | Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University where she specializes in China-Middle East/Mediterranean relations, and a research consultant for Jane’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Intelligence Centre at IHS Jane’s