Trials and Tribulations of the Collective West By Pepe Escobar!
(2023-02-02 at 05:17:10 )

Trials and Tribulations of the Collective West By Pepe Escobar!

Sit back, relax and enjoy a race to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The only question is who will get there first: the EU, NATO, or both.

One may be excused to imagine all sorts of amusement games unrolling at the HQ of the Russian General Staff as The Empire and NATO go literally bonkers. What crazy stunt will they come up with next - short of WWIII??

Here is a delightful put down of NATOs dementia praecox. Everything so far has failed, from "crippling sanctions" to all sorts of wunderwaffen, while the whole Global South marvels at the exploits of Wagner PMC - now configured as the planets top urban fighting machine.

Central Intelligence Agency mouthpiece Washington Post duly released how Washington,D.C., once again, had the Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The idea was floated by Secretary of State Tony Blinken: let us announce we will deliver M1 Abrams to Ukraine in a hazy, unspecified future, thus providing cover for Scholz to release the Leopards now.

Do you not just love German sovereignty in action??

Every military analyst with an IQ over room temperature knows all those Leopards will be duly incinerated - or better yet, captured, and dissected by Russian military specialists.

So what happens next is yet another vector of the - very successful so far - United States-unleashed German de-industrualization racket: the Americans will invade the German industrial military complex with their "much improved" Abrams - which may perhaps arrive in 2024, when only a rump Ukraine may still exist, or never arrive at all. So no need for the Abrams to prove themselves in actual combat - as in being captured and-or incinerated.

Rumors in Washington,D.C. advance that the United States "strategy" in Ukraine - extensively detailed by endless think tank reports - had to be adapted. It is not about "defeating Russia" anymore, but providing Kiev with the means to "scare" Russia. The Russian General Staff must be trembling in their boots.

Meanwhile, in real life, nearly every possible scenario gamed in Washington,D.C. and Brussels finishes with NATO like a giant, armoured version of Wile E. Coyote plunging to the depths of the Grand Canyon. And that happens even if the much ballyhooded "Big Arrow" Russian offensive starts in a few days or weeks, or never starts at all.

Arguably the Russian General Staff has concluded a long time ago there is no point in reducing Ukraine to rubble in a matter of hours - something they could easily accomplish. Thus the fabled mincing machine approach - offering no excuses for NATO to "escalate" (which they continue to do anyway, as Jens "War is Peace" Stoltenberg is so fond of parroting).

The trick is that NATOs escalation overdrive, as it happens, is somewhat controlled by the Russian General Staff, which is always calculating which optimal maneuvers will consume NATOs military hardware faster. Call it a Russian version of the popular axiom "frog in a boiling pot does not realize it is being cooked until it croaks."

Attacking Russia-China-Iran

Absolute desperation is now graphically extrapolating into attacks on Iran. Both Russia and China have Iran as their key ally in West Asia for the whole, complex process of Eurasia integration; strategic partnerships interlink the trio.

So attacking the Ministry of Defense in Isfahan with drones - total fail - and bombing an IRGC convoy of humanitarian aid crossing from Iraq to Syria is a serious United States-Israel-coordinated provocation.

Essentially these are also attacks against Russia and China. Israel cannot lift its hand or foot without United States permission. Iranian intel may be able to establish how the Straussian neo-con and neoliberal-con cabal in charge of United States foreign policy authorized if not ordered these attacks, which of course are directly connected to NATOs desperation in Ukraine.

When in doubt, just come back to Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski: "Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps, Iran, an "anti-hegemonic" coalition united not by ideology but by contemporary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc."

And mirroring Ukraine-Russia there is of course Taiwan-China.

As Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar has extensively explained, if Taiwan manufactures chips for United States missiles Washington,D.C. then sends to Taiwan for its "self-defense", but Taiwan needs to wait because the missiles are needed in Ukraine instead, or chips can not be shipped to the United States owing to a possible sea and air blockade imposed by China, the Americans will be operationally ill-equipped to support their two-front war against peer competitors Russia and China.

Bye bye Pax Americana. It is the fear, actually paranoia, of a destroyed Taiwan - and the destruction in every scenario would be provoked by the Americans themselves - that has led the Straussian neo-con and neoliberal-con cabal to demand their chips be Made in USA.

On the energy front, since United States energy costs are low, Washington,D.C. gambled that much of the deindustrialization of Germany would revert to American benefit. Yet since Iranian, Russian and Venezuelan oil prices are lower than the United States, not much production may be shifting to the Hegemon: it will go to China.

To the bottom of the Grand Canyon!!

The January 10 joint declaration between EU-NATO graphically shows how the EU is no more than the P.R. arm of NATO.

This NATO-EU joint mission consists in using all economic, political and military means to make sure the "jungle" always behaves according to the "rules-based international order" and accepts to be plundered ad infinitum by the "blooming garden".

So in the end what is left of "Europe", when it is NATO - actually Washington,D.C. - that really rules?

"Europe", according to relentless propaganda, means defending "our values" - as in peace, democracy and prosperity. The trick is that unelected elites forced the implicit identification of this imagined, practically sacred "Europe" with the European Union. And that is how the EU has acquired a mythical identity.

Of course, in real life the EU - as in the real, politically organized "Europe" - has performed as a toxic instrument of division among European peoples.

Instead of peace, it has invested in all-out rabid war against Russia. The EU is arguably the most democratically irresponsible institution on the planet: spend a day in Brussels and you understand everything. And instead of prosperity, the EU has institutionalized austerity.

So sit back, relax and enjoy a race to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The only question is who will get there first: the EU, NATO, or both.

Reprinted here from the "Strategic Culture Foundation" provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Since 2005 our journal has published thousands of analytical briefs and commentaries with the unique perspective of independent contributors. SCF works to broaden and diversify expert discussion by focusing on hidden aspects of international politics and unconventional thinking. Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas.