Andrew Koryko — A Venezuelan Coup Could Challenge OPEC+ And Build “Fortress America”

I have been saying something like this for some time. The American Empire is overextended and the strategic need is to withdraw to the core, which is the Western Hemisphere. Owing to logistics, and war is largely determined by the parties with logistical advantage, the US is disadvantaged by operating away from the Western Hemisphere, but it can easily control its own hemisphere militarily owing to logistical advantage. This is especially the case now that both Russia and China have "carrier killers."

There are two alternatives here, however, and the one that the US employs will make the difference.

The first is domination and the second is benevolent cooperation out of self-interest. The US can easily dominate its region but that would result in mere compliance. On the other hand, cooperation based on mutual advantage would benefit everyone and result in a a bigger pie. 

Could the US elite forgo their own advantage to secure a higher goal that would in the end benefit them more? Not likely.

So on toward WWIII.

Oriental Review

A Venezuelan Coup Could Challenge OPEC+ And Build “Fortress America”

Andrew Koryko

Mike Whitney — Trump’s Plan B for Syria: Occupation and Intimidation

Tillerson’s comments underscore the fact that recent setbacks in the 7-year-long conflict, have not dampened Washington’s determination to topple the elected government of Syria and to impose its own political vision on the country. They also confirm that the United States intends to occupy parts of Syria for the foreseeable future....

As we have noted before, Washington is determined to throw up an iron curtain along the Euphrates consistent with its plan to split Syria into smaller parts, support the central government’s enemies, and create a safe haven for launching attacks on the government in Damascus....

Good strategic analysis. Whitney puts his finger on it. The whole article is worth reading.

Counterpunch

Trump’s Plan B for Syria: Occupation and Intimidation
Mike Whitney

Also

Irrespective of what we may think of Syria, this is little but a full-scale assault on international law and the normative system embedded in the UN Charter that has taken decades of hard work to build, a fundamental cornerstone of the management and civilizational development of the world order system.

Seen in comparison with the other attempts at undermining the UN – which began in the 1990s in Bosnia-Herzegovina – this should be a cause of deep concern among people in the truly civilizational corners of our world.

And it can’t be sold to the world under the headline of a Responsibility to Protect....

We’ve of course seen it all before. It’s about bases (like, say, Kosovo), about control of resources (like, say, Iraq), about regime change (like, say Saddam Hussein and Moamar Khadafi) and it’s about the exceptionalist belief that God’s own country has God’s mandate to create US Imperial peace everywhere – no matter how many times it has already gone madly wrong and no matter how many innocent people are killed and wounded in the process....

The New US Syria “Strategy”, a Recipe For Continued Disaster
Jan Oberg

SouthFront — US Boosts Defense Spending – To What End?

While [Donald Trump] campaigned on, for example, a “trillion-dollar investment in infrastructure,” the chances of such a program being passed by Congress are between slim and none. So offering a de-facto trillion-dollar increase in defense spending is the next best thing, as it may well translate into enough jobs in key states to ensure a margin of victory in the 2020 election.

But there is also a deeper sense to this effort, as the US establishment seems to try to re-enact the 1980s. And for a good reason. It was quite literally the last decade of America’s greatness, the last decade in which the country elected a president by a landslide–Ronald Reagan in 1984–and the last decade in which it scored a genuine, unalloyed geopolitical triumph in the form of the collapse of USSR and the emergence of the US as the sole hegemonic power. Therefore it is no surprise that US decisionmakers want to use it as a blueprint for repeating the earlier success.

Indeed, if one looks at the origins of America’s 1980s triumph, it is easy to see similarities between the current policies and US policies of 1970s and 1980s. The prescription for success looks something like this: first, end unpopular costly quagmire wars, retrench, carry out domestic reforms liberalizing the economy, run up national debt through massive deficit spending, pump hundreds of billions of dollars of new spending into a revitalized all-volunteer force benefiting from a technological leap forward, and watch the geopolitical benefits practically reap themselves!
But it’s unlikely this feat can be repeated....

Unfortunately, there are few indications the US elites have accommodated themselves to the new, post-hegemonic, international balance of power, and the boost in military spending is a reflection of their efforts to recapture past glories. But it is unlikely they can reverse the process of US hegemonic decline. Indeed, this effort actually represents a still-heavier burden on the already weak US economy.

SouthFront
US Boosts Defense Spending – To What End?

J.Hawk, Daniel Deiss, Edwin Watson

Sputnik — Putin Promises to Explain US Strategy, But Only After Retiring

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would explain the strategy of the United States after having retired.

"I will certainly answer this question, and give a very detailed answer, and a very frank one, but only after I retire," Putin said in an interview with US filmmaker Oliver Stone in a documentary series when asked to explain US strategy.

Stone, in his turn, suggested that the strategy of the United States could be in destroying the Russian economy, changing the country's leadership, making Russia its ally and then taking Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

"Such a course of thought, such a version of policy is possible. If it is so, I consider such policy as a wrong one especially because such viewpoint at the relations with Russia is not aimed at the future. The people that think so do not look at least for 25-50 years forward. And if they did, they would build their relations with Russia in a different way and would not try to turn Russia into their vassal," Putin replied.

Sputnik International
Putin Promises to Explain US Strategy, But Only After Retiring

See also

The US was ready to use terrorists to undermine the political situation in Russia, President Vladimir Putin said an interview with Oliver Stone in his film The Putin Interviews.

Putin pointed out how US intelligence agencies supported militants during the war in Chechnya. "Back then, We clearly understood that our US counterparts, when speaking about their support for Russia, claimed they were ready for cooperation in fighting terrorism, but in reality they were using those terrorists to destabilize Russia’s domestic situation," he noted.

"Those ideas are still alive," Putin said in response to Stone’s comment about attempts by US intelligence agencies to whip up new hotbeds of tension in Central Asia or in the North Caucasus.…

Putin also said he had informed then-US President George Bush about this evidence, providing several names of US intelligence officials who had worked in the Caucasus region and furnishing "technical support," and "deploying militants from one place to another.

"The response of the US president was very appropriate. He said that he looked at it negatively and said he would deal with it," the Russian leader said.
Moscow later received a letter from the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) saying that "our colleagues have the right to maintain relations with all representatives of the opposition and will continue doing so."

"It was clear that this did not only refer to opposition forces but to terrorist structures and organizations. Yet, nevertheless they had been trotted out as the opposition," Putin said. 

TASS
Putin notes Washington planned to use terrorists to destabilize Russia

RIA — Breedlove: US Ready To "Fight and Defeat" Russia in Europe

The U.S is ready "to fight and defeat" Russia in Europe, if necessary, said the commander of European command U.S. General Philip Breedlove.

"We are ready, if necessary, to fight and win," — said Breedlove at a hearing of the Committee on armed services of the U.S. house of representatives, to discuss measures to counter "Russian aggression" in Europe.

Fort Russ
Breedlove: US Ready To "Fight and Defeat" Russia in Europe
RIA
Translated by Ollie Richardson for Fort Russ

Putin has already warned that Russia will use nuclear weapons if NATO crosses its red lines.

Ultimately, in pursuing Russia’s goals, Putin is a pragmatist, and we should be too. In figuring out how to deter the United States and NATO, Russia does not have the military or economic resources for the 20th century mass-army, total mobilization approach to defending its interests. As Clifford Gaddy and I outlined in the Coda of our book (in the appendices), Putin has to combine conventional, nuclear, and non-conventional, non-military—so-called “hybrid” methods—to secure an advantage. Putin and his security team aim to intimidate us. They have to demonstrate that Russia has the capacity to act, and is willing to escalate on all fronts to deter the United States and NATO from considering taking any military action against Russia—in Ukraine, Syria, or elsewhere.

Nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent. Russia’s unclassified national security strategy states that Russia will use nuclear weapons only in response to an attack with weapons of mass destruction on Russia or on a Russian ally, or in the event of an attack on Russia with conventional forces in which the existence of the Russian state is at stake. But Moscow has now put the nuclear option on the table for lesser circumstances, and Putin seeks to make us believe that he will use nuclear weapons if any of the current conflicts seem likely to draw in the United States or NATO against Russian forces. It is no good for Putin to just suggest that he might use nuclear weapons. This is the “escalate to de-escalate” contingency that so many observers are currently concerned about at the non-strategic level (See Steven Pifer’s piece in The National Interest in the appendices). Putin is clearly drawing up a contingency for deploying nuclear weapons if he feels he needs to—but his goal is to push the United States and Europe away from Russia and out of its neighborhood, not to actually engage in a nuclear exchange. Nonetheless, we are now back in a similar frame to the nuclear war scare of the 1980s, which only ended with the Reagan and Gorbachev summitry that led to the conclusion of the 1987 INF Treaty.

Understanding And Deterring Russia: U.S. Policies And Strategies
Dr. Fiona Hill, Senior Fellow,
Director, Center On The United States And Europe
Testimony To The House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, February 10, 2016 

Back to the Cold War, only this time with "the crazies" running US policy.

Update regarding "Russia does not have the military or economic resources for the 20th century mass-army, total mobilization approach to defending its interests."

FIRST GUARDS TANK ARMY. I attended many meetings with the Russian military. Always – always – we were told that the Russian army was being re-structured into brigade group formations: all-arms formations of 5-6 thousand men. Such formations are suitable for fighting in places like Chechnya and, indeed, the first two were formed about 20 years ago in the south. At the same time there were no serious forces deployed along the tradition western invasion route. The old Soviet divisions – pretty well empty of soldiers at this time – were gradually eliminated. It was clear then – the 1990s and early 2000s – that Moscow was not expecting an attack from the west and neither did it expect to attack west: it was planning for smaller operations, mostly counter-terrorist. The old Soviet structure of divisions-armies-fronts which was applicable to really big wars against first-class enemies was no longer necessary; the smaller, nimbler brigade group structure was more appropriate. But, at the same time they warned that NATO’s relentless expansion, ever closer, was a danger (опасность), although they stopped short of calling it, as they did terrorism, a threat (угроза); “dangers” require attention; “threats” a response. NATO of course didn’t listen, arrogantly assuming NATO expansion was doing Russia a favour and was an entitlement of the “exceptional nation” and its allies. Well, we have reached another stage on the road. 

The 1st Guards Tank Army is being re-created. It will likely have two or three tank divisions, plus some motorised rifle divisions, plus enormous artillery and engineering support, plus helicopters and all else. This is a formation to fight a really big war against a first class enemy; designed to deliver the decisive counter-attack (see Stalingrad, Kursk). It will be stationed in the Western Military District to defend Russia against NATO (yes defend! otherwise why didn’t they have it all along?). It will likely be the first to receive receive the new Armata family of AFVs and be staffed with professional soldiers. This is what the light-hearted decision to expand NATO has brought us to. I need hardly say that NATO’s piddling little reinforcement is below the noise level of a tank army. (And pointless, too: a brigade more-or-less is meaningless in a real war and the trip-wire already exists. But NATO is working itself up to a real case of the screaming meemies.) I will probably write more on the significant of this, which is clearer to those with a military background, but here’s something to go on from Southfront. 

Russia Observer
RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 25 February 2016
Patrick Armstrong

See also

US set on regime change in Russia and will pursue this goal to the bitter end.

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Why is the US so hostile to Russia? Biil Herschel and PL

Dmitry Mosyakov — The US Grand Strategy is Taking a U-turn

Must-read post on the shift in US geopolitical strategy from neoliberal globalization to creating instability. It's short and to the point.

I was skeptical of this view when I first encountered it some time ago, but now it is making sense. If not, then US policy is really bonkers. And I don't think it is. Put simply, the game shifted against the initial strategy as the board changed, with more countries waking up to what the US was about, and so the US adapted its strategy.

As a result danger is increasing.

New Eastern Outlook
The US Grand Strategy is Taking a U-turn

Dmitry Mosyakov – Professor, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Director of the Centre for Southeast Asia, Australia and Oceania and the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences

George Friedman, head of Stratfor Global Intelligence, on US policy in Europe.

Russia Insider
Stratfor Chairman Straight-Talking: US Policy Is Driven by Imperative to Stop Coalition between Germany and Russia
Damir Marinovich

See also

Stratfor Global Intelligence
Can Putin Survive?

George Friedman

This article was originally in July 2014, and it was re-published on March 17, 2015.