All along the watchtower: The follies of history —Pepe Escobar

Everything that happens geopolitically and geoeconomically in our turbulent times has to do with the US’ do-or-die imperial struggle against the Russia-China strategic partnership. Only total “victory,” by any means necessary, would assure the continuation of what could be defined as the New American Century.

And that brings us to the necessity of reconstructing Clausewitz’s axiom, according to which, originally, war is a continuation of politics by other means.

Clausewitz argued that war is a real political instrument. Now, Clausewitz remixed should read: Hybrid War is Politics by Other Means....

Asia Times
All along the watchtower: The follies of history

Pepe Escobar

Maj. Tulsi Gabbard receives surprise deployment orders to Antarctica [satire] — Yossarian

Pretty funny, and very apt. Tulsi is the only foreign policy realist that is running against endless, so far at least.

Duffel Blog
Maj. Tulsi Gabbard receives surprise deployment orders to Antarctica [satire]

Yossarian

Andrei Martyanov — The Russian Peace Threat by Ron Ridenour

Short review of Ron Ridenour's new book. Ridenour is a foreign policy realist.

Reminiscence of the Future
The Russian Peace Threat by Ron Ridenour
Andrei Martyanov

Pepe Escobar — How to kill 10 million Afghans and not win

Backgrounder on Afghanistan. Not really about Trump except the first few paragraphs. Trump just talking though his butt. The real not-so-hidden agenda lies elsewhere. And, as everywhere, "follow the money."

Asia Times
Pepe Escobar: How to kill 10 million Afghans and not win

Pepe Escobar

"Don't do as I do, do as I say."

Anyone see a pattern here? Any wonder why there is a push for multilateralism to counter unipolarism (read world dominance).

News in Asia
Laughable: US Claims ‘Free and Open Seas,’ Tries to Push China Out of Indian, Pacific Trade

Pepe Escobar

SouthFront
Mike Pompeo Says Foreign Actors Must Leave Venezuela, So That US Can Rebuild It

Sputnik International — 'Fracas in Caracas' Signals US Attempt to Gain Hold Over Oil-Dependent Countries

With self-proclaimed Venezuelan Interim President Juan Guaido’s third coup having failed, it’s important to take measure of the global goals Washington has in trying to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro and the Bolivarian movement. One historian told Sputnik the US would gain much-needed leverage over rivals like China....

"If US imperialism can then get under its belt Venezuelan oil, and Iranian oil, and have the Permian Basin in Texas, it's controlling the lifeblood of the Chinese economy, the European Union's economy, the Japanese economy; it gives US imperialism considerable leverage, and it seems to me, that ultimately is what this fracas in Caracas is all about," Horne said....

This pushes Russia and China closer together strategically with resource-rich Russia supplying China, as well as providing technology (including for military use). 

Sputnik International

'Fracas in Caracas' Signals US Attempt to Gain Hold Over Oil-Dependent Countries

See also

AntiWar
Pentagon Says US Troops Will Be in Syria for ‘Long Haul’ Atop Oil Resources

Jason Ditz

Related

Zero Hedge
Trade War Crushes American Farmers, Income Collapses Most Since 2016
Tyler Durden

also

teleSUR
US Lashing Out At Its Own Allies Over China

Michael Hudson — Super-Imperialism at the Pentagon

Sputnik International interviews Michael Hudson. Audio and transcript.

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Super-Imperialism at the Pentagon
Michael Hudson | President of The Institute for the Study of Long-Term Economic Trends (ISLET), a Wall Street Financial Analyst, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and Guest Professor at Peking University

Daniel Margrain — Venezuela: History repeating itself?

The corporate media is deliberately giving readers the false impression that Venezuela is ‘flirting with dictatorship’. In reality, these claims couldn’t be further from the truth. But majority support for a Constituents Assembly, and the fact that the Governing United Socialist Party won 17 out of 23 governor races is irrelevant to Washington’s nefarious objectives. US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson is threatening to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is he doesn’t leave of his own accord.” The country is being “softened up” through the press as a precursor to its subsequent destruction.…

The politics of Chavez were founded on two very simple tenets:

1) People ought not to be starving in dreadful slums in the world’s most oil rich state.

2) The CIA ought not to control Venezuela....

Renegade Inc.
Venezuela: History repeating itself?
Daniel Margrain

Steven MacMillan — Retired Army Colonel Larry Wilkersonl: US Will Have a Presence in Afghanistan for Another 50 Years

In an interview at the end of 2015, the former chief of staff to Colin Powell and retired US Army Colonel, Lawrence Wilkerson, outlined the realistic timescale he believes the US will be involved in Afghanistan, in addition to emphasizing the strategic importance of the country to the US. Speaking to Abby Martin on her show ‘The Empire Files’ for Telesur, Wilkerson asserted that the “US presence in Afghanistan will not go away for another half-century” (from 20:05 into the interview):

“The war in Afghanistan has morphed; it’s not about al-Qaeda anymore, and it’s not about the Taliban anymore. It’s about China; Russia – the soft underbelly which is mostly Muslim of Russia; about Pakistan; about Iran; about Syria; about Iraq; about whether a Kurdistan is stood up or not; and ultimately about oil, water and energy in general. And the US presence in Afghanistan, I’ll predict right now, will not go away for another half-century… And it will grow, it will not decrease.”
This revelation by Wilkerson is important as the majority of the Western public continues to believe that the war in Afghanistan is predominately to do with fighting terrorism. Realistically, the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan never really had anything to do with terrorism, but everything to do with geopolitics and the vast amount of economic riches the country possesses.…

Neoliberalism and neoconservativism converge with neo-imperialism and neocolonialism in asserting US global hegemony as national policy.
 
NEO
Retired Army Colonel: US Will Have a Presence in Afghanistan for Another 50 Years

Steven MacMillan

Alexrpt — An EU politician with some balls. Ex German finance minister’s Facebook post tells US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, “F**K the US-Imperialism”

Oskar LafontainePolitician · 10,497 Likes

"Fuck the US-Imperialism" - US-"Verteidigungs-" also -Kriegsminister in Berlin
Der US-Kriegsminister ruft die Europäer dazu auf, sich der russischen "Aggression" entgegenzustellen. Dabei hätten die Europäer allen Grund, sich der Aggression der USA entgegenzustellen. Der Großmeister der US-Diplomatie George Kennan bezeichnete die Osterweiterung der Nato als den größten Fehler der US-Außenpolitik nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, weil sie einen neuen Kalten Krieg zur Folge habe. D...See MoreSee Translation4,495 Likes · 986 Comments · 2,331 Shares

Looks like Victoria Nuland started something.

Red Pill Times
An EU politician with some balls. Ex German finance minister’s Facebook post tells US Defense Secretary Ash Carter, “F**K the US-Imperialism”
Alexrpt

Joshua Kucera — U.S. Ambassador Reignites Cold War Rhetoric in Kyrgyzstan

Unusually blunt comments highlight the country’s role in the battle for influence in Central Asia.…

The United States ambassador to Kyrgyzstan has said that the country’s increasing ties with Russia is threatening its democracy, an unusually blunt statement that drew criticism in the country’s pro-Russian media.

Kyrgyzstan’s “growing partnership with Russia … [is] a challenge to our efforts to support Kyrgyzstan’s democracy,” the ambassador, Pamela Spratlen, wrote in an article for an association publication for American diplomats. Spratlen did not elaborate on the claim about the threat to Kyrgyzstan’s democracy, but she did note that as a result of Russian pressure and influence, Kyrgyzstan evicted a U.S. military base, is set to join the Russia-led Eurasian Union, and has largely accepted the Russian narrative of what is happening in Ukraine.

“Kyrgyzstan’s new leadership would welcome a partnership with the United States, but places a priority on its relationship with Russia, which often comes at our expense. It remains an unanswered question how Kyrgyzstan can maintain its democratic trajectory while pursuing this partnership. President [Almazbek] Atambayev’s decision to enter the protectionist Customs Union by the beginning of 2015 exemplifies this challenge,” Spratlen wrote. “Confronted with a sea of internal and external challenges, President Atambayev has forged a strong partnership with Russian President Putin, seeing Russia as one of his few options for much needed assistance. This partnership has had its impact on our efforts, leading to the closure of the United States military presence at the Transit Center at Manas International Airport, while Russia retains its Kant Air Base outside of Bishkek.”

The statements highlighted Kyrgyzstan’s role as the most overt U.S.-Russian battleground over influence in Central Asia, and were a rare U.S. public acknowledgment of that competition.…

…the response to her statement was predictable. “It’s not at all a coincidence that the anti-Atambayev and anti-Russian demarche of the U.S. ambassador was made ahead of Kyrgyzstan’s entrance into the Customs Union and illustrates the poorly hidden intention to interfere in the process of Kyrgyzstan’s integration into the vitally important economic space with its strategic and regional partners,” wrote the Congress of Peoples of Kyrgyzstan, a nationalist group. “Kyrgyzstanis are well aware of these American ‘efforts’ to support democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria and how these countries were plunged into chaos and the abyss of civil war and then called for ‘independence’ in Ukraine.”

“From Pamela Spratlen’s article it’s clear that Kyrgyzstan is strategically important for the U.S. After all, normally diplomats don’t speak that openly,” said Mars Sariyev, a local pundit. That she wrote it, he added, demonstrates that “U.S. policy in Kyrgyzstan has failed.

The Diplomat
U.S. Ambassador Reignites Cold War Rhetoric in Kyrgyzstan
Joshua Kucera

For background, see:

The US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the Twenty-First Century
Emre İşeria
School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment (SPIRE), Keele University, UK
See especially the section, "Geo-Strategic Dimensions Of The Eurasian Heartland," p. 33-39

The Heartland Theory and the Present-Day Geopolitical Structure of Central Eurasia

Eldar Ismailov and Vladimer Papava 

Foreign Affairs — Sep/Oct 1997 issue
A Geostrategy for Eurasia
Zbigniew Brzezinski

Yves Smith — Michael Hudson and Leo Panitch on BRICS Development Bank Salvo v. the Dollar

I would call this the first salvo across the bow of the US. Major countries are getting tired of Washington's program for globalization under the dominance of Western elites. A collation is building of the Global South against the Global North, and there is also bad blood building in the EZ between North and South.

One could also point to growing tension in the US between the North and West Coast, and South and West. And not to forget the tension and long-standing animosity between China and Japan. 

The general rule is that division results in conflict, so this is not a good sign.

Naked Capitalism
Michael Hudson and Leo Panitch on BRICS Development Bank Salvo v. the Dollar
Yves Smith