2025: THE FACE OF HEGEMONY

"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last."
~ Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard.

I think a little update on global politics is in order. First, a prelude to the next National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) is out in which a reduced dominance for the US is predicted by 2025:

An intelligence forecast being prepared for the next president on future global risks envisions a steady decline in U.S. dominance in the coming decades, as the world is reshaped by globalization, battered by climate change, and destabilized by regional upheavals over shortages of food, water and energy.

[ . . . ]

In the new intelligence forecast, it is not just the United States that loses clout. Fingar predicts plummeting influence for the United Nations, the World Bank and a host of other international organizations that have helped maintain political and economic stability since World War II. It is unclear what new institutions can fill the void, he said.

In the years ahead, Washington will no longer be in a position to dictate what new global structures will look like. Nor will any other country, Fingar said. "There is no nobody in a position . . . to take the lead and institute the changes that almost certainly must be made in the international system," he said.

The predicted shift toward a less U.S.-centric world will come at a time when the planet is facing a growing environmental crisis, caused largely by climate change, Fingar said. By 2025, droughts, food shortages and scarcity of fresh water will plague large swaths of the globe, from northern China to the Horn of Africa.

[ . . . ]

Energy security will also become a major issue as India, China and other countries join the United States in seeking oil, gas and other sources for electricity. The Chinese get a good portion of their oil from Iran, as do many U.S. allies in Europe, limiting U.S. options on Iran. "So the turn-the-spigot-off kind of thing -- even if we could do it -- would be counterproductive."

There's more on that from ComputerWorld, in which the upcoming NIE identifies six disruptive technologies that will emerge by 2025.

An example of reduced dominance by the US was seen in last week's visit by VP Dick Cheney to the Caucasus:

Cheney's Caucasus gambit is a desperate attempt to stir up trouble while making a last ditch effort for the oil and natural gas of the resource-rich Caspian Basin. So far, he and his colleagues in Big Oil have nothing to show for their 20 years of labor except a few under-performing puppets in Ukraine and Georgia. The whole plan has flopped leaving Cheney with another failure on his resume. Just this week, there was more news of Russia's progress in the Central Asia energy sweepstakes in an article by Paul Goble titled "Moscow Wins a Major Victory on Pipelines":

"With Iran’s declaration that it opposes the construction of any undersea pipelines in the Caspian on "ecological grounds" and thus will block any delimitation of the seabed that allows for them and Baku’s decision not to back the West’s push NABUCCO project, Moscow can claim its first major political victory from its invasion of Georgia.

These actions mean that the Russian government will now have full and uncontested control over pipelines between the Caspian basin and the West which pass through Russian territory and will be able either directly or through its clients like the PKK to disrupt the only routes such as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylon that bypass the Russian Federation."

If Cheney is serious about catching-up to Russia, he'll have to act fast. Unfortunately, Cheney is more disliked in Central Asia than he is in the USA where his public approval ratings have been well below sea-level for the last 4 years. In fact, when Cheney arrived in Azerbaijan, neither President Ilkham Aliyev nor Prime Minister, Artur Rasizade, even bothered to meet him at the airport. Politicians everywhere know that its is political suicide to even be seen with him.

The PKK is hardly the "client" of Russia, but the Russian people, through their Duma, did unanimously call for political asylum for Öcalan so a cautious alliance would be completely reasonable.

For more on the Russia-US conflict, see the comments and analysis by the always brilliant Noam Chomsky:

In the background lie two crucial issues. One is control over pipelines to Azerbaijan and Central Asia. Georgia was chosen as a corridor by Clinton to bypass Russia and Iran, and was also heavily militarized for the purpose. Hence Georgia is “a very major and strategic asset to us,” Zbigniew Brzezinski observes.

It is noteworthy that analysts are becoming less reticent in explaining real US motives in the region as pretexts of dire threats and liberation fade and it becomes more difficult to deflect Iraqi demands for withdrawal of the occupying army. Thus the editors of the Washington Post admonished Barack Obama for regarding Afghanistan as “the central front” for the United States, reminding him that Iraq “lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves,” and Afghanistan’s “strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq.” A welcome, if belated, recognition of reality about the US invasion.

The second issue is expansion of NATO to the East, described by George Kennan in 1997 as “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era, [which] may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations.”

[ . . . ]

[Former US ambassador to Russia Jack] Matlock is not alone in regarding Kosovo as an important factor. “Recognition of South Ossetia's and Abkhazia's independence was justified on the principle of a mistreated minority's right to secession - the principle Bush had established for Kosovo,” the Boston Globe editors comment.

Which, of course, also means that the mistreated Kurdish minorities of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria also have the right to secession not only according to UN Resolution 3103 but also according to the Bush administration's Kosovo criteria.

Chomsky's quotation of Zbigniew Brzezinski reminds me of a quote in Brzezinski's book The Grand Chessboard about Eurasia:

Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, and "antihegemonic" coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, although this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower. Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a display of U.S. geostrategic skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia simultaneously.

The Grand Chessboard, p. 55.

While that contingency may have seemed "remote" in 1997 when Brzezinski wrote those lines, the contingency is up close and personal now with the existence of the SCO. Especially since the predictions seem to be that the power of the SCO is on the increase:

"The SCO should eventually start playing a new role both in and outside the Caucasus. What we see now is a real crisis of the idea of a unipolar world now that the US and its NATO allies pretend they are unable to get to the core of what’s been happening in the Caucasus. I believe that organizations like the SCO and BRIC, that brings Russia together with Brazil, India and China, should play an important role here. Many people already realize the need for the SCO and other international organizations to start focusing more on ensuring global stability and security…"

Anatoly Bolyatko also said that closer interaction between the SCO and such observer nations as Iran, India and Pakistan could make it a major new instrument of collective security both in the former Soviet Union and neighboring regions.

If we take Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice as the ones who are to "display [ ] U.S. geostrategic skill" in Eurasia, as described by Kissinger protege Brzezinski, it should surprise no one that the spooks are predicting a reduction in US dominance by 2025.

Look to the East.

THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING

"History tells me that when the Russians come to a country they don't go back."
~ Mohammed Daoud Khan.

When things were still hot on the ground in Georgia, some Turkish journalists ran into some Russian troops outside of Gori, while on their way to South Ossetia:

A Turkish television crew that ventured down the same road from Gori to Tskhinvali filmed the attack on themselves. It makes chilling viewing: bullets shatter the windscreen of the four-wheel drive vehicle. Blood splatters on the broken glass. One of the journalists is wounded in the head, another in the arm. The cameraman films his comrades getting out with their hands up, walking towards the gunmen. The Turks miraculously survived, and were sent back to Turkey four days later.

The Turkish TV crew was from NTV and KanalTürk and they figured early on that they were going to die. Here's the video, from NTV via YouTube, with English subtitles:

The NTV news broadcast can be viewed here.

It's no wonder that Abdullah Gül got the sudden urge to talk about a "New World Order" over the weekend, or that Katil Erdoğan ran off to Moscow, not with Russian special operations troops talking like this:

"Take whatever you want! It's all free!" said a Russian special services soldier in wraparound sunglasses, driving a looted BMW.

"Next time we should invade Turkey. It's nice down there," said the second soldier, who wore a ski mask and drank bottles of beer with Georgian lettering on them. He threw them out half-finished, smashing them on the road.

Comments like that ought to really increase the collective pucker factor of the Ankara regime.

In the meantime, the Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) arrived in Gori over the weekend, bringing "humanitarian" aid. But Kızılay has a very loose definition of what constitutes "humanitarian aid", as we saw in April 2003:

Ankara has been implicated in a series of events fomenting conflict between Iraqi Turkmens and Kurds. Last April, a Turkish Red Crescent convoy was stopped at a checkpoint, and weapons and explosives were found in bags identified as humanitarian supplies; Turkish Special Forces were accused by US military authorities of posing as aid workers and smuggling munitions to Iraqi Turkmen militias. In an even more serious incident on July 4, US troops detained 11 Turkish Special Forces for plotting to assassinate Kirkuk's Kurdish mayor.

There were also reports of Kızılay smuggling weapons into Lebanon during the 2006 Lebanese-Israeli war. If the Russians are smart, they'll check the Kızılay vehicles to make sure they're not bringing anything listed under that broader definition of "humanitarian aid".

Imagine this: NATO's second largest army going toe-to-toe with the SCO's second largest army. That would keep the paşas busy for a while.

"COLOSSAL DAMAGE TO THE ENTIRE REGION"

"I think there is a good reason why the propaganda system works that way. It recognizes that the public will not support the actual policies. Therefore it is important to prevent any knowledge or understanding of them."
~ Noam Chomsky.

Sibel Edmonds' ears must be burning. She was being talked about last Friday by Scott Horton and Joe Lauria. You can listen in on the conversation, which runs about 51 minutes.

In an amazing interview, an Azerbaijani so-called "terrorist" expert praises the effectiveness of HPG's recent BTC operation:

The threat of [so-called] terror acts against BTC was taken into account while planning the construction of the pipeline. The participating countries took into account the real threats at all sections of the pipeline. The threats of [so-called] terror acts from the Armenian side were taken into account at the Azerbaijani section of the pipeline, Abkhaz and South Ossetian at Georgian section and Kurdish at Turkish.

[ . . . ]

The Kurdish [so-called] terror organization PKK assumed responsibility for explosion at the BTC pipeline...

The philosophy of the [so-called] terrorist act lies in causing damage to the most critical points of the country, including civilians, strategic objects and so on, which may create serious concerns of the country and the world society. The most painful point for the whole region is the BTC pipeline. The due infrastructure including terminals, oil tankers and others, has been created for the purpose. The explosion suspended operation of the whole infrastructure.

Which country suffered greatest losses from the explosion at BTC pipeline?

Undoubtedly, the [so-called] terrorist act against BTC caused a colossal damage to the entire region. As I have already said, it is necessary to search an alternative way of transportation. It is unclear how much time will be needed for pipeline restoration. We had to transport oil by the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline, which are many millions of expenses. [So-called] Terrorists have reached their goals. Colossal economic damage was caused to the region, not speaking of the ecological damage.

[ . . . ]

Which measures should be taken to strengthen BTC security?

It is impossible to ensure the security of the pipeline by a whole army, even if there were guards at each meter. The [so-called] terrorist act of September 11 of 2001 demonstrated vulnerability of the defense systems of state objects, regulated by the man factor. The United States, having great opportunities of espionage and counterespionage, fell victims. I consider it necessary to adopt the 14th convention of the international security of interstate pipelines. The document should be approved by European structures. I think it will be approved by Europe, as BTC is important for it. And later the document could be presented to UN.

Here's Bush's take on the ass-kicking that Russia's applying to Georgia:

"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."

Let's change one word and see what we get:

"Turkey has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."

Isn't that what Bush should have said in February, when Turkey invaded Iraq? But, during that invasion, it was HPG that was doing the ass-kicking.

In another fine example of hypocrisy, we have former Unocal "advisor" and Afghan neocon toady Zalmay Khalilzad making the same kind of stupid statements as his boss:

"Is your government's objective regime change in Georgia, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Georgia?" Khalilzad asked Vitaly Churkin, the Russian ambassador.

He said the days of overthrowing leaders by military means in Europe were gone and that Russia's nostalgia about the past was being reflected in the present conflict.

Churkin's replied that "regime change is an American expression. We do not use such an expression".

But he added: "But sometimes there are occasions, and we know from history, that there are different leaders who come to power, either democratically or semi-democratically, and they become an obstacle."

Western media lies about the Russia/Georgia conflict is certainly another case for the application of Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman's Propaganda Model, as outlined in Manufacturing Consent. Within 24 hours from initial news reports, in which Georgia invaded South Ossetia, the capitalist corporate media immediately ran headlines saying "Russia invades Georgia".

The reality is that the headlines should have read "US invades Russia".

Perhaps the best place to keep up with the situation, without Western propaganda, is over at Vineyard Saker's place.