Filed under: China / SE Asia, War | Tags: china, gates, naval, obama, us
China’s increasingly advanced weaponry could undermine US military power in the Pacific, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday.
Echoing US intelligence guidelines released on Tuesday that warned of Beijing’s military modernization, Gates said US naval carriers and air bases in the Pacific faced new threats from China.
“In fact, when considering the military-modernization programs of countries like China, we should be concerned less with their potential ability to challenge the US symmetrically — fighter to fighter or ship to ship — and more with their ability to disrupt our freedom of movement and narrow our strategic options.”….Full article here
Filed under: Africa, Resource Wars | Tags: Africa, obama, oil, shell, War
Many Africans see Africom’s mission in more menacing terms: ensuring that the United States gets most of Africa’s oil, not China or India, which need it to fuel their burgeoning economies.
“While Obama administration officials insist that U.S. policy toward Africa is not being militarized, the evidence seems to suggest otherwise,” says Gerald LeMelle, executive director of Africa Action, a non-governmental organization…
Filed under: Uncategorized
“The World Island”…what it’s all about
Eight months into the Obama Presidency the outlines of Administration foreign policy are becoming very clear and what is emerging is a foreign policy establishment flying blind on automatic pilot, evidently unable to make the fundamental policy changes required of its new geopolitical and economic position in the world since the collapse of the Greenspan “revolution in finance” September 2008. For the first time since it emerged as the world’s dominant power after 1945 the US policy establishment is unable to combine its military “stick” with any economic “carrot.” The Obama effort marks the end of an era of geopolitics. Latest reports that Obama has decided to cancel US plans for an anti-nuclear missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic suggest that a major internal battle is underway among US policy elites over what has clearly been a failed US foreign policy strategy.
Nowhere has the deficit in creative new strategic thinking been evident than in Washington policy towards the three pivot powers of the Eurasian continent—China, Russia and Iran. The recent calculated affront to Russia by Vice President Joe Biden was typical of the impotence of recent US foreign policy to regain American advantage across the strategic expanse of Eurasia—the undisputed “key” to world hegemony.
White the Obama Administration has made big fanfare about a so-called “reset” of US-Russian relations, it is clear the reset intended is back to the disastrous (for Russia) Yeltsin era of chaos and collapse of Russian state power in the early 1990’s. What is ignored are the clear strategic-based reasons for the dramatic deterioration in US-Russian relations—Washington and Washington-led NATO have posed an existential challenge to the very survival of Russia as a nation by Washington’s series of power coups or “color revolutions,” most clearly the 2003-2004 revolutions in Ukraine and in Georgia which placed pro-NATO de facto puppet regimes in power on Moscow’s most strategic periphery….Read full story
Filed under: Middle East, Russia / Caucacus, War, Western Europe | Tags: czech, missile, obama, poland, putin, shield
The moving of the Polish missile shield is little more than a desperate attempt to gladhand the Russians into supporting new sanctions and contiuned actions against Iran’s nuclear program. While this statement has been met with the utopian promises of a ‘reset’ in U.S relations with the Russian Federation, the bases will still remain, “streamlined”, and will still have offensive capabilites aimed at deterring the Russians. Also of note, in this compromise Putin has reverted U.S policy back to missile sheild discussions of 2007, and seems to have reached a tentative agreement to place them in a joint radar station in Azerbijian.
It seems unlikely that even with these concessions the U.S will be able to force Russia away from cooperation with the Iranian nuclear program as FM Lavrov has stated that the Russian position has not changed regarding Iran. In the meantime, many Russian thinkers view these developments correctly, as a shallow and transparent political maneuver designed to illicit cooperation on issues that the U.S can no longer handle alone.
U.S. Redeploys Missile Shield: The Geopolitical Encirclment of Russia
Global Research / Rick Rozoff
U.S. Missile Shield Plans: Retreat Or Advance?
Global Research / Rick Rozoff
Raytheon, Lockheed May Win in Obama Missile Plan
Bloomberg
New US anti-missile system in Israel, Azerbaijan to replace scrapped shield in E. Europe
DEBKA File
2007 FLASHBACK: Put missile shield in Azerbaijan, Russia tells US
Filed under: Latin America
At the recent UNASUR meeting, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales lashed out at the U.S-Colombian joint military bases as a possible staging ground for future U.S deployments inside Latin America. During the meeting Chavez read excerpts from a document entitled, “Global En Route Strategy” from the U.S Air Mobility Command, which details USSOUTHCOM goals in the region. These include: “helping achieve the regional engagement strategy and assists with the mobility routing to Africa.” These goals fit in with the overall DOD doctrine of ‘full spectrum dominance’ highlighted in the National Defense Review which identitfies the goal of U.S military operations as “access to the global commons and natural resources”. In this instance, access to Latin America offers the U.S access to soverign land and natural resources, the command of politcal influence, corporate enrichment through continued degradation of all kinds as well as potential points of accessibility into the African continent. Chavez has called on President Lula de Silva of Brazil to mediate discussions over the proposed military bases with President Obama.
Morales: U.S planning coups in Latin America
Press TV
South American Nations Question U.S.-Colombia Military Base Agreement
CIP Americas
US Air Mobility Command: Global en Route Strategy
Filed under: Uncategorized
Check out the latest episode on the podcast site. Enjoy.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: georgia, japan, NATO, putin, random, russia
Here are some random articles for this week. I will be discussing them on my radio show.
To hear the show go to the “Duty Now For The Future Podcast”
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Vladimir Putin signals plan to reclaim old job as Russian president
The Guardian
Black Sea Port is Flash Point for Georgia and Russia
NY Times
Confronting Russia? U.S. Marines In The Caucasus
Global Research.ca
U.S will not “prejudge” leadership in Japan: Pentagon
Space War
Filed under: Environmentalism, Resource Wars | Tags: china, climate change, copenhagen, enviromentalism, g20, green, obama
Somewhere Daniel Bell is celebrating. The enactment of global climate change legislation, to be discussed in Copenhagen later this year, is tantamount to economic strangulation. For the industrialized world, specifically the U.S and Western Europe, the strangulation is directed at stemming the growth of developing and third-world nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the continued ascendancy of Russia and China as economic powerhouses. Not only do carbon emission limits negatively effect all countries that use carbon-intensive practices, but also acts as harbinger of a domestic anti-productionist sentiment, fortifying the post-industrial wasteland we find ourselves living in. Carbon emission limits also lead to the collection of an additional tax (or taxes) to be levied on middle and lower class Americans who will be forced to expend the minimal amount of carbon in order to survive, but still avoid fines.
At least Lord Stern recognizes, like the majority of the Third World, that carbon emission limits and economic growth are completely incompatible–the problem is: he thinks China, Brazil, India and the African Nations will sign on for the Copenhagen Plan, when they have publicly said that they will not. Stern writes, “this is never going to work unless developing countries are involved.” So I guess, minus the participation of the developing world, sacrificing the economic well-being and growth of the industrialized nations in the service of an unattainable goal is a completely appropriate method of action.
Junk science for a socio-economic transformation. Don’t you love the commoditization of your life? Don’t forget your carbon credits!
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Stern: Rich nations will have to forget about growth to stop climate change
The Guardian
Filed under: Russia / Caucacus, War | Tags: obama putin medvedev russia georgia ww3
Much of what Dugin is saying is supported by Russian political elites and you can see his point of view being manifested in the political maneuvers of the Russian Federation. This interview also contains very telling statements regarding the U.S-Russian relationship since the election of Putin in 1999, and what has transpired since then.
Russian nationalist advocates Eurasian alliance against the U.S.
L.A Times
EXCERPTS:
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-“I advocate strongly a multipolar construction of the world. I think that the pretension of the United States to be the unique pole of the world . . . is completely wrong, immoral and unacceptable by the other great centers of power.”
-Regarding Georgian conflict: “It is very far from the end. It is only the beginning of a real, and maybe very serious, and very dangerous for all of the sides, confrontation between us and Americans.”
-“The United States showed us this double morality. They recognized pro-American Kosovo and don’t recognize anti-American, pro-Russian South Ossetia and Abkhazia. They don’t recognize the integrity of Serbia, but they recognize the integrity of Georgia.”
-Regarding Putin’s “transformation”: “Putin was pro-Western at the beginning. He was pro-American. That was the reason of our criticism of his conduct. For example, after Sept. 11 we were against his help to United States and his steps toward United States. But little by little, he was confronted with the complete neglect of all Russian interests. With these neoconservatives, with Richard Perle or Dick Cheney, we always were helping. Step by step, with the economy and the trade of energy resources, we finally found the force and the will to respond against this war. Because this war was not desired by us. It was a challenge. It was imposed on us by the United States.”
…After [Russia’s military intervention in Georgia on] Aug. 8, Putin and Medvedev have passed the irreversible point. They have shown that the will and the decision to put the words into practice are in fact irreversible. So my support to Putin and Medvedev is now absolute.”
– “Russia will not be isolated from Europe nor from Asia. From the United States, maybe, but that doesn’t mean anything for us.”
Filed under: Latin America, Resource Wars, Russia / Caucacus | Tags: chavez, Latin America, obama, russia, War
With the independent streaks currently being displayed by some South American leaders, the most prevalent being Chavez, it’s not too hard to figure out why they have been targets of U.S-backed coup attempts. Now with the “soft power” doctrine infesting U.S military operations expect western intelligence to carry out regional de-stabilization through their proxies in Colombia (and now, Honduras) and the FARC narco-terrorists.
Chavez is also reaching out to the Russians– his recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is a huge diplomatic outreach, as only Nicaraqua has officially recognized these territories previously.
Chavez asks Spain to mediate in Colombia relations
Earth Times
Venezuela accuses Colombia of facilitating US control of Latin America by permitting Washington to install new military bases on its territory…
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Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez recognizes breakaway Georgia republics
L.A Times
“We recognize both republics starting from today,” Chavez said during a meeting at the residence of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The Russian leader thanked Chavez enthusiastically, and promptly pledged to sell tanks and other weapons to Venezuela.
“There will be tanks among the deliveries [of armaments]. Why not?” said the Russian president. “We have good tanks. If our friends order them, we will deliver.”
Duty Now For The Future 