A Poison Tree

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. 

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

And I waterd it in fears, 

Night & morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles, 

And with soft deceitful wiles. 

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright. 

And my foe beheld it shine, 

And he knew that it was mine. 

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veild the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

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Scott Ritter joins to discuss how China's diplomatic achievement brokering peace between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a bad sign for the future of US dominance worldwide.

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BY PEPE ESCOBAR

The Hybrid War 2.0 against the Global South has not even started. Swing states, you have all been warned. 

U.S. Think Tank Land hacks are not exactly familiar with Montaigne: “On the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”

Hubris leads these specimens to presume their flaccid bottoms are placed high above anyone else’s. The result is that a trademark mix of arrogance and ignorance always ends up unmasking the predictability of their forecasts.

U.S. Think Tank Land – inebriated by their self-created aura of power – always telegraphs in advance what they’re up to. That was the case with Project 9/11 (“We need a new Pearl Harbor”). That was the case with the RAND report on over-extending and unbalancing Russia. And now that’s the case with the incoming American War on BRICS as outlined by the chairman of the New York-based Eurasia Group.

It’s always painful to suffer through the intellectually shallow Think Thank Land wet dreams masquerading as “analyses” but in this particular case key Global South players need to be firmly aware of what awaits them.

Predictably, the whole “analysis” revolves around the imminent, devastating humiliation to the Hegemon and its vassals: what happens next in country 404, also known – for now – as Ukraine.

Brazil, India, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia are dismissed as “four major fence-sitters” when it comes to the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia. It’s the same old “you’re with us or against us” trope.

But then we are presented with the six major Global South culprits: Brazil, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.

In yet another crude, parochial remix of a catch phrase referring to the American elections, these are qualified as the key swing states the Hegemon will need to seduce, cajole, intimidate and threaten to assure its dominance of the “rules-based international order”.

Saudi Arabia and South Africa are added to a previous report focused on the “four major fence sitters”.

The swing state manifesto notes that all of them are G-20 members and “active in both geopolitics and geoeconomics” (Oh really? Now that’s some breaking news). What it does not say is that three of them are BRICS members (Brazil, India, South Africa) and the other three are serious candidates to join BRICS+: deliberations will be turbo-charged in the upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa in August.

So it’s clear what the swing state manifesto is all about: a call to arms for the American war against the BRICS.

So BRICS packs no punch 

The swing state manifesto harbors wet dreams of near-shoring and friend-shoring moving away from China. Nonsense: enhanced intra-BRICS+ trade will be the order of the day from now on, especially with the expanded practice of trade in national currencies (see Brazil-China or within ASEAN), the first step towards widespread de-dollarization.

The swing states are characterized as “not a new incarnation” of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), or “other groupings dominated by the Global South, such as the G-77 and BRICS.”

Talk about exponential nonsense. This is all about BRICS+ – which now has the tools (including the NDB, the BRICS bank) to do what NAM could never accomplish during the Cold War: establish the framework of a new system bypassing Bretton Woods and the interlocking coercion mechanisms of the Hegemon.

As for stating that BRICS has not “packed much punch” that only reveals U.S. Think Tank Land’s cosmic ignorance of what BRICS + is all about.

The position of India is only considered in terms of being a Quad member – defined as a “U.S.-led effort to balance China”. Correction: contain China.

As for the “choice” of swing states of choosing between the U.S. and China on semiconductors, AI, quantum technology, 5G and biotechnology, that’s not about “choice”, but to what level they are able to sustain Hegemon pressure to demonize Chinese technology.

Pressure on Brazil, for instance, is much heavier than on Saudi Arabia or Indonesia.

In the end though, it all comes back to the Straussian neocon obsession: Ukraine. The swing states, in varying degrees, are guilty of opposing and/or undermining the sanctions dementia. Turkey, for instance, is accused of channeling “dual-use” items to Russia. Not a word on the U.S. financial system viciously forcing Turkish banks to stop accepting Russian MIR payment cards.

On the wishful thinking front, this pearl stands out among many: “The Kremlin seems to believe it can make a living by turning its trade south and east.”

Well, Russia is already making excellent living all across Eurasia and a vast expanse of the Global South.

The economy has re-started (drivers are domestic tourism, machine building and the metals industry); inflation is at only 2.5% (lower than anywhere in the EU); unemployment is at only 3.5%; and head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina said that by 2024 growth will be back to pre-SMO levels.

U.S. Think Tankland is congenitally incapable of understanding that even if BRICS+ nations may still have some serious trade credit issues to iron out, Moscow has already shown how even an implied hard backing of a currency can turn out to be an instant game changer. Russia is at the same time backing not only the ruble but also the yuan.

Meanwhile, the Global South de-dollarization caravan moves on relentlessly – as much as the proxy war hyenas may keep howling in the dark. When the full – staggering – scale of NATO’s humiliation in Ukraine unfolds, arguably by mid-summer, the de-dollarization high-speed train will be fully booked, non-stop.

“Offer you can’t refuse” rides again 

If all of the above was not already silly enough, the swing state manifesto doubles down on the nuclear front, accusing them of “future (nuclear) proliferation risks”: especially – who else – Iran.

By the way, Russia is defined as a “middle power, but one in decline”. And “hyper-revisionist” to boot. Oh dear: with “experts” like this, the Americans don’t even need enemies.

And yes, by now you may be excused to roar with laughter: China is accused of attempting to direct and co-opt BRICS. The “suggestion” – or “offer you can’t refuse”, Mafia-style – to the swing states is that you cannot join a “Chinese-directed, Russian-assisted body actively opposing the United States.”

The message is unmistakable: “The threat of a Sino-Russian co-optation of an expanded BRICS—and through it, of the global south—is real, and it needs to be addressed.”

And here are the recipes to address it. Invite most swing states to the G-7 (that was a miserable failure). “More high-level visits by key U.S. diplomats” (welcome to cookie distributor Vicky Nuland). And last but not least, Mafia tactics, as in a “nimbler trade strategy that begins to crack the nut of access to the U.S. market.”

The swing state manifesto could not but let the Top Cat out of the bag, predicting, rather praying that “U.S.-China tensions rise dramatically and turn into a Cold War-style confrontation.” That’s already happening – unleashed by the Hegemon.

So what would be the follow-up? The much sought after and spun-to-death “decoupling”, forcing the swing states to “align more closely with one side or the other”. It’s “you’re with us or against us” all over again.

So there you go. Raw, in the flesh – with inbuilt veiled threats. The Hybrid War 2.0 against the Global South has not even started. Swing states, you have all been warned.

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https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/06/10/the-hegemon-will-go-full-hybrid-war-against-brics/

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“The war in Ukraine is the dollar war” (2nd part)

Oleg NESTERENKO

Interview with Oleg Nesterenko, President of the European Trade and Industry Center, granted to the publication "L'Eclaireur des Alpes". Part 2/3

L'Eclaireur - While the question arises of the end of the supremacy of the dollar, you say that the war in Ukraine is not only the war of the dollar but that it is not the first...

Oleg Nesterenko – I see that you are referring to my analysis on the dollar wars, published some time ago. Indeed, this is not the first, not even the second, but the third dollar war. The first was the war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The second, that of the war against Gaddafi's Libya. And the third, therefore, against Moscow on the territory of Ukraine, waged on the territory of a third state simply because we cannot wage war against the Russians directly at home. And that is only hybrid and proxy warfare that can take place against Russia.

Regarding the first two dollar wars, it must first be understood that countries like Iraq and Libya are, above all, major energy powers. Powers that have dared to put the US currency in danger. In 2003, Saddam Hussein carried out his threat: to stop selling hydrocarbons and gas in dollars. Saddam Hussein was the first to raise the question of the legitimacy of the dollar, the petrodollar and, above all, to act in a very significant way against the latter. He then signed his death warrant.

In February 2003, Saddam Hussein sold 3 billion barrels of crude oil for more than 25 billion euros. This sale took place in euros and not in dollars. A month later, the United States invaded Iraq. We do not know the exact figures, but the number of victims is estimated at one million, one in two of whom were minors. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of additional deaths in the years that followed as a result of the total destruction of the country's social and economic infrastructure. Besides, the US itself, its analysts worthy of the name, recognize this.

In 2009, in Libya, a dollar war also took place. President of the African Union at that time, Muammar Gaddafi, proposed to the entire African continent a real monetary revolution: to escape from the domination of the dollar and create a pan-African monetary union. With it, exports of oil and other natural resources from the black continent would have been paid not in dollars or petrodollars, but in a new currency that he would call the gold dinar. He too signed his death warrant.

If such declarations had been made not by Iraq or Libya, which are extremely rich in oil and gas, but, for example, by Burkina Faso, which is rich in gold but devoid of proven hydrocarbon reserves - it would not there would have been no war. Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Gaddafi's Libya, being energy powers endowed with gigantic reserves, were an existential danger for the US economy. The two leaders had openly and officially announced that they wanted to get rid of the dollar. These are also two countries with which the United States did not have to fear harmful consequences in the event of an aggression. They therefore had to be destroyed. And it was done without delay.

With Moscow, that was not possible. Russia is neither Iran, nor Iraq, nor Libya. With Russia, the United States could only act indirectly.

L'Eclaireur - But what does the war between Ukraine and Moscow have to do with the dollar?

Oleg Nesterenko - Moscow really threatened the status of the dollar on the international scene, and, therefore, the entire US economy behind it. As soon as Putin came to power, well before 2021 and even before the anti-Russian coup in Ukraine in 2014, Russia, which is a leading energy power, began the process of liquidating Treasury bonds. US (held by the Russian state, editor's note), bonds denominated in dollars.

In five years, from 2010 to 2015, Russia halved the number of US Treasury bonds it held. Whereas, until then, it was one of the largest holders in the world, it hardly has any today.

In parallel, the Russian Federation has also started to gradually separate from the petrodollar system by concluding commercial agreements payable in national currency, starting with China. Gigantic amounts of energy products began to be paid for in Chinese yuan and Russian rouble.

It was the beginning of the beginning of the new war which began to be prepared and which we have known since February 2022.

The value of the dollar is only supported by printing money and the military domination of the United States

In parallel, there is an unofficial agreement between Russia and China to synchronize actions against the United States. China is also gradually getting rid of the US debtor. In 2015, China held over $1.27 trillion in US Treasury bonds; today it is in the 950 billion range – the lowest level in more than 10 years.

It is China that is designated as the number 1 adversary of the United States, but it is indeed the Russian Federation that has triggered the process of freeing the world from the petrodollar system.

With the outbreak in February 2022 of what I call the active phase of the war, which has been going on for almost 10 years, Russia and China, in tandem, this time officially since the masks have fallen, are prompting the central banks to by the world to rethink the merits of their investments in US Treasury bonds and, therefore, in the economy and the well-being of Americans.

The dollar is a monkey currency. There is nothing behind. Nothing tangible. Today's value of the dollar has absolutely nothing to do, for the most part issued, with real assets that should ensure it. Its value is backed only by the printing press and the military dominance of the United States. The domination that suppresses all the discontented.

L'Eclaireur - With dedollarization, the euro, which no one seems to have pushed, could it have been an alternative to the dollar?

Oleg Nesterenko – The weight and potential role of the euro should not be underestimated. In the past, Saddam Hussein, for example, wanted to sell his oil not in dollars, but in euros. And that is, by the way, the main reason for the Iraq war and the assassination of Saddam. The euro can, or rather could, play a bigger role than it does today. But I absolutely do not believe that will happen. The potential will not be realized. Quite simply because European policy is deeply subject to the will of the US.

The United States will never allow vassal currency to overshadow them. And with the level of mediocrity of the senior officials or, rather, it must be said of the irresponsible of Europe and the majority of the heads of state that make it up today, the Americans and their currency really have nothing to fear on the side of the euro. The initiatives of European leaders are so, most of the time, anti-European and anti-national that they look more like honorary consuls of the United States on the old continent than anything else.

And as if that weren't already enough, practically tomorrow - in 2025 - the Presidency of the Council of the European Union will be held by the Poles. Poland is a direct agent, practically the employee of the United States within the EU. The Poles will take the lead of the EU just after Hungary and will do what is necessary to destroy the slightest sovereigntist achievements of the Hungarian rebels. Two years before this deplorable event took place, they have already announced that their main priority will be to strengthen the EU's "collaboration" with the United States. In the years to follow, the very modest remnants of European autonomy, military and economic, will be further reduced and will only be symbolic.

On the international scene, civil servants in Brussels have no political weight and are only figurative

It is not for nothing that no power in the world, including the United States and even more so Russia and China, recognizes the EU as a serious interlocutor and favors dealing only at the level of Member States separately. On the international scene, the civil servants of Brussels have no political weight and are only figurative.

But I don't believe in the worst case scenario for the European currency – its disappearance. Because the euro boat has already gone far too far at sea and no longer has the fuel to go back without sinking the economies of member countries. But, that being so, I am more than a Eurosceptic. Not that I am against the meeting of Western countries around a European center - far from it: the history of humanity demonstrates that everything goes towards the meeting of similar forces which have the same vision of things, values and similar goals.

It's just that the project in its optimistic version, the ideal image - that's one thing; the reality - is quite another. Observing the “degeneration” in recent decades, and especially since 2004, of the fine initial European project, it is no longer possible to ignore that the European Union has become nothing more than a sort of dysfunctional hydra, each head of which has its own ideas. It is pleasing to note that Russia alone has managed to tighten these heads. It was fear, hatred and phobias that brought them together more than anything else in the European project.

L'Eclaireur - How is the Russian economy doing in view of the sanctions implemented by the West?

Oleg Nesterenko – In the short to medium term, the fallout from Western sanctions against the Russian economy is relatively small. From the point of view of the standard of living of the vast majority of the population, the effect of these sanctions is simply non-existent. However, we must not be naive: in the long term, of course, there will be certain areas of activity that will suffer to a certain degree. Degree that will depend on a large number of variables.

When talking about the consequences of Western sanctions against Russia, we must not lose sight of the very meaning of the triggering of the said sanctions. In each business plan, there is the mandatory and fundamental presence of the notions of investment and return on investment within predefined time limits in a precise manner. The first good question to ask is: have the sanctions reached their fixed objectives in the time and the pre-calculated magnitudes?

The facts are known, although they are carefully minimized and distorted by its authors, in order to save face: the objectives of the sanctions triggered were the collapse of the economy of the Russian Federation which should have led , de facto, to the capitulation of Russia within the framework of the conflict in Ukraine. The result of this enterprise is a total failure. There was no collapse. There is no collapse today and there will be no collapse tomorrow. Talking about it is just pure fanciful speculation cut off from reality.

The sanctions that had the greatest chance of success were put in place at the very beginning of the confrontation. Especially those of the second and third waves, which targeted the very foundations of the infrastructure of Russia's financial system, the capacities of public and private actors to raise capital from global financial markets, as well as the disconnection of hundreds of Russian banks in the Swift system, including “systemic” banks.

These sanctions were part of the initial business plan and were considered fully sufficient to achieve pre-established objectives of the collapse of the Russian economy in a limited time frame, less than twelve months. All the other waves of sanctions, which took place afterwards and which will take place again in the future, are in no way as dangerous for the economic and financial stability of Russia and are only rather chaotic gestures due to the collapse of the initial western project.

Sanctions have no chance of stopping continued Russian military operations in Ukraine

Are the repercussions of these actions harmful for the country in the long term? The answer is no. I remind you that it is not since 2022, but since 2014 that Russia has been subject to significant sanctions from the Western camp. We no longer speak of these “original” sanctions at all in the “Atlanticist” propaganda; and for good reason. Not only, the Russian economy has not been shaken in any way despite the jubilation of Barak Obama – “the Russian economy is in pieces!” at the time of a significant, but temporary, fall in the rate of the Russian currency – but in addition, the sanctions acted as a catalyst and greatly strengthened the sovereignty of the national economy.

No need to comment on Bruno the Mayor's remarks of March 1, 2022 on the imminent annihilation of the Russian economy, which are even more ridiculous than those of Obama and which only demonstrate, once again, the amateurism flagrant of this gentleman occupying a post which does not coincide with his aptitudes and professional skills.

Nature abhors a vacuum. If in countries with reduced capacities for international cooperation, embargoes can maintain the artificially created sector vacuum, this does not work vis-à-vis the great powers whose economies can never be kept in isolation for a long time. term. Alternatives at national and international level are always put in place.

Thus, the restrictions on food imports from countries that have supported the sanctions against Russia have resulted in the growth and consolidation, and in a very significant way, of the agri-food sector. In just a few years of sanctions, Russia has gone from a major importer of agri-food products to an exporter. Other sectors are in the process of becoming self-sufficient and, at the end of the Russian-Western hostilities, will become almost impenetrable for European economic actors.

Companies in the energy and defense sectors easily circumvent sanctions by simply refusing to use the dollar in their international transactions in favor of the Russian currency and that of the partner country. This by accelerating at the same time the process of dedollarization of the world, this currency which has become highly toxic.

In the financial sector, anticipating as early as 2015 the risk of one day being cut off from the international banking messaging system Swift controlled by the West, the central bank of the Russian Federation created its own interbank transmission system, the SPFS system, as well as its own payment system for bank cards, the MIR system. Both systems can be used internationally and are already linked to the Chinese banking system Chinese Union Pay. Other countries will join SPFS. The great tool of threats and permanent blackmail of the American-centric camp vis-à-vis the rest of the world to be cut off from their SWIFT is no longer considered a fatality and an existential danger.

At the same time, today we are discussing very seriously not only the creation of a new common currency for the Brics countries, but also the digital currency: the digital rouble. Currency will be an excellent additional means of getting rid of the constraint of illegal sanctions, since it can be used without using the services of banks which themselves may fear being the object of Western hostilities.

L'Eclaireur - In your opinion, does the West therefore have more to fear, and in particular from the backlash of its sanctions?

Oleg Nesterenko - Russo-German economic relations destroyed, the fallout on the German economy, for example, will be dramatic. German industry, a large part of which is energy-intensive, is already in great difficulty since its production costs have simply exploded and its direct, non-European competitors, starting with the Americans, do not have the problems that Germans have just been created.

In the European Union, which is, in fact, the second major collateral target of US anti-Russian sanctions, most intra-community cooperation projects in the scientific, technological and energy fields have already been scaled back. In the medium term, the total losses of all EU countries due to the sanctions against Moscow are estimated at several hundred billion euros.

When I spoke of the restrictions on food imports from countries hostile to Russia, it should not be forgotten that European farmers are losing billions of euros there every year and will eventually lose tens of billions more, because the Russian market is closed for them in the very long term. And even in the distant future, when the Russian restrictions are lifted, the market shares they can regain will be paltry compared to what they have had in the past.

In terms of tourism, in Europe, it is mainly France that pays the bill. There is no more tourism between Russia and France. If you consult professionals in the hospitality-tourism sector in the south of France, for them it is disastrous, as it is for the real estate sector. For 30 years, the Russian client was major in terms of turnover. The mass media hide this reality very carefully.

For the energy sector, it is not even worth talking about. We all know the scale of the disaster. A disaster which is more or less concealed by gigantic state compensation made by further deepening the already disproportionate public debt and which will certainly not be reimbursed.

In economics as in business, everything is a question of alternatives. And Russia has alternatives that the countries of the European Union do not have and will not have.

From today, it is the United States which will not only regulate the cost price of energy-intensive industries, but will also decide on the price of a baguette at the bakery or the heating bill for households. And those who think that the Americans will give gifts to their vassalized competitors, the Europeans, that they are giving up their bad habit of dreaming, that does not work for them...

Generally speaking, all those who followed the US project suffer and will suffer negative consequences on their economies, consequences far more harmful than those which Russia will experience in the years to come. Because in economics as in business, everything is a question of alternatives. And Russia has alternatives that the countries of the European Union do not have and will not have.

For the situation to change, especially in France, French foreign policy must change radically. But with the propaganda relayed in a very extensive way by the mainstream media and the conditioning of the French electorate, it is clear that even the future elections of 2027 have no chance of bringing anyone to power who would allow a significant improvement in relations with Russia.

L'Eclaireur - For you, the sanctions trains (currently the 11th) are no longer effective?

Oleg Nesterenko - The whole range of serious sanctions controllable by the Atlanticist camp has already been exhausted.

Sometimes, at the level of restrictions, the West falls into the most grotesque ridicule. For example, one of the sanctions put in place was the prohibition of domestic cats from participating in an international competition in Europe. I have already asked myself the question: why have migratory birds not yet been sanctioned? If the Poles don't do it yet, they should start shooting them down at the entrance to their airspace...

One of the main sanctions put in place is the one against Russian oil. What is the result ? Russia sold in the first quarter of 2023 even more oil than even before the start of the war in Ukraine.

The Russian gold embargo is not working either. And, this time, I even regret it. Because tomorrow gold will play a much more important role in the world economy than today. In the place of the Russian government, I would have greatly restricted Russian gold exports and have been for a while. You should know that while the national gold reserves in the United States and Germany have practically not changed in volume since the year 2000 – and in France they have even greatly decreased – in Russia, they have been multiplied by six over the same period. But it is important to increase them further.

In terms of serious sanctions, there are only those that go through blackmail and threats from Russia's partners. But since these are always strategic, even vital elements for the countries targeted, the chances of success are close to zero.

Today, we are talking about sanctions against nuclear energy, against the Russian atom. These plans are totally unrealistic. What those responsible, or rather those irresponsible in European politics, want will never work. Brussels bureaucrats are demanding Hungary, which is heavily dependent on the Russian atom, to give it up. However, almost half of the country's energy comes from Russian-built nuclear facilities. And today, new nuclear facilities are being built there to increase the energy independence of Hungarians. When I hear Von der Leyen ask Orban to put an end to it... The losses for the Hungarian people would be gigantic. By bowing to Brussels, they will go back thirty years. And it is pure fantasy to imagine that the Hungarian government will show such madness.

Osep Borrell, the head of European diplomacy, also mentioned the sanctions against India and the Russian petroleum products refined in the country. Putting in place such sanctions would be sheer folly and would cost Europe dearly, as India has a large number of retaliatory levers against the European economy.

»» https://eclaireur.substack.com/p/la-guerre-en-ukraine-cest-la-guerre

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