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As Things Fall Apart Biden May Want To Escalate
Is reality setting in? Is that why a Washington Post reporter, who has been on the frontline in Ukraine, was allowed to write this?
Ukrainian volunteer fighters in the east feel abandoned
[A]fter three months of war, this company of 120 men is down to 54 because of deaths, injuries and desertions.
The volunteers were civilians before Russia invaded on Feb. 24, and they never expected to be dispatched to one of the most dangerous front lines in eastern Ukraine. They quickly found themselves in the crosshairs of war, feeling abandoned by their military superiors and struggling to survive.
In mid February these people were still civilians in some town in west Ukraine. They then 'volunteered', to avoid a draft into the army, for the territorial defense forces with the hope to serve near their homes:
Lapko, built like a wrestler, was made a company commander in the 5th Separate Rifle Battalion, in charge of 120 men. The similarly burly Khrus became a platoon commander under Lapko. All of their comrades were from western Ukraine. They were handed AK-47 rifles and given training that lasted less than a half-hour.
“We shot 30 bullets and then they said, ‘You can’t get more; too expensive,’ ” Lapko said.
They were given orders to head to the western city of Lviv. When they got there, they were ordered to go south and then east into Luhansk province in Donbas, portions of which were already under the control of Moscow-backed separatists and are now occupied by Russian forces.
The men were put into a frontline ditch and have since been shelled again and again without any ability to respond. They then disregarded the orders from above and left. They have now be arrested.
The military values of such units was zero to begin with. Untrained men under command of an inexperienced civilian and with no real weapons have no chance to hold out against a professional military force like the Russian army.
That 60 or so of them got killed or wounded for no good reason is the responsibility of the servant of the corrupt (recommended), President Vlodomir Zelenski, and those 'western' politicians, like Boris Johnson, who egg him on.
But the biggest part of the responsibility for the life of those men falls to the Biden administration. It tried to push Zelensky to invade Donbas in early 2021. Back then Russia started large scale maneuvers and made clear that they would intervene. Zelensky got cold feet and pulled back. As the Carnegie Endowment's Dmitri Tretin reported at that time:
In February [2021], Zelensky ordered troops (as part of the rotation process) and heavy weapons (as a show of force) to go near to the conflict zone in Donbas. He did not venture out as far as Poroshenko, who dispatched small Ukrainian naval vessels through the Russian-controlled waters near the Kerch Strait in late 2018, but it was enough to get him noticed in Moscow. The fact of the matter is that even if Ukraine cannot seriously hope to win the war in Donbas, it can successfully provoke Russia into action. This, in turn, would produce a knee-jerk reaction from Ukraine’s Western supporters and further aggravate Moscow’s relations, particularly with Europe. One way or another, the fate of Nord Stream II will directly affect Ukraine’s interests. Being seen as a victim of Russian aggression and presenting itself as a frontline state checking Russia’s further advance toward Europe is a major asset of Kyiv’s foreign policy.
When the 2021 attempt had failed the Biden administration did not change its general plan as it is part of a larger strategy to push the 'west' into a new cold war with Russia and China. After the 2021 attempt on Donbas had failed the U.S. immediately prepared for a new attempt to provoke Russia in Ukraine in spring 2022.
The first instruction that Secretary of State Antony Blinken got from President Biden was to “reset” America’s alliances and partnerships abroad so that the United States could deal with the challenges ahead. That strategy would prove decisive in combating Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
Blinken and other officials gave me new details this week, describing a series of behind-the-scenes meetings over the past year that helped forge the U.S.-led coalition to support Ukraine.
…
The Biden administration’s secret planning began in April 2021 when Russia massed about 100,000 troops on the Ukrainian border. The buildup turned out to be a feint, but Blinken and other officials discussed U.S. intelligence about Russia’s actions with leaders of Britain, France and Germany at a NATO meeting in Brussels that month. Their message was, “We need to get ourselves prepared,” a senior State Department official said.
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The Ukraine threat got red-hot in October, when the United States gathered intelligence about a renewed Russian buildup on the border, along with “some detail about what Russian plans for those forces actually were,” Blinken said. This operational detail “was really the eye opener.” The Group of 20 nations were meeting at the end of October in Rome, and Biden pulled aside the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and gave them a detailed readout on the top-secret evidence.
“It was galvanizing enough that there was an agreement … to fleshing out the consequences for Russia if it went ahead with the aggression,” Blinken said.
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Threatening sanctions can be an empty diplomatic ritual. But in December, Blinken and his colleagues began seriously discussing with allies what steps they would take. The initial venue was a Group of Seven foreign ministers meeting in Liverpool, England, on Dec. 11. The attendees publicly committed that there would be “massive consequences and severe costs,” Blinken remembered. As a result, he said, “when the aggression actually happened, we were able to move immediately.”
NATO military planning accelerated along with the diplomacy. Air Force Gen. Tod Wolters, the NATO commander, told me that his colleagues began preparing in December and January the “ground lines of communication” that would allow rapid shipment of arms into Ukraine. They studied entry points for supplies and other practical details. This weapons pipeline delivered Stinger and Javelin missiles before the invasion began Feb. 24 and has transferred huge numbers of heavier weapons since then.
That narrative is of course deeply misleading. The U.S. did not know of a 'Russian invasion'. What it knew was that Zelensky, pushed by the U.S., would make another attempt to invade the Donbas republics with overwhelming force and that Russia's leadership would have to react to such an assault on its compatriots.
The Ukrainian assault began on February 16 when over several days Ukrainian artillery increased its bombardment of Donbas by a factor of 40. Russia reacted to that and on February 24 preempted the planned ground assault.
The above part of Biden's plan to provoke Russia into a war as a means to strengthen the U.S. position in Europe has worked well.
But how long will the coalition of the 'west' hold when inflation, energy scarcity and hunger set in? European unity is already falling apart with each country scrambling to fulfill its own energy needs.
Everyone can now see that the Ukraine, and with it the U.S., is losing the war. Meanwhile Russia is doing much better than anyone had expected.
What is Biden's plan now as things fall apart? Escalating towards a wider war is an option but the risk of it is much higher than potential gains.
Still, for Biden it may be the only way he is willing to go.
Devoted reader/lurker for several months, finding B’s posts and the many comments informative about Ukraine conflict, in contrast to relentless and near universal propaganda/war-mongering/cheer-leading by western media. However, I look at one US military ‘buff’ website regularly bc it is informative and authoritative about US weapons– despite biased perspective.
Much talk about M142 HIMARS and M270 multiple launch rockets systems as possible ‘game changers’ if supplied to the Ukraine, but this article suggests otherwise, and here are some excerpts:
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/what-himars-rocket-systems-can-and-cant-do-for-ukraine
[subtitle] American rocket launchers are not a ‘silver bullet’ and they come with different levels of capabilities depending on the ammo provided.
The maximum range of either of these systems is dependent on what type of munition they’re firing. The longest range artillery rockets currently available for the system are the M30 (submunition warhead) and M31 (unitary warhead) precision-guided types, which are GPS/INS guided and can hit targets out to around 43 miles (70 kilometers). The far larger ATACMS missiles can engage threats out to 186 miles (300 kilometers) depending on the variant.
For instance, precision-guided 227mm rockets and ATACMS missiles are not ideally employed in mass volleys against broad area targets, such as the enemy armor or artillery formations that Ukrainian forces are staring down in the Donbas region. Any stocks of guided munitions that get sent along with the launchers could very well be small in quantity, at least initially, anyway. It is not hard to imagine that they would be employed very selectively in instances where the extended range and ability to hit pinpoint targets could be best exploited, with more traditional rockets still providing massed fires against hostile forces. In a pinch, the M30/31s can be used against massed targets, and less rockets are needed to accomplish the intended effects due to their precision, but the precious nature of these weapons would likely only see them used in that manner during dire circumstances.
It’s also not clear from CNN’s report or any other sources how willing or able the U.S. government would be to send guided 227mm rockets or ATACMS missiles, to begin with. The technology inside those weapons, as well as the highly-automated launcher itself, could prompt concerns about operational security risks in the event they might be captured by Russian forces. The War Zone has itself already highlighted how Russia’s materiel losses in the conflict have almost certainly translated into major intelligence gains for the West.
The U.S. military has notably transferred a number of 155mm M777A2 towed howitzers to Ukrainian forces already, but without the networked digital fire control system that is present on those weapons in American service. This also means that those howitzers cannot employ precision-guided shells and limits how quickly and accurately they can engage a target or shift focus to another.
Video footage did emerge this week that reportedly shows additional M777A2s being trucked into Ukraine from Poland that do feature the fire control system, which could indicate a shift in policy in this regard.
The Missile Technology Control Regime (MCTR), a voluntary international arms control pact that the United States and Ukraine are parties to, presents potential hurdles for the transfer of ATACMS missiles at all. The MTCR is particularly focused on curtailing exports of missiles with ranges of 300 kilometers (186 miles) or more and/or with payloads weighing 500 pounds or more, which includes all ATACMS variants with the exception of the MGM-140B. In addition, in U.S. military service, MGM-140Bs were also often loaded with lighter warheads to increase their maximum range to 300 kilometers.
It’s also worth noting that there are, at least presently, the only unguided rockets available for the MLRS and HIMARS are loaded with cluster munitions warheads. The submunitions in these warheads, M77 or M85 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) depending on the exact variant, have a long history of questionable reliability. Unexploded submunitions can present serious hazards to the safe movement of friendly forces, as well as enemy units, not to mention innocent bystanders.
U.S.-supplied rockets loaded with cluster munitions might raise political, as well as pragmatic issues for Ukraine. The Russian military has been actively criticized for its often indiscriminate employment of cluster munitions, as well as other weapons, in the conflict so far. At the same time, Ukrainian forces have reportedly used their own cluster munitions in the fighting. To date, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States remain among the countries that have declined to sign an international agreement that prohibits the production, stockpiling, and employment of certain cluster munitions.
Questions of the political optics aside, without precision-guided rockets, let alone ATACMS missiles, MLRS and HIMARS would not necessarily offer the Ukrainian military significant new artillery capabilities over the MRLs it has in service now. Unguided M26-series 227mm rockets would certainly offer improved accuracy and range over the 122mm systems, versions of the Soviet-era BM-21 Grad and the more recently acquired RM-70s, that the Ukrainian armed forces currently possess.
However, the longest-range variants of the M26 do not offer dramatically greater capability in terms of reach than the 220mm types fired from larger Ukrainian BM-27 Uragans and cannot reach the same distances that their existing 300mm ones their BM-30 Smerchs employ can. The rockets available for the BM-27 can generally hit targets out to almost 22 miles (35 kilometers), while most of the types that the BM-30 fires can engage threats up to 43 miles (70 kilometers) away. The extended-range M26A1/A2 rocket types have a maximum range of just under 28 miles (45 kilometers).
Russia has BM-27 and BM-30 MRLs and has been using them in Ukraine. The U.S. military itself has previously cited the range of the BM-30, among other Russian artillery systems, as one of the driving factors behind efforts to develop new extend-range rockets for HIMARS and the M270.
Precision-guided 233mm M30 and M31 rockets for HIMARS and MLRS, on the other hand, offer ranges that can compete with BM-30 Smerch and can do so with pinpoint accuracy, which the Smerch cannot. In some cases, this can come in very handy, especially when hitting critical or time-sensitive targets, such as enemy command posts, or as a last resort for taking out or degrading Russia’s longest-range artillery systems. The guided rockets can also act as close fire support for troops downrange, which would be very helpful in danger-close situations, especially considering Ukraine has very limited close air support options and especially those of a precision nature.
ATACMS is a whole other animal. It would give Ukraine the ability to make long-range pinpoint strikes even against hardened targets over nearly 200 miles. Arming the Ukrainian Army with this capability would be the biggest escalation in arms transfers since the start of the war and would allow Ukraine to make precision strikes deep into Russian territory. While a week ago, the idea of arming Ukraine with ATACMs seemed highly remote, the fact that NATO is now supplying Ukraine with RGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship missiles sets a new precedent. Still, ATACMs — a land attack ballistic missile — would be a major step beyond that.
Finally, we must underscore again that the precision rockets these systems can fire are expensive, potentially sensitive in terms of technological risk, and would only be available in limited numbers, if at all. This would limit their impact on the battlefield. But even supplying Ukraine with MLRS or HIMARS and unguided rockets would provide a more accurate capability and an assured supply chain via being able to draw down ammunition from U.S. stocks.
—sorry for long post (the nerve of this newby!), but article is even longer, with many great pix, so look for yourselves!
Posted by: newby | May 27 2022 20:43 utc | 103
Here’s the latest bombshell from the Russian MoD regarding the US/Ukraine biolabs.
27.05.2022 (17:25)
Briefing on the results of the analysis of documents related to the military biological activities of the United States on the territory of Ukraine
Analysis of the materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States on the territory of Ukraine
The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.
Under the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological and Toxin Weapons, each State Party submits an annual report in the form of a declaration of compliance with the requirements of the convention. It is currently the only reporting document on the implementation of the Convention in the framework of the Confidence Building Measures.
Due to the investigation of US military and biological activities on the territory of Ukraine, we have analysed the documents sent by these states to the UN.
It should be noted that neither Ukraine nor the United States provided information on cooperative biological research and development in the area of biological protection in the said submissions (in Form A, Part 2 “i”). Also, Poland and Germany have not declared engagement with Ukraine in their reports.
In addition, in these reports (Form F) for the period from 2016 to 2020, Ukraine states that: “The Government of Ukraine has not conducted and is not conducting any offensive or defensive activities in the framework of biological research and development programmes. The Government of Ukraine does not have any information on such activities of the former USSR on the territory of Ukraine since January 1, 1946”.
This contradicts a May 20, 2022 statement by Lewis Gitter, U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the OSCE, that assistance to Kiev is aimed at “…reducing biological and veterinary risks, as well as securing the illegal stockpiles of biological weapons left behind by the USSR…”.
In addition, there are numerous inconsistencies in Ukraine’s reporting. Thus, the Confidence Building Measures form A for 2020 declares the complete absence of national biosecurity programmes. The Research Institute of Microbial Strain Biotechnology in Kiev, as a participant in the biological defence programme, is listed in part 2 “i” of this form.
In addition, the characteristics of the facility (area of laboratory facilities, number of staff) do not match the information previously submitted by Ukraine.
The question arises: Why did the US and Ukraine’s reporting documents to the UN not include work under the joint military-biological projects codenamed UP? Such secrecy is another reason to think about the true goals of the Pentagon in Ukraine.
The official documents before you confirm that the Pentagon, represented by the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), is organising work with a clear military-biological focus.
Note the memorandum prepared by the Office of the US Secretary of Defense regarding the UP-2 project to map highly dangerous pathogens in Ukraine.
The document notes that the main objective of this project is to collect information on the molecular composition of pathogens specific to Ukraine and to transfer samples of strains.
Separately, it is emphasised that this work should be in line with the main guidelines for the Ukraine Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme on Preventing the Spread of Biological Weapons on November 29, 2005.
A similar memorandum was prepared as part of the UP-1 project to study rickettsia and other diseases spread by arthropods. The document notes the need to transfer all collections of highly dangerous pathogens to a central reference laboratory in order to facilitate their orderly export to the USA.
As part of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme, an extensive UP-4 project was carried out to investigate the possibility of spreading highly dangerous infections through migratory birds. Documents received show that 991 biological samples were collected between November 2019 and January 2020 alone.
A total of ten such projects (including UP-3, UP-6, UP-8, UP-10) have been reported to have involved work with pathogens of particularly dangerous and economically important infections – Congo-Crimean fever, leptospirosis, tick-borne encephalitis and African swine fever.
Today, we would also like to draw attention to the numerous breaches of safety requirements in Ukrainian laboratories.
For example, work with dangerous pathogens under Pentagon control in Kharkov, Kiev and a number of other cities was carried out in laboratories with insufficient staff protection. However, according to official data, only three laboratories with a BSL-3 biosafety level are authorised to conduct such tests. These are the Odessa Anti-Plague Institute, the Lvov Research Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene and the Public Health Centre in Kiev.
The Security Service of Ukraine noted the preconditions for the emergence of biological threats due to systematic violations and poor quality of work in the reconstruction of biolaboratories.
Black & Veatch, for example, declared that it spent UAH 37.8m on upgrading three veterinary laboratories in 2013. An independent expert review found that the actual cost of the work was overstated compared to the reported costs by UAH 17.7 millions.
This difference was reportedly sent to the accounts of fictitious companies such as Golden Ukraine, BK Profbudinvest and Capital Trade Agency, which further confirms the use of “grey” financial schemes in the personal interests of US and Ukrainian officials.
It is noteworthy that the US handlers demanded that the reference laboratory in Merefa be given a higher level of biosecurity. The Kharkovproject organisation said that this was not possible under the prevailing conditions and refused to approve the project. However, the regional administration decided to go ahead with the reconstruction. The facility was commissioned in circumvention of biosafety regulations and requirements. In doing so, the Pentagon’s total cost for its modernisation was around $15 million. But where the funds really went is unknown.
Note the report of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine on the results of an inspection of the strain collection of the Ukrainian anti-plague institute in Odessa, which totalled 654 samples. There were 32 strains of anthrax, 189 of tularemia, 11 of brucellosis and 422 of cholera in storage at the facility.
The report shows gross violations of storage conditions for micro-organisms, lack of access control and management systems and inadequate ventilation systems.
In April 2017, there was a case of internal laboratory infection with tick-borne encephalitis in one of the institute’s laboratories as a result of a safety violation.
According to eyewitness accounts of an incident that took place in 2021, an employee of a biolaboratory removed several vials containing dangerous microorganisms from the institution’s premises. The consequences of such cases can only be guessed at.
It should be noted that all violations occurred during the period of the US bio-threat reduction programme. This demonstrates that Washington’s officially declared goals are merely a screen for the implementation of illegal military-biological activities in Ukraine.
The neglect of pathogens, the unprofessionalism and corruption of the executive branch, and the destructive influence of US handlers pose a direct threat to Ukrainian and European civilians.
Russian Defence Ministry experts have confirmed that Ukrainian biolaboratories are connected to the global communicable disease surveillance system.
The backbone of this network, which has been formed by the Pentagon since 1997, is the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (Maryland). It includes land and naval laboratories as well as military bases around the world.
It should be noted that the deployment of such a network follows a typical scenario.
The Americans are initially concerned about the state of the epidemic in the region. The next step is to ensure that officials, particularly those in the health ministries, have an interest and a financial incentive to work together, and to enter into intergovernmental agreements. As a result, a biocontainment facility is erected and connected to the single biomonitoring system. All of the country’s biological developments become the US domain. Moreover, restrictions are placed on local professionals’ access to a range of tests, as well as on their results.
Meanwhile, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) is actively implementing automated disease monitoring hardware and software, as well as systems to control access and movement of pathogenic biological agents in storage and research facilities.
Equipping biological facilities with these information systems as part of the Biological Threat Reduction Program allows the U.S. to secure its military contingents in deployment areas, remotely monitor biolaboratories outside national jurisdiction and influence the global biological environment.
As part of the special military operation, materials of US instructors training Ukrainian specialists in emergency response to smallpox outbreaks were discovered in biolaboratories in Ukraine.
The Pentagon’s interest in this infection is far from accidental: the return of the smallpox pathogen would be a global catastrophe for all mankind.
Thus, compared to COVID-19, this pathogen is just as contagious (infectious), but its lethality is 10 times higher.
As early as 2003, the US Department of Defense established the Smallpox Vaccination Programme, which requires all US military personnel to be vaccinated. Vaccination in the United States is compulsory for diplomatic and medical personnel. This demonstrates that the US considers smallpox as a priority pathogenic biological agent for combat use, and that vaccine prophylaxis activities are aimed at protecting its own military contingents.
Lack of proper controls and biosecurity breaches in the US could lead to the use of this pathogen for terrorist purposes. Between 2014 and 2021, unaccounted-for vials of the virus were repeatedly found in laboratories at the Federal Drug Administration and the US Army Infectious Disease Research Institute (Maryland) and the Vaccine Research Centre (Pennsylvania).
Work at these organisations was in violation of World Health Assembly Resolution 49.10 of 1996, which stipulated that only one US laboratory, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, could store smallpox pathogen.
It should be noted that smallpox vaccination, which is not currently available in many countries, provides protection against monkeypox.
The World Health Organization has announced an emergency meeting of Member States on the outbreak of this dangerous infectious disease in May 2022.
We know that by now 98% of those affected are men over the age of 20 of non-traditional orientation. Earlier, Dr David Hermann, who heads WHO’s emergency department, told the American press that sexual transmission was the main cause of the spread of the disease.
According to a WHO report, the West African strain of monkeypox originated in Nigeria, another state in which the US has deployed its biological infrastructure.
According to available information, there are at least four Washington-controlled biolaboratories operating in Nigeria.
In this connection, it is worth recalling a strange coincidence that needs further specialist verification. For example, according to European and US media reports, the Munich Security Conference 2021, i.e. against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, was a scenario for dealing with an outbreak caused by a new strain of the monkeypox virus.
Against the backdrop of multiple US biosafety violations and the negligent storage of pathogenic biomaterials, we call on the World Health Organisation leadership to investigate the US-funded Nigerian laboratories in Abuja, Zaria, Lagos and inform the global community of the results
Posted by: pasha | May 27 2022 21:53 utc | 118
Posted by: karlof1 | May 27 2022 21:24 utc | 112
Escobar isn’t bringing any news to the table. RU doesn’t need assistance to inform anglophone fans. The deals are done. US, EU poisoned all the wells decades ago. I’m pretty sure the so-called Third World has all the bases covered with layers of skepticism and experience negotiating FDI through China’s extensive underwriting operations. vdL’s “Global Gateway” is a dead letter. IPEF is a ridiculously redundant project (see below) presented perhaps in part to flatter American egos as well as press the weakest links in existing FTA networks. Most likely tweeked by equivocating Indian and Australian FMs who are in no position to commit US, EU overtures of ahh inclusivity. Commentary entertaining political inducements and realignment that reinforces “global NATO” domination of capital investment in neglected regions is no substitute for perpetual threats of force d/b/a “exercises”.
QUAD: US, AU, JP, IN
CSIS | Regional Perspectives on the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, Apr 22
Centralizing coordination four “pillars” of work:(1) fair and resilient trade (encompassing seven subtopics, including labor, environmental, and digital standards); (2) supply chain resilience; (3) infrastructure, clean energy, and decarbonization; and (4) tax and anti-corruption
(1a) USTR (2-4b) Commerce + State, Treasury, USDA: commitments to U.S.-preferred rules and standards; “perception of an anti-China”; “The U.S. government has explicitly stated that the IPEF will not be a multilateral trade agreement akin to the CPTPP.”
FACT SHEET: In Asia, President Biden and a Dozen Indo-Pacific Partners Launch the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, 23 May 22
IPEF: US, AU, JP, IN, NZ, KR; ID, BN, MY, PH, SG, TH, VN
APEC: PH, ID, SG, VN, CN, CN-hk, CN-tw, RU, TH, MX, PE, CL, BN, PG, MY; US, AU, JP, NZ, CA, KR
ASEAN: BN, KH, ID, LA, MY, MM, PH, SG, TH, VN
Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership , Mar 2018
2020 GDP 52.3T; AUD trade $570B
CP-TPP (FTA): AU, CA, JP, NZ, PE, SG, VN, BN*, CL*, MY*, MX
EAS (East Asia Summit: AU, CN, IN, JP, NZ, KR, RU, US + ASEAN
Posted by: sln2002 | May 27 2022 23:05 utc | 136
Blinken’s speech generated numerous counters with perhaps the most curious one being this op/ed published by Sputnik that has the following premise:
China’s growing economic and military power and political and diplomatic clout have sparked serious concerns among US policymakers in recent years. On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed that the US plans to use the bloc of nations it has cobbled together to confront Russia over Ukraine to challenge China as well.
Beijing’s new ‘Global Security Initiative’ concept poses a direct challenge to the US-dominated world order of a kind “unusual” for the People’s Republic, which has previously focused its global ventures on issues like development and trade, the Financial Times has reported, citing international relations experts who have studied the idea.
Xi introduced his GSI at the Boao Summit last April in this speech, which was met with the usual catcalls from the usual Western suspects. Xi has since discussed GSI with BRICS FMs which attracted the interest of many non-BRICS members. Such global interest frightens the Outlaw US Empire as its status as global hegemon rapidly slips through its fingers, which is causing the “panic” described by William Gruff @63. Something that panics/scares those running the Outlaw US Empire so much begs closer examination. And here it is in these two paragraphs which those who read February’s Russia/China Joint Declaration ought to recognize:
“It is important that we stay committed to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and work together to maintain world peace and security; stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, uphold non-interference in internal affairs, and respect the independent choices of development paths and social systems made by people in different countries; stay committed to abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, reject the Cold War mentality, oppose unilateralism, and say no to group politics and bloc confrontation; stay committed to taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously, uphold the principle of indivisible security, build a balanced, effective and sustainable security architecture, and oppose the pursuit of one’s own security at the cost of others’ security; stay committed to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation, support all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of crises, reject double standards, and oppose the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction; stay committed to maintaining security in both traditional and non-traditional domains, and work together on regional disputes and global challenges such as terrorism, climate change, cybersecurity and biosecurity.
“— We need to work together to tackle global governance challenges. Countries around the world are like passengers aboard the same ship who share the same destiny. For the ship to navigate the storm and sail toward a bright future, all passengers must pull together. The thought of throwing anyone overboard is simply not acceptable. In this day and age, the international community has evolved so much that it has become a sophisticated and integrated apparatus. Acts to remove any single part will cause serious problems to its operation. When that happens, both the victims and the initiators of such acts will stand to lose. In today’s world, unilateralism and excessive pursuit of self-interest are doomed to fail; so are the practices of decoupling, supply disruption and maximum pressure; so are the attempts to forge “small circles” or to stoke conflict and confrontation along ideological lines. Instead, we need to embrace a global governance philosophy that emphasizes extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, promote the common values of humanity, and advocate exchanges and mutual learning between civilizations. We need to uphold true multilateralism, and firmly safeguard the international system with the UN at its core and the international order underpinned by international law. It is particularly important for major countries to lead by example in honoring equality, cooperation, good faith and the rule of law, and act in a way befitting their status.” [Emphasis Original]
It ought to be clear why the Outlaw US Empire would fear such an arrangement as it’s the one it suborned in 1945 that aimed at preventing its subsequent behavior.
Peace or War World. Those are the choices. Multipolarity will bring Peace. Continued Unipolarity will bring continued War.
Posted by: karlof1 | May 27 2022 23:25 utc | 143
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