Who's Behind the New Iron Curtain?

 

 

 

“The center of gravity of international affairs is importantly shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific and Indian Oceans.” Henry Kissinger

“The US won’t be the world’s leading superpower. A handful of countries will dominate. Western values will have been tested to the breaking point.” – World Economic Forum – 8 predictions for the World in 2030

“The world problematique formulated by the Club of Rome is not only global in nature, involving factors traditionally considered as unrelated, but also points to the crisis situations which are developing in spite of the noblest of intentions and, indeed, as their corollary. To point out the problematique and the spectrum of critical and traumatic situations it entails is not enough; the acceptance of the reality of the problematique must be followed by changes if the concern is not to remain purely academic. It is necessary, therefore, to present the issues within the problematique in specific and relevant terms which requires regional interpretation of the global issues. Furthermore, a basis should be provided for the resolution of conflicts (inevitably accompanying the problematique-type situations) through cooperation rather than confrontation. These factors have provided the motivation for initiation of the Strategy for Survival project which calls for the construction of a regionalized and adaptive model of the total world system with the following specific objectives: (1) To enable the implementation of scenarios for the future development of the world system which represent visions of the world future stemming from different cultures and value systems and reflecting hopes and fears in different regions of the world. (ii) To develop a planning and options-assessment tool for long-range issues, and thereby to provide a basis for conflict resolution by cooperation rather than confrontation.” - REGIONALIZED AND ADAPTIVE MODEL OF THE GLOBAL WORLD SYSTEM Report on the Progress in the STRATEGY FOR SURVIVAL PROJECT of the Club of Rome, Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel, Directors.

 

 

Today’s alt-media opinion makers would have us believe that the situation in Ukraine and the West’s response to it is an example of poor US statecraft which will push Russia into the arms of China in a history making own goal. Indeed, according to George Galloway, driving Russia and China ever closer together to the point where you “could not slip sixpence between them” is a “piece of madness”, and not a mistake which Brzezinski and Kissinger ever made. Reflecting on the quotes from Kissinger and Mesarovic & Pestel above, it seems that it may be Galloway’s position, rather than that of the US, which is shortsighted.

Common sense tells us that the economic and political primacy of Eurasia is a simple matter of geographic determinism. History tells us of China’s central position in global trade for more than 1500 years, from the Han (130 BCE) through to the Ming Dynasty (c. 1500 CE).

As Kissinger says elsewhere, speaking of the US, “We can’t be the world’s policeman”. Western, in particular US hegemony, is simply an untenable prospect. Brillant minds like John Mearsheimer and the not so brillaint Galloway suggest that America should have made nice with Russia to keep it out of China's orbit. Both seem to forget that the whole point of WWII was to to keep Europe out of Russia's orbit. At least I assume that’s what General Patton meant when he said “We fought the wrong enemy”.

The Atlantic bloc can try to control Europe or Asia. They can't do both. In fact both are ultimately wasted enterprises. The structure and alignment of global power needs to change, and not simply to avert war - ironically even the strategic tension of the first Cold War provided more stability than the West’s unipolar moment - but also to take the brake off economic development caused by US dominance in the energy sector.

In answer to Francis Fukuyama – perhaps what we are seeing is the return of history, but with a twist.

History will certainly show the Ukraine conflict as the detonation charge which set off the collapse of the US as global hegemon, if not as a viable nation state. And like the World Trade Centre buildings on that fateful September morning 21 years ago, there is nothing we can do at this point but look on in horror and disbelief at the chain reaction of events taking place before our eyes.

This process has of course been building for some time. Putin spent his first 10 years in office cosying up to the West. Early in the piece he even suggested that Russia might join NATO. Considering the Russian leader is obviously no fool, this surely had to have been in jest - NATO’s raison d’etre has been well publicised: to keep the US in, Germany down and Russia out.

During the course of the last 10 years Russia’s relations with the West have become increasingly tense, particularly since the former’s intervention in the Syrian conflict, which brought a halt US attempts to destabilise that country whilst cutting off a major source of revenue for its war industry. More recently Russia has become the whipping boy of international relations and the victim of some fairly farcical western propaganda, from the Skripal affair to the downing of MH17, to alleged interference in US internal politics leading to the election of Donald Trump, at least according to the discredited Steele dossier and insane ramblings of Democratic party apparatchiks and CNN talk show hosts.

Most recently Russia has been making quiet noises about leaving the Council of Europe. This would signify a further withdrawal from the West. But to see events unfolding as per Mr Galloway’s interpretation is to ignore 50 years of behind the scenes machinations and orchestrations by the real movers and shakers of global power, widely publicised through their various think tanks and thought leaders, from the Trilateral Commission to the Atlantic Council to the Council on Foreign Relations; from the Rockefeller Foundation to the World Economic Forum to Klaus Schwab to Kissinger himself.

We need to understand that we are living in Brzezinski’s technocratic age, in which geopolitical decisions are made at a supranational level and in which the principle of Westphalian sovereignty, while paid the highest degree of lip service, has never really amounted to much anyway - As Thucydides of Athens wrote "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must". 

The idea of 'world government' has long since been abandoned and replaced with 'global governance', which seems to refer more to a process than a physical structure. The world lurches between mercantilism and free trade. There is no consensus, just an alphabet soup of financial instruments and trade agreements. International law, once thought to be general and universal, is now being challenged by the more politically expedient 'rules based order'. Yet even in this complex and confounding landscape, it is naive to think that any of the events we see unfolding today are happening by accident. The management of world affairs is far too serious to be left to chance, nor to the will or agency of ‘rogue’ leaders such as Putin or Xi. Not to say that the latter do not act with agency, rather that there are a limited number of options available to them, as all sides well know. In the present situation, Russia can either pivot toward Europe or toward China, and it seems that the die has been cast in this regard.

Despite the blunt force use of sanctions, Putin appears to be in a strong position, as US policymakers and the Davos clique try desperately to isolate Russia’s ample energy supplies in a move which threatens to bring about the collapse of the petrodollar itself. One has to wonder if this might not also be by design.

We need to think beyond the superficial analysis that it was the US “bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan” which gave Putin the go ahead to invade Ukraine, and ask why Brandon was allowed to make such an apparent mess of the operation in the first place. Or why Brandon was put in office against the popular will, and by whom? Furthermore, what was Trump’s role in all of this? Was there ever a real prospect for detente with Russia? And what was the purpose of his trade war with China if not to decouple the US and Chinese economies?

What is clear is that we’re in the middle of a realignment of global power, and we must assume that this is being orchestrated, or at least allowed to take place, at a supranational level. The Pax Americana, such as it was, is over. The US is about to be retired from its role as guarantor of the post war ‘peace’. This also entails (or at least coincides with) the de-dollarisation of the world economy and perhaps the demilitarisation of the US itself. At very least we can expect to see a return to the Monroe Doctrine, and the isolation of US influence to the Western Hemisphere, while a new Iron Curtain descends in the East. America first, anyone?

There is a nautical maneuver known as tacking, whereby a ship’s bow is turned toward the wind so that the direction of the wind shifts from one side to the other, allowing steady progress upwind. In a sense this is not unlike how major political parties of liberal and conservative persuasion operate; politicking on matters of little real-world consequence whilst pursuing the same fundamental agenda. Is it possible that current and previous US administrations were charged by their higher-ups with steering the US ship of state toward the very same iceberg? To extend the metaphor further, could we end up with a conservative Eastern bloc pitted against a progressive West, with both moving in the same overall direction? Putin does talk a lot about ‘civilisational values’, so it seems to make sense. Meanwhile both China and Russia appear to be onboard with most aspects of the Great Reset, from the rollout of vaccines and vaccine passports to digital currencies and digital IDs which are either in effect or in the pipeline.

Finally, if the plan was to affect a regionalised model of the world system as per Mesarovic & Pestel, would the current situation really be a mistake by Kissinger’s standards? Or might it instead be considered as the crowning moment of a long and inglorious career?

Whatever the case, even if Brits end up paying 10 quid a gallon at the pump while the US is forced to import oil from Venezuela, I struggle to see this latest development as an own goal, much less a triumph for the gathered forces of anti-imperialism poised to wrest control of the world from a globalist, eugenicist, trans-humanist, Satan-worshiping, child-trafficking, central banking cabal (did I leave anyone out?)

In the end it’s just another tactical move on the grand chessboard, taking us one step closer toward the endgame.