Showing posts with label BRICS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BRICS. Show all posts

Friday, March 22, 2024

500 Years of Western Dominance - What Comes Next | Glenn Diesen

Felix Abt: A great European religious war and the first pan-European conflict over superpower status came to an end in 1648. After 30 years of devastating wars and chaos, especially on German soil, with millions of deaths and shattered economies, the Peace of Westphalia brought a new, rules-based order to Europe, as the Western political class would call it today. This included the inviolability of borders and non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign and equal states; it is regarded as a milestone in the development toward tolerance and secularization. How did this affect the new powers that emerged afterward and their quest for hegemony?

Glenn Diesen: The lesson from the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was that no one power could restore order based on hegemony and universal values, as the other states in Europe would preserve their own sovereignty and distinctiveness by collectively balancing the most powerful state. This was evident when Catholic France supported Protestant Sweden to prevent the dominance of the Catholic Habsburgs. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 gave birth to the modern world order, in which peace and order depend on a balance of power between sovereign states. The Westphalian system prevents hegemony as other states collectively balance the effort of an aspiring hegemon to establish economic and military dominance, and universal values are rejected to the extent they are used to reduce the sovereignty of other states.

» The Westphalian system prevents hegemony. « 
The 1648 peace treaty between the parties in the Thirty Years' War established the Westphalian system.
 
The principle, known as the Westphalian principle of sovereignty, prohibits interference in the internal affairs of another state, and every state is equal before international law, regardless of its size. Thus, every state has sovereignty over its territory and its internal affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers. But when the European colonial powers used violence to impose their will on other continents, they violated this ideal. Was this the beginning of this principle’s demise?
 
The Westphalian system should in principle be based on sovereign equality for all states. However, it originated as a European security order that later laid the foundation for a world order. Under the original Westphalian system, the Europeans claimed special privileges and the principle of equal sovereignty for states did not apply to everyone. Sovereignty was deemed to be a right and a responsibility assigned to civilized peoples, a reference to the Europeans as white Christians. The international system was divided between the civilized and the barbarians. There was one set of rules for the Europeans in the civilized garden, and another set of rules when the Europeans engaged with the so-called despotic barbarians in the jungle. The interference in the internal affairs of other peoples and the development of vast empires was framed as the right and the responsibility of civilized states to guide the barbaric peoples towards universal values of civilization. This responsibility to govern other peoples was termed the white man’s burden and the civilizing mission.

 » The gardeners have to go to the jungle. «
Josep Borrell's universal mission.

In our current era, we have abandoned the civilized-barbarian divide, but we have replaced it with a liberal democracy-authoritarian divide to legitimize sovereign inequality. The West can interfere in the domestic affairs of other states to promote democracy, invade countries to defend human rights, or even change the borders of countries in support of self-determination. This is the exclusive right and a responsibility of the West as the champions of the universal values of liberal democracy. As the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell explained:
The gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us.

International law in accordance with the UN Charter defends the principle of sovereign equality for all states. The so-called
rules-based international order is based on sovereign inequality, which introduces special privileges under the guise of universal liberal democratic values. For example, the West’s recognition of independence for Kosovo was a breach of international law as it violated the territorial integrity of Serbia, although it was legitimized by the liberal principle of respecting the self-determination of Kosovo Albanians. In Crimea the West decided that self-determination should not be the leading principle, but territorial integrity. The US refers to liberal democratic values to exercise its exclusive right to invade and occupy countries such as Iraq, Syria and Libya, although this right is not extended to countries in the jungle.  

» The so-called “rules-based international order” is based on sovereign inequality, 
which introduces special privileges under the guise of universal liberal democratic values. «
In 1945 fifty countries established the United Nations System. With the help of this supra-national governance
system the Anglo-Frankish-Zionist-Dönmeh-Wahhabi-Takfiri elites of the UK, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the US and
some others, expected to secure their hegemonies beyond the foreseeable demise of traditional colonialism
The Bretton Woods conference, World Bank, IMF, nuclear bombing of Japan, dividing Korea 
and creating the State of Israel in Palestine are early show cases of what Pax Americana and UN are all about.

[...] The Ukrainian conflict is essentially an extension of American geopolitics, which aims to carry out Mackinder’s aforementioned stanza, He who rules Eastern Europe rules the world. What are your thoughts about it?

Preventing Germany and Russia from controlling Eastern Europe means that much of the Eurasian continent becomes landlocked. US control over Eastern Europe implies that Russia can not bridge Europe and Asia, but rather becomes an isolated land-locked region at the dual periphery of Europe and Asia.

Brzezinski outlined the strategy for developing and preserving US global primacy, which relies on the age-old wisdom of divide-and-rule. Brzezinski wrote that the US must
prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together. Historically, the British and the Americans have worked to prevent Germany and Russia from coming together as it would form an independent pole of power. Hegemony requires conflict between Germany and Russia, as Germany becomes a dependent ally and Russia is weakened. This logic is also applied to why it is beneficial to perpetuate tensions between the Arabs and Iran, or between China and its neighbors. The US has been very concerned about the economic integration between the Germans and Russians, which is why the US was so hostile to the Nord Stream pipelines and most likely was behind the attack on these pipelines. 
 
 Anka Feldhusen, a fine example of a German Neonazi apparatchik of the 21st century.
March 22, 2023.
 
 Wehrmacht 2.0 south of Kiev. 
There will be hell to pay.
March 22, 2024.


The problem is that the world is no longer Western-centric and by pushing Russia away from Germany, the US has pushed Russia towards China – a technological and industrial power much greater than Germany. In the mid-19th century, the British fought against Russia in the Crimean War with the explicit purpose of pushing Russia back into Asia, where it would remain technologically and economically backward and stagnant. NATO’s war in Ukraine is a repeat of the efforts to push Russia back into Asia, although this time Asia is much more dynamic than the West. The failure of the West to adjust our grand strategy to this new reality has been a mistake of immeasurable proportions. We have not subordinated Russia, rather we ended Russia’s 300-year-long Western-centric policies in which Moscow looked to the West for modernization.

What is driving this stunning anti-Chinese obsession in the United States against a country that upholds the principle of non-interference in other countries, that used its mighty navy only for trade and not for gunboat politics when it was a superpower in the past, and that follows the millennia-old concept of “Tianxia” (天下), which literally means “everything under heaven”, that is, an inclusive world full of harmony for all?

China does not threaten the US, but it threatens US dominance as the foundation for the unipolar world order established after the Cold War. The US is currently attempting to weaken China through economic warfare, convincing its allies to decouple from the Chinese economy, and knocking out Russia in Ukraine as a vital partner of China. If the US fails to achieve its objectives, then it will likely stoke conflicts between China and its neighbors to make the neighbors more dependent and obedient, and also create instability for the Chinese that will bleed it of resources. The ideal would be greater tensions between India and China, as India would have to make itself more reliant on the US and it would be an important ally to weaken China. If all fails, then the US could also fight an indirect war through a proxy similar to the way they are using Ukrainians to fight Russia – by for example pushing for Taiwan’s secession. Besides securing its supply chains and building a military for deterrence, China should prioritize resolving its disputes with India as any friction with China can be exploited.

» This is a Westphalian system with Eurasian characteristics. « 
Since 2009 BRICS is establishing a Multipolar World Order based on Westphalian principles and controlled by the 
Eurasian great powers China, India and Russia. Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates joined BRICS
on January 1, 2024. To date 15 more countries have formally applied to join.

Finally, in your new book you say that a new Westphalian world order is reasserting itself, albeit with Eurasian characteristics. Can you explain this in more detail?

We are returning to a Westphalian system based on a balance of power between sovereign states. However, the former Westphalian system was based on sovereign equality among the Western powers while the barbarians or despots outside the West were not deemed to be qualified for the responsibility of sovereignty. It was a dual system of collective hegemony of the West, with sovereign equality between the Western states. In the new Westphalian system, there are several powerful states that are not Western, with China as the leading economy in the world. The Eurasian powers such as China, Russia, India and others are developing the economic foundations for this system with new technologies, transportation corridors and financial instruments. The Eurasian powers are more prepared to include the Global South as sovereign equals. The Eurasian powers reject the so-called rules-based international order based on sovereign inequality, as Western dominance should not be legitimized by a civilized-barbarian or liberal democracy-authoritarian divide.

The Western powers over the past centuries have had an inclination for dominance and empire by controlling limited maritime corridors. Russia’s Eurasianism in the 19th century was a hegemonic strategy by dominating the Eurasian landmass through land corridors, although under the multipolar distribution of power the Russians do not have the capability or intentions to pursue hegemony. Instead, Eurasian integration entails moving from the dual periphery of Europe and Asia, to the center of a new Eurasian construct. Even China as the leading power does not have the capability or intention to pursue hegemony. Countries like Russia are content with China being the leading power, although they would not support China if it demanded dominance and hegemony. The Chinese demonstrate that they are not attempting to limit Russia’s economic connectivity with other states to make itself the only center of power. In the Global Civilization Initiative, the Chinese are also advocating for respecting civilizational differences and that all states have their own path to modernity, which implies that China is not claiming to represent universal values that legitimizes interference into the domestic affairs of other states. The West assumed that the Russia-China partnership was a marriage of convenience and that they would clash over influence in Central Asia, but this never happened because neither side demanded hegemony. Instead of sabotaging each other’s relations with the region, China and Russia harmonized their interests in Central Asia. China, Russia, India and other Eurasian powers have different visions and interests in terms of Eurasian integration, but they all need each other to realize their goals and pursue prosperity. Hegemony is not an option. This is a Westphalian system with Eurasian characteristics.

Quoted from:
 

See also:

Thursday, October 26, 2023

BRICS+ Destroys The US And EU Currency Monopoly | Michael Hudson

There is no way that today’s international debt overhand can be repaid. That is as true for the United States as it is for Global South debtors. The US Treasury owes much more to foreign governments in the form of their holdings of US securities than it can foreseeably repay. It has post-industrialized its own economy, and has committed to spending enormous sums abroad, while its dependency on foreign imports is rising and its prospects for collecting its existing debt claims on deficit countries is looking shaky. The past half-century’s foreign investment has taken the form of privatization of the public domain of debtor countries. This investment has not helped them develop but has merely transferred ownership of their oil and mineral rights, public utilities and other assets. A viable international financial system requires productive investment such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative that can help countries prosper, not asset stripping. Dollar dominance will continue over Europe and other US satellites. Other countries that still need dollar reserves for their trade and investment with the United States can continue as it has. But what will be changed is a new basis for the international economy itself. There will not be a new BRICS currency in the sense of a dollar or euro that could become a medium for trade, investment or international speculation. There will only be a mutual "currency of settlement" of payments imbalances among central banks joining the new system. And that system itself will be based on principles opposite from the financialized neoliberal model being promoted by the Dollar/NATO bloc. That is the real context for the current discussion of BRICS+ economic reform.


President Putin was very clear when he recently talked in Valdai about a single settlement currency: "This definitely deserves our attention. It's a complex issue, and we have to solve it in one way or another." The Western press talks about how much wealth and reserves do the BRICS countries have. Naturally, you count their gold as a large part of their reserves. But where is the gold of the BRICS countries? Much of their gold is not in their own countries. It's in the New York Federal Reserve Bank, it's in the Bank of England and the gold of African countries is in the Bank of France. Right now, this gold is being held hostage. But countries can ask the US, the UK and France to give them back their gold. Germany tried to do that a few years ago and said, "Can't you begin to give us our gold back that was moved to your banks during the last seventy-five years of  US occupation? " And the US said, "Oh I'm sorry, we can't. We've already done something else with your gold. There are legal problems and we are not giving it back to you!" Now, let's say the BRICS countries would ask for their gold and if the United States and England and France will not return it, those countries could take compensation, including all of the foreign investments in their countries. They could do another thing: If, especially the African countries, say, "You've stolen our gold. You cannot expect us to pay our foreign dollar debts if you have come and seized our gold. Give us back our gold. You owe to us. And by the way, we're going to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization so you can't send your troops in and do what you did in Libya and simply grab it." This is an element of the financial future that nobody in the West has talked about.

Quoted from:

Monday, July 3, 2023

The BRICS+ Currency | James G. Rickards

A new BRICS+ currency will be announced in Durban, South Africa, at the annual BRICS Leaders’ Summit Conference on August 22–24, 2023 [...] In all likelihood, the new BRICS+ currency would not be available in the form of paper notes for use in everyday transactions. It would be a digital currency on a permissioned ledger maintained by a new BRICS+ financial institution with encrypted message traffic to record payments due or owing by participating parties. (This is not a cryptocurrency because it is not decentralized, not maintained on a blockchain and not open to all parties without approval.)

BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, representing about 27% of the world's land
surface, 41% of the global population, and 32% of global GDP PPP.
The most important development in the BRICS system concerns the expansion of BRICS membership.
This has led to the informal adoption of the name BRICS+ for the expanded organization.
Currently 10 additional nations formally applied for membership:
Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
24 countries have expressed interest in joining the BRICS:
Afghanistan, Angola, Belarus, Comoros, Cuba, D.R. Congo, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Mexico,
Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Uruguay, Venezuela
and Zimbabwe.
By every measure — population, landmass, energy output, GDP, food output and nuclear weapons — BRICS is not
just another multilateral debating society. They are a substantial and credible alternative to Western hegemony.
The BRICS are developing an optical fiber submarine telecommunications system that would connect its members.
It is being developed under the name BRICS Cable. Part of the motivation for BRICS Cable is to foil spying by
the U.S. National Security Agency on message traffic carried through existing cable networks.


[...] It appears likely that the new BRICS+ currency will be linked to a weight of gold. This plays to the strengths of BRICS members Russia and China, who are the two largest gold producers in the world and are ranked sixth and seventh respectively among the 100 nations with gold reserves.
 
[...] Reserve currencies are essentially the savings accounts of sovereign nations that have earned them through trade surpluses. These balances are not held in currency form but in the form of securities. When analysts say the dollar is the leading reserve currency, what they actually mean is that countries hold their reserves in securities denominated in a specific currency. For 60% of global reserves, those holdings are U.S. Treasury securities denominated in dollars. The reserves are not actually in dollars; they’re in securities. As a result, you cannot be a reserve currency without a large, well-developed sovereign bond market. No country in the world comes close to the U.S. Treasury market in terms of size, variety of maturities, liquidity, settlement, derivatives and other necessary features.

[June 29, 2023]
Jail break acceleration:
Ethiopia, one of Africa's fastest-growing economies, is
aiming to become the latest brick in the firewall against U.S.-imperialism.

[...] The BRICS+ currency offers the opportunity to leapfrog the Treasury market and create a deep, liquid bond market that could challenge Treasuries on the world stage almost from thin air. The key is to create a BRICS+ currency bond market in 20 or more countries at once, relying on retail investors in each country to buy the bonds. The BRICS+ bonds would be offered through banks and postal offices and other retail outlets. They would be denominated in BRICS+ currency but investors could purchase them in local currency at market-based exchange rates. Since the currency is gold backed it would offer an attractive store of value compared with inflation- or default-prone local instruments in countries like Brazil or Argentina. The Chinese in particular would find such investments attractive since they are largely banned from foreign markets and are overinvested in real estate and domestic stocks. [...] The sheer volume of retail investing in BRICS+-denominated instruments in India, China, Brazil and Russia and other countries at the same time could absorb surpluses generated through world trade in the BRICS+ currency. In short, the way to create an instant reserve currency is to create an instant bond market using your own citizens as willing buyers.
 
The United States exploits the world's wealth with the help of "seigniorage."
It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries
had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one (HERE)
 
[...] This entire turn of events — introduction of a new gold-backed currency, rapid adoption as a payment currency and gradual use as a reserve asset currency — will begin on August 22, 2023, after years of development. Except for direct participants, the world has mostly ignored this prospect. The result will be an upheaval of the international monetary system coming in a matter of weeks.

 
See also:

Sunday, July 2, 2023

The Civilization-State | Alexander Dugin

The special military operation (SMO) is unanimously agreed by competent experts in International Relations to be the final and decisive chord in the transition from a unipolar to a multipolar world [...] The main actor of a multipolar world order is neither a nation-state (as in the realist theory of International Relations), nor a unified World Government (as in the liberalist theory of International Relations). It is the Civilization-State. Other names for it are 'Great Space', 'Empire', 'Ecumenism'.
 
 » Your aim must be to take All-under-Heaven intact.
Thus your troops are not worn out and your gains will be complete.
This is the art of offensive strategy. 
«

Sun Tzu, The Art of War.


The term Civilization-State is most often applied to China. Both ancient and modern China. As early as ancient times, the Chinese developed the theory of 'Tianxia' (天下), the Celestial Empire, according to which China is the center of the world, being the meeting place of the unifying Heaven and the dividing Earth. And the Celestial Empire may be a single state, or it may be broken up into its components and then reassembled. In addition, Han China itself acts as a culture-forming element for neighboring nations that are not directly part of China - primarily Korea, Vietnam, the Indochina countries and even Japan, which is quite independent.

The nation-state is a product of the European New Age and, in some cases, a post-colonial construct. The Civilization-State has ancient roots and uncertain shifting boundaries. The Civilization-State sometimes pulsates, expanding and contracting, but always remaining a constant phenomenon. Contemporary China behaves strictly according to the principle of Tianxia in international politics. The One Belt, One Road Initiative is a prime example of how this looks like in practice. And China's Internet, which cuts off any networks and resources that might weaken the civilizational identity at the entrance to China, demonstrates how the defense mechanisms are built. The Civilization-State may interact with the outside world, but it never becomes dependent on it and always maintains self-sufficiency, autonomy and autarchy. Civilization-State is always more than just a state in both spatial and temporal (historical) terms. The Civilization-State may interact with the outside world, but it never becomes dependent on it and always maintains self-sufficiency, autonomy and autarchy.

Russia is increasingly gravitating toward the same status. After the beginning of the SMO this is no longer a mere wishful thinking, but an urgent necessity. As in the case of China, Russia has every reason to claim to be a civilization. This theory was most fully developed by the Russian Eurasians, who introduced the notion of a 'state-world' or — which is the same thing — a 'Russian world'. Actually, the concept of Russia-Eurasia is a direct indication of the civilizational status of Russia. Russia is more than a nation-state (which the Russian Federation is). Russia is a distinct world.


»
 
The Civilization-State always maintains self-sufficiency, autonomy and autarchy.  «


[…] A multipolar world consists of states-civilizations. This is a kind of world of worlds, a mega-cosmos that includes entire galaxies. And here it is important to determine how many such States-Civilizations can even theoretically exist? Undoubtedly, this type includes India, a typical Civilization-State, which even today has enough potential to become a full-fledged actor in international politics. Then there is the Islamic world, from Indonesia to Morocco. Here the fragmentation into states and different ethno-cultural enclaves does not yet allow us to speak of political unity. Islamic civilization exists, but the question of its assembly into a Civilization-State is rather problematic. Moreover, the history of Islam knows several types of Civilization-States — from the Caliphate (the First, Umayyad, Abbasid, etc.) to the three components of Genghis Khan's Empire converted to Islam (the Golden Horde, the Ilkhan and Chagatai ulus), the Persian Safavid Empire, the Great Mogul state, and finally, the Ottoman Empire. The borders once drawn are still relevant today in many respects. But the process of gathering them into a single structure requires considerable time and effort. The same situation is also true for Latin America and Africa, two macro-civilizations that remain rather divided. But a multipolar world will somehow push integration processes in all these zones.
 

[March 31, 2023]

Russia's New Foreign Policy Doctrine :
(
1)   Free from ambiguity and understatement.
(2)   No more compromise.
(3)   Carthage must be destroyed.


Now the most important thing: what to do with the West? The Theory Of A Multipolar World in the nomenclature of theories of International Relations in the modern West is absent. Today the dominant paradigm is liberalism, which denies any sovereignty and autonomy at all, abolishes civilizations and religions, ethnicities and cultures, replacing them by a forced liberal ideology, the concept of 'human rights', individualism (in the limit leading to gender and transgender politics), materialism and technical progress elevated to the highest value (Artificial Intelligence). The goal of liberalism is to abolish nation-states and establish a World Government based on Western norms and rules. This is the line pursued by Biden and the modern Democrat Party in the U.S., as well as most European rulers. This is what globalism is all about. It categorically rejects the Civilization-State and any hint of multipolarity. That is why the West is ready for war with Russia and China. In a sense, this war is already going on in Ukraine and in the Pacific (the problem of Taiwan), but so far with the support of proxy-actors. 


Ejaz Akram, Zhang Weiwei & Alexander Dugin:
» The Westphalian system of the sovereignty of nation-states has long since become obsolete and ceased to function.
In its place will be erected a continental system of '
large spaces' (in the Schmittian sense), where individuals
are integrated in the social whole based on the insoluble bond of kinship and common tradition.
« (HERE)


In the West there is another influential school - realism in International Relations. Here the nation-state is considered a necessary element of the world order, but only those who have achieved a high level of economic, military-strategic and technological development — almost always at the expense of others — have sovereignty. While liberals see the future in a World Government, realists see it in an alliance of major Western powers setting global rules in their own interests. Again, in theory and practice, a Civilization-State and a multipolar world are categorically rejected. This creates a fundamental conflict already at the level of theory. And the lack of mutual understanding here leads to the most radical consequences at the level of direct collision.

In the eyes of multipolarity supporters, the West is also a Civilization-State or even two
North American and European. But Western intellectuals do not agree with this: they have no theoretical frame for thisthey know either liberalism or realism, and no multipolarity. However, there are exceptions among Western theorists, such as Samuel Huntington or Fabio Petito. They — unlike the vast majority — recognize multipolarity and the emergence of new actors in the form of civilizations. This is gratifying because through such ideas it is possible to build a bridge from supporters of multipolarity (Russia, China, etc.) to the West. Such a bridge would at least make negotiations possible. 
 

Want more war? Have it.
The Rest Against The West.
Russia's FM Lavrov [June 20, 2023] :
» Let NATO fight. Russia is prepared. «

 

As long as the West categorically rejects multipolarity and the very notion of the Civilization-State, the conversation will be conducted only at the level of a clash of rough power — from military operations to economic blockade, information and sanction wars, etc.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

March 18, 2014 = Pivot of History | The Ascent of a Multi-Polar World System

March 18, 2014 – Address of Russian President Vladimir Putin to State Duma deputies, Federation Council members, heads of Russian regions, Representatives of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, civil society representatives in the Kremlin, and to “The West”:

After the dissolution of bipolarity on the planet, we no longer have stability. Key international institutions are not getting any stronger; on the contrary, in many cases, they are sadly degrading. Our western partners, led by the United States of America, prefer not to be guided by international law in their practical policies, but by the rule of the gun. They have come to believe in their exclusivity and exceptionalism, that they can decide the destinies of the world, that only they can ever be right. They act as they please: here and there, they use force against sovereign states, building coalitions based on the principle “If you are not with us, you are against us.” To make this aggression look legitimate, they force the necessary resolutions from international organisations, and if for some reason this does not work, they simply ignore the UN Security Council and the UN overall.

Vladimir Putin: Against the equality of good and evil.
 
[…] I understand those who came out on Maidan with peaceful slogans against corruption, inefficient state management and poverty […] However, those who stood behind the latest events in Ukraine […] resorted to terror, murder and riots. Nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites executed this coup […] We understand what is happening; we understand that these actions were aimed against Ukraine and Russia and against Eurasian integration […] We have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, led in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, continues today. They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position, because we maintain it and because we call things like they are and do not engage in hypocrisy. But there is a limit to everything. And with Ukraine, our western partners have crossed the line.

[…] It is at historic turning points such as these that a nation demonstrates its maturity and strength of spirit. The Russian people showed this maturity and strength through their united support for their compatriots. Russia’s foreign policy position on this matter drew its firmness from the will of millions of our people, our national unity and the support of our country’s main political and public forces […] Obviously, we will encounter external opposition, but this is a decision that we need to make for ourselves. Are we ready to consistently defend our national interests, or will we forever give in, retreat to who knows where? […] Russia will also have to make a difficult decision now, taking into account the various domestic and external considerations. What do people here in Russia think? Here, like in any democratic country, people have different points of view, but I want to make the point that the absolute majority of our people clearly do support what is happening.

In his 2013 annual Presidential address to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin clearly expressed:

[…] Today, many nations are revising their moral values and ethical norms, eroding ethnic traditions and differences between peoples and cultures. Society is now required not only to recognise everyone’s right to the freedom of consciousness, political views and privacy, but also to accept without question the equality of good and evil, strange as it seems, concepts that are opposite in meaning. This destruction of traditional values from above not only leads to negative consequences for society, but is also essentially anti-democratic, since it is carried out on the basis of abstract, speculative ideas, contrary to the will of the majority, which does not accept the changes occurring or the proposed revision of values. We know that there are more and more people in the world who support our position on defending traditional values that have made up the spiritual and moral foundation of civilisation in every nation for thousands of years: the values of traditional families, real human life, including religious life, not just material existence but also spirituality, the values of humanism and global diversity. Of course, this is a conservative position. But speaking in the words of Nikolai Berdyaev, the point of conservatism is not that it prevents movement forward and upward, but that it prevents movement backward and downward, into chaotic darkness and a return to a primitive state.

The President of Russia is leading the global resistance against the Empire of Wall Street and the City of London. He stopped their genocidal depredation in Russia. This is why they hate him, why they attempt to kill him, why the corporate media is cheering thugs of the ilk of Yulia Tymoshenko and Mikhail Khodorkovsky as if they were heroes of democracy. Since 250 years the imperial West is waging wars, destroying nation after nation, producing failed states, terrorism, chaos and millions of casualties. This was the second NATO-coup in Ukraine within a decade. The road to Moscow leads through Kiev. But this time around Vladimir Putin’s Russia was prepared, and not alone: After the latest coup in Ukraine, Crimea hastily joined Russia on March 18, 2014 before becoming subjected to IMF-looting or another ‘civil war’ orchestrated by NATO. The unification of Crimea and Russia is backed by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This military and economic alliance was founded in 1996 responding to globalizing NATO-savagery. Today the SCO comprises 6 member states, 5 observer states, 3 dialogue partners, and 3 guest attendances of 5 non-Western civilizations (Russian, Chinese, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist - 4 nuclear powers among them) from the South China Sea to the Baltic Sea and from the Persian Gulf to the Bay of Bengal. In terms of potential, production, infrastructure, economic growth and prosperity, this is the most successful and promising alliance in recorded history. This is not an empire. It is an alliance of sovereign states and their relations are governed by international law. This is the very opposite to the poisonous 'one-world'-gospel of the globalists and the 'clash-of-civilization'-ideology of the liberals. 

Pro-Russian protesters with banner reading “Odessa for referendum!”
in the center of Odessa, March 23, 2014.
 
China knows very well it is next in NATO’s line for 'freedom' and 'democracy' and that without the SCO and Russia’s energy supply it would fall prey to the Empire. Therefore China supports Russia, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and a new multi-polar world-system. The fascist regime in Kiev has no legitimacy at all, and won’t last. The EU has no means to sanction Russia. The EU is not a superpower. The EU is not the White Knight and won't rescue anybody. The EU is but a deeply corrupted, pitiful and bankrupt US protectorate on the brink of collapse and revolution itself. However, in this latest freedom-and-democracy-scam the EU is once again the colonial aid of the international banking cartel. And once again they came to loot: Ukraine's gold was flown out to London or New York two weeks ago. last week the EU showed up in Kiev offering a multi-billion Euro-credit. Conjured by Mr. Draghi out of nothing. To support the Ukraine. Nobody takes this. The Ukrainians will overthrow Euro-fascism and join the Eurasian Customs Union. Or split up the country. Any sanctions will only strengthen the Eurasian integration and increase unemployment and misery in the EU.

The US will keep playing India as the continental dagger against China and Pakistan until an Indian Putin will emerge and integrate the country in the SCO. Venezuela is fighting imperialism since 1998. Without nuclear defence capabilities and no strong allies in the region, the people of Venezuela may soon perish and see its oil, gas and gold once again stolen and become degraded into poverty. However, with more than 60 % of the world’s population, the momentum towards a new international system, future world trade and economy are intimately related with the SCO and the BRICS. All of them are building up gold reserves and are about to create an independent currency, a BRICS-bank and a BRICS currency reserve pool. Already the SCO and the BRICS could destabilize the Euro and the US dollar by dumping them into the exchange markets. The FED and the ECB would not be able to arrange currency swaps with other countries large enough to buy up the dumped currency, and the exchange values would fall. Such an action could be the response to more hostile NATO activities.

If this is now indeed the “beginning of the end” for the globalist’s Empire, this is still only the very beginning of a long and most dangerous process: The next big NATO war will be the end-game for absolute rule of a cynical world hegemon over the 99% of the global rest. Some Empires die peacefully, destroyed by economic ruin, over-stretch and social implosion; others prefer to doom in an orgy of violence.