Sputnik — Senior White House Officials Agree to Cut Huawei From Global Chip Supply – Report

Hybrid war with China intensifies.

Sputnik
Senior White House Officials Agree to Cut Huawei From Global Chip Supply – Report

Also at Sputnik

US Resorts to Bashing Chinese Government Over Own Coronavirus Failures

CNN — Fiona Hill Says Putin Has America ‘Exactly Where He Wants Us’

The headline is correct but the analysis is ridiculously off the mark. Fiona Hill claims that America is deeply divided internally and Russia is exploiting this weakness to further weaken the US. My take is that this view is has been highly exaggerated to the point of contributing to the weakness of the US.

Meanwhile, the real story is being missed. The reality is that Russia is no longer dependent on the USD and export substitution owing to the sanctions has not only made Russia self-sufficient but it has also increased its exports.

The falling oil price is pushing the RUB down relative to the USD, making Russia's exports less expensive. Weapons are Russia's second strongest export after natural resources, and these weapons are not at least equal to US weapons in effectiveness but also less expensive.

Having achieved a modicum of dollar independence, gained economic self-sufficiency, and reached the point in military preparedness that no adversary can defeat it without incurring intolerable cost if not defeat, Russia is now position to go after the US shale industry, which depends on a high price of oil. Russia's production cost is about 20 USD a barrel and Russia is much less dependent on oil price after having addressed its case of Dutch disease.

So payback time. Russia has the US "exactly where it wants it." Economic warfare runs two ways. Well played, Vlad and team.

CNN
Fiona Hill Says Putin Has America ‘Exactly Where He Wants Us’

Kelley Mena

See also

Reminiscence of the Future
That Is Everything You Need To Know.
Andrei Martyanov
Asia Times
Putin saves Erdogan from himself

Pepe Escobar

Winning.

Reminiscence of the Future
She Is Pretty Attractive.
Andrei Martyanov

Michael Hudson — Note to China

How not be to taken over by the Empire. Although Michael Hudson doesn't mention in this post, this is a goal of the trade war as well as the economic war that the US is waging worldwide to cement permanent US global hegemony.

Michael Hudson — On Finance, Real Estate And The Powers Of Neoliberalism
Note to China
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

See also

IMMR CoffeeHouse Discussion Forum # 8Full Transcript (EDITED VERSION)Thurs. Dec. 19, 2019

Michael Hudson on how debt money has pushed the US and European economies to their financial limit. Followed by an open discussion forum.

Democratizing Money – a discussion

Economic warfare: Insights from Mançur Olson — Mark Harrison

Economic warfare was widely used in WWII. When one country blockaded another’s supply of essential goods or bombed the industries producing them, why did the adversary’s economy fail to collapse? This column, part of the Vox debate on the economics of WWII, reviews Mançur Olson’s insights, which arose from the elementary economic concept of substitution. He concluded that there are no essential goods; there are only essential uses, which can generally be supplied in many ways.

Also a reason that economic sanctions are not working as expected?

VOX.EU
Economic warfare: Insights from Mançur Olson
Mark Harrison is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick and a Research Fellow of Warwick’s Centre on Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy and the Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Birmingham

(ht Naked Capitalism)

US Sanctions Are Designed to Kill — Kevin Cashman & Cavan Kharrazian

Sanctions are being used against some countries as economic warfare rather than primarily political pressure, and there will be casualties as in any war including "collateral damage." Some people will die. The perps know this.

It should be clear that the United States is uniquely positioned to choke off imports and exports from a targeted country using sanctions with deep, negative consequences for that country’s economy, as well as severe constraints on its government’s ability to address economic problems.

In Iran’s case, US sanctions mean that production of oil — a vital export — is in free fall, unemployment is on the rise, and record inflation due to scarce imports has made it harder for everyday Iranians to buy basic goods and access life-saving medicine. Recent reports have detailed harrowing stories of hospitals running out of crucial cancer medicinesand patients struggling to afford or even find their prescriptions. As in Venezuela and other targeted countries, US sanctions undoubtedly have a human toll associated with them, which will only grow as time goes on. This human impact is one of the main reasons that experts in international law argue unilateral sanctions are illegal under the United Nations Charter and international human rights law.
While Iran has been exploring alternative ways of exporting and importing goods, it’s unclear what more it could do absent relief from sanctions. Even so, US officials will typically place responsibility for the social and economic problems resulting from the sanctions on the Iranian government, as Hook does. But Trump’s comments are more revealing. Sanctions only work because they cause [indiscriminate] suffering in the first place. In effect, the United States is risking — and sometimes ending — the lives of thousands of Iranians with the hope that the Iranian government acquiesces to its demands or is replaced by a more compliant government. That the United States could carry out such a strategy in the first place should raise serious questions among concerned US citizens and within the international community, especially among those who respect international law.

Jacobin
US Sanctions Are Designed to Kill
Kevin Cashman, senior associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC., and Cavan Kharrazian, researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.

Is Trump Capable of Launching an All-Out Cyberwar? — Jean Perier

Backgrounder on cyberwarfare, a step up from economic warfare and internal subversion in the arsenal of hybrid warfare.

In this endeavor, the US has merged the State Department, the Pentagon, the intel services, and the private technological companies, along with allies, chiefly "five eyes" – the UK, Canada, Australia and NZ together with the US as leader.

The basic idea is to avoid kinetic warfare insofar as possible owing to the high likelihood that kinetic warfare will quickly go nuclear, bring the Great Game to a final end in nuclear winter. The added feature is that hybrid warfare is much less costly economically and also less politically volatile.

For those that have not yet noticed, WWIII is already on.

NEO
Is Trump Capable of Launching an All-Out Cyberwar?

Jean Perier

‘In Gold We Trust’: Waning confidence in US sends world’s central banks on buying spree — Darius Shahtahmasebi

I think this is partly correct. Probably more significant is the weaponizing of the USD in the economic aspect of hybrid warfare that the US is now carrying out against a number of countries a
d sending a message that "you are either with us or against us" (ht G. W. Bush). Wars run two ways.

Historically, gold has been the most secure reserve asset — the ultimate in safety, if one can protect one's gold holdings. Powerful nations are betting that they can do do in the event of loss of trust in the USD as "fair coin."

RT
‘In Gold We Trust’: Waning confidence in US sends world’s central banks on buying spree

Darius Shahtahmasebi

See also

Zero Hedge
Iran Calls For 'Elimination' Of Dollar To Stop US 'Economic Terrorism'

Tyler Durden

Not just government buying.

Zero Hedge
Indian Gold Demand Surged In April And May
Tyler Durden

Manlio Dinucci — Rand Corp: how to destroy Russia

The conclusions of the latest confidential report by the Rand Corporation were recently made public in a « Brief ». They explain how to wage a new Cold War against Russia. Certain recommendations have already been implemented, but this systemic exposure enables us to understand their true objective.…

What America's best and brightest are up to these days.

Strategic Culture Foundation
Rand Corp: how to destroy Russia
Manlio Dinucci

Economist Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Sanctions Have Devastated Venezuela & Killed Over 40,000 Since 2017 — Amy Goodman interviews Jeffrey D. Sachs

More than 40,000 people have died in Venezuela since 2017 as a result of U.S. sanctions, according to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research co-authored by economists Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot. The report examines how U.S. sanctions have reduced the availability of food and medicine in Venezuela and increased disease and mortality. We speak with Jeffrey Sachs in our New York studio. In the report, he writes, “American sanctions are deliberately aiming to wreck Venezuela’s economy and thereby lead to regime change. It’s a fruitless, heartless, illegal, and failed policy, causing grave harm to the Venezuelan people.”

The human cost of economic warfare.

Democracy Now!
Economist Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Sanctions Have Devastated Venezuela & Killed Over 40,000 Since 2017

Amy Goodman interviews Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development, and Director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network

See also

It is strange how the urgent installation of liberal democracy by force correlates so often with oil reserves not aligned to the USA, as in Libya, Iraq or Venezuela, while countries with massive oil reserves which permit US military domination and align with the West and Israel can be as undemocratic as they wish, eg Saudi Arabia. Venezuela is an imperfect democracy but it is far, far more of a democracy than Saudi Arabia and with a much better human rights record. The hypocrisy of Western media and politicians is breathtaking....

Craig Murray Blog
Venezuela and Binary Choice
Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan and Rector of the University of Dundee

Zero Hedge — Europe Launches SWIFT Alternative To Send Money To Iran

Will the US sanction its European NATO allies? Don't put anything past the US.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo previously warned of “swift punishment” for countries doing business with Iran, thus INSTEX is seen as a first small step toward greater European economic independence, and toward calming Iranian criticisms centered on seeing "dollar domination" as fueling European weakness to follow through on JCPOA stipulations....

Zero Hedge
Europe Launches SWIFT Alternative To Send Money To Iran
Tyler Durden

Pepe Escobar — What sanctions on Russia and China really mean

The Pentagon may not be advocating total war against both Russia and China – as it has been interpreted in some quarters

Look at the behavior and its motives rather than the speech and spin.

Global hegemony is a zero-sum game for the US. The stakes could not be higher. Obviously, the US has not built the military it has to defend the homeland or even its allies.

The US would prefer to prevail through hybrid means rather than kinetically, but if not ....

Even an amateur in international relations, geopolitics, or geostrategy, as well as history, could figure this out easily. But the US has already declared it as policy in the Wolfowitz and Bush doctrines. and recently named Russia and China as the chief adversaries. 

Equally obviously, when backed to a corner, great powers respond.

This is a trajectory toward WWIII.

Asia Times
What sanctions on Russia and China really mean

Pepe Escobar

Decameron — Who's on the Iran Action Group? More About Neo-Cons' March through the Institutions

Like most neo-con thinkers, Hook advocates crushing, crippling sanctions that supposedly will suffocate the population to the point that there will be an uprising that overthrows the regime. It's a form of collective punishment--a neo-con pipe dream that destroys nations and people. Hook's mission on Iran is described as coming from Pompeo at the State Dept, but well-placed sources say it's a National Security Council operation, and Bolton's brainchild....

Sic Semper Tyrannis
Who's on the Iran Action Group? More About Neo-Cons' March through the Institutions

Decameron

see also at SST

Stated policy means nothing without some kind of implementation. This Washington Post article describes how CENTCOM is already implementing the stated Syria policy on the ground in al Tanf. In my opinion, we stand a good chance of deconflicting ourselves into a hot war. God help us all.

From Policy to Action
The Twisted Genius

Also from TTG at SST

At some point even the most ardent Trump acolyte will have to admit this is now Trump’s policy. It is not something done by the neocons, the deep state, the anonymous resister or the ghost of John McCain without Trump's acquiescence. He is not some clueless, oblivious Governor Willian J. LePetomane. Trump may not give a rat’s ass about Israel, the Palestinians or Assad, but he has a real hard on against Iran or to be more exact, Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. It’s all personal. The recently stated Syria policy is all about Iran. Now he’s tweeting warnings to Assad and Putin to leave Idlib alone. He’s not thinking geopolitically. It’s becoming more personal with every tweet. If Putin and Assad defy Trump’s tweet warnings, as they surely will, he’s liable to strike back in rage. And all those around him will goad him on. And then, good buddy, the shit will truly be on.

What is this Administration’s real policy towards Syria? The Twisted Genius

Pepe Escobar — So what will The Sanctioned supergroup do?

Not one of his best, but Pepe is always worth the read. It's August, so not much happening to report anyway.

Asia Times
So what will The Sanctioned supergroup do?

Pepe Escobar

Paul Robinson — Book review: Russia’s Response to Sanctions

Important for understanding sanctions as economic warfare. They are neither efficient nor effective unless dependency is high, which Russia's is not relative to the US especially and the West in general.

What is happening is "regionalization" toward the Global South and East, which portends eventually to isolate the West.

Unfortunately, this make the transition from the use of economic and hybrid warfare to kinetic warfare more likely as the US views itself as losing global hegemony as "soft war" fails to work as expected.

Irrussianality
Book review: Russia’s Response to SanctionsPaul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Pepe Escobar — Economic war on Iran is war on Eurasia integration

Hysteria reigned supreme after the first round of US sanctions were reinstated against Iran over the past week. War scenarios abound, and yet the key aspect of the economic war unleashed by the Trump administration has been overlooked: Iran is a major piece in a much larger chessboard.

The US sanctions offensive, launched after Washington’s unilateral pullout from the Iran nuclear deal, should be interpreted as an advance gambit in the New Great Game at whose center lies China’s New Silk Road – arguably the most important infrastructure project of the 21st century — and overall Eurasia integration.…

As I have been saying, the objective is to defeat competitors using economic warfare. The chief competitor of the US is China. Taking down China involves first taking down Iran and Russia.

If economic warfare doesn't do it, then kinetic warfare will follow, unless the US leadership changes and the policy of permanent US global hegemony is abandoned.

Asia Times

Economic war on Iran is war on Eurasia integration

Pepe Escobar

See also at AT.

The final whistle is a long way off for the four-decade-old Islamic regime in Tehran, which has been playing patiently against all the odds...

Trump scores an own-goal in the game against Iran
M. K. Bhadrakumar

See also

Untrustworthy. Agreement-incapable.

LobeLog
Why The Supreme Leader Banned Direct Talks With The US
Reza HaghighatNejad

Andrew Korybko — America’s About to Unleash Its NOPEC Superweapon Against the Russians & Saudis

The US Congress has revived the so-called “NOPEC” bill for countering OPEC and OPEC+.

Officially called the “No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act”, NOPEC is the definition of so-called “lawfare” because it enables the US to extraterritorially impose its domestic legislation on others by giving the government the right to sue OPEC and OPEC+ countries like Russia because of their coordinated efforts to control oil prices.

Lawsuits, however, are unenforceable, which is why the targeted states’ refusal to abide by the US courts’ likely predetermined judgement against them will probably be used to trigger sanctions under the worst-case scenario, with this chain of events being catalyzed in order to achieve several strategic objectives....

Whoever controls energy controls the world.

The purpose behind this approach is to intimidate the US’ European vassals into complying with its demands so as to make as much of the continent as possible a captive market of America’s energy exporters, which explains why Trump also wants to scrap LNG export licenses to the EU. If successful, this could further erode Europe’s shrinking strategic independence and also inflict long-term economic damage on the US’ energy rivals that could then be exploited for political purposes. At the same time, America’s recently unveiled “Power Africa” initiative to invest $175 billion in gas projects there could eventually see US companies in the emerging energy frontiers of Tanzania, Mozambique, and elsewhere become important suppliers to their country’s Chinese rival, which could make Beijing’s access to energy even more dependent on American goodwill than ever before.

If looked at as the opening salvo of a global energy war being waged in parallel with the trade one as opposed to being dismissed as the populist piece of legislation that it’s being portrayed as by the media, NOPEC can be seen as the strategic superweapon that it actually is, with its ultimate effectiveness being dependent of course on whether it’s properly wielded by American decision makers. It’s too earlier to call it a game-changer because it hasn’t even been promulgated yet, but in the event that it ever is, then it might go down in history as the most impactful energy-related development since OPEC, LNG, and fracking.

Bold.

Oriental Review
America’s About to Unleash Its NOPEC Superweapon Against the Russians & Saudis
Andrew Korybko

Sputnik — Iran Supreme Leader Calls for 'Swift, Just' Legal Action to Face 'Economic War'

"War" is in the air now.

Sputnik International

Iran Supreme Leader Calls for 'Swift, Just' Legal Action to Face 'Economic War'

See also

Reuters
Iran Supreme Leader calls for action to face 'economic war': state TV

F. Michael Maloof — Latest Sanctions Against Russia Show Trump Not in Control of His Administration

US President Donald Trump is not in control of his own administration, as evidenced by the latest round of sanctions imposed against Russia for the alleged involvement in the poisoning of the Skripals in the UK in March.

The sanctions came the same day that US Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., announced on a trip to Moscow that he had handed over a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin from Trump calling for better relations between the two countries.…

With even further sanctions against Russia in the recently passed Defense Department Authorization Bill about to go into effect, it is becoming apparent that the allegations against Russia are politically-motivated, false flag allegations to be used as an excuse for a greater geostrategic reason — to contain Russia just as the Trump administration is increasingly finding its US-led unilateral world order being challenged more than ever.

The reason, however, isn’t due to anything that Moscow initiated but by Trump himself who isn’t in control of his own administration, and maybe never [have] been....

Both Trump and Putin realize and have acknowledged that POTUS is boxed in by US politics, lead by the American bipartisan establishment and US deep state. Trump has specifically indicated that nothing can go forward until after the mid-terms. If there is a red wave, they will go forward, but not if a blue wave, in which case the US president will be occupied fending off his removal from office.

Russia Insider
Latest Sanctions Against Russia Show Trump Not in Control of His Administration

F. Michael Maloof, former Pentagon security analyst

See also

It is debatable how much of the US government Trump actually controls.

In word, this is insanity. What’s perhaps worse is that this political warfare is being conducted with total disregard for the truth, much less an honest attempt to find it. It’s worse than a presumption of guilt; it’s a positive, unambiguous verdict of culpability under circumstances where the accusers in Washington and London (I would guess but cannot prove) know perfectly well that the CW finger pointing is false.

It has been clear from the beginning of Trump’s meteoric rise on the American political scene that he and his American First agenda were perceived by the beneficiaries of the globalist, neoliberal order as a mortal danger to the system which has enriched them. Maintaining and intensifying hostility toward Russia, even at the risk of a catastrophic, uncontainable conflict, lies at the center of their efforts. This political war to save globalism at all hazards is intensifying....

Strategic Culture Foundation
Lenin Updated: ‘Turn the Globalist War into a Race War’

James George Jatras, Analyst, former U.S. diplomat and foreign policy adviser to the Senate GOP leadership

See also at SDR

US Sanctions Are Pushing Russia to War

Finian Cunningham

Humeyra Pamuk — Turkey is a 'target of economic war', Erdogan says

Turkey joins Russia in declaring it is under US attack.

Erdogan said those who plotted against Turkey in a failed coup attempt in July 2016 were now trying to target the country through its economy, and pledged to fight back. He did not name any countries.

This is how WWIII starts. Leaders don't choose such words lightly.

The US now engaged in hybrid war with China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela. Did I forget anyone?

Reuters
Turkey is a 'target of economic war', Erdogan says

Humeyra Pamuk

See also at Reuters

The Turkish economy is not in a crisis or going bankrupt and the fluctuations in the foreign exchange rate are the ‘missiles’ of an economic war waged against Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.

Turkey is not in a crisis, will fight 'economic war', Erdogan says

See also

RT
Turkish lawyers want US soldiers arrested for 'ties to coup movement'

Also at RT

The US loses an ally.

'We'll get new friends': Upset Erdogan lashes out at US in speech and article in US paper

Reuters — US Curbs On Russian Banks Would Be Act Of Economic War

Let that sink in. That is throwing down the gauntlet. It's going there.

Recall that the US entered WWII as a result of the US blockade of Japan, which Japan interpreted as an act of war and responded by attacking Pearl Harbor.

In a sign of how seriously Russia is taking the threat, President Vladimir Putin discussed what the Kremlin called “possible new unfriendly steps by Washington” with his Security Council on Friday.

What is especially dangerous is that just about the only Americans that understand this are those that want kinetic war with Russia to "finish the job once and for all."

To deal effectively with rising China, the US must either make Russia an ally or defeat Russia first. The former is Kissinger's solution, which has almost no chance of succeeding, and the later is insanity — psychopathy and sociopathy.

This is headed in a very bad direction. It is looking more and more like a Thucydides trap is springing.

Reuters
US Curbs On Russian Banks Would Be Act Of Economic War
Andrew Osborn, Andrey Ostroukh

See also

This means that Russia’s whole military and intelligence command has been mobilized to discuss the latest American sanctions....

Go figure.  Jafe Arnold draws the conclusion.

Putin’s convening of the Security Council to discuss Washington’s new sanctions suggests that Moscow is calculating a response which, given the council meeting’s military-intelligence make-up, might include measures not restricted to the economic sphere....

Fort Russ
Will Russia HIT BACK at U.S. Sanctions? Putin Convenes Security Council

Jafe Arnold

See also

In sum, while a China-led global economy will remain open to trade, it will be less respectful of US intellectual property, less receptive to US foreign investment, and less accommodating of US exporters and multinationals seeking a level playing field. This is the opposite of what the Trump administration says it wants. But it is the system that the administration’s own policies are likely to beget.

In further sum, globalization under China would be more socialistic than capitalistic.

Project Syndicate
Globalization with Chinese Characteristics

Barry Eichengreen | Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, and formerly a senior policy adviser at the International Monetary Fund