The New Dark Age

28 August, 2010 — Strategic culture foundation

2010-08-22
Elena PUSTOVOITOVA
The Rising Star of Gen. Hamid Gul
“The former General holds that the longer the US forces stay in the region – in Iraq and Afghanistan (or in Pakistan, if they choose to move into the country) – the more they will antagonize the respective populations… Gul’s understanding of the causes of the September 11 tragedy deserve particular attention. He is convinced that it was a covert operation aimed at creating a pretext “for entering Afghanistan and using it as a launch pad to enter Pakistan and dominate the region”…”

2010-08-22
Aleksandr SHUSTOV
Fourlateral Summit in Sochi
“On August 18-19, the presidents of Russia, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan convened for the second time in Sochi. The summit was mainly necessitated by the recent tensions between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and by the coming pullout of the US forces from Afghanistan. No doubt, the withdrawal will tilt the geopolitical balance in Central Asia and, in particular, will expose Tajikistan – a republic sharing a long and poorly equipped border with Afghanistan – to serious risks…”

2010-08-23
Sergei KAMENEV
Russia and Pakistan After the Sochi Fourlateral Summit
“The August 18-19 Sochi summit attended by the leaders of Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan – the second fourlateral one after the July, 2009, Dushanbe meeting – showed that the format indeed helps to address the geopolitical problems of Central Asia and to strengthen peace and security in the region… President Medvedev expressed Russia’s interest in joining the $7.6 bn Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline construction project (the pipeline will stretch over 1,000 km) and in helping Pakistan upgrade the Karachi metallurgic plan built in 1985 with the Soviet assistance…”

2010-08-25
Pyotr ISKENDEROV
Shadows of Kosovo and OSCE Over Kyrgyzstan
“The first group of experts from the international commission investigating the June, 2010 clashes in the southern part of Kyrgyzstan plans to be in Osh by early September. Osh mayor M. Myrzakmatov reacted negatively to the plan. He told Russia’s Kommersant daily that “the deployment of the OSCE police forces in South Kyrgyzstan would be tantamount to replaying the Kosovo scenario in the Fergana Valley”, obviously meaning that in the Kosovo case a piece of the sovereign country had been torn out of it by force…”

2010-08-23
David KERANS (USA)
Local Government Pain and Rolling Political Failure in the US
“The financial and automotive sector bailouts of 2008-09 effectively transferred enormous quantities of private sector debt onto the public sector… Local government in the US is not an insignificant backwater. States, counties, and cities now employ 14.4 million people (about 7.3 percent of the working population), and they collect about $2 trillion (about 13 percent of GDP) in taxes and duties of various kinds. (1) The recession has been choking local tax collections for three years now… tax receipts at the state level in FY2010 declined 12 percent below that of FY2008. And so states’ expenditures fell from $687 billion in FY2008 to $613 billion in FY2010… This is a dark prospect…”

2010-08-25
Bogdan TSIRDYA (Moldova)
GUAM Back to Life?
“Media reported on August 6-17 that presidents M. Ghimpu and M. Saakashvili met in Georgia to declare their commitment to reanimating GUAM believed to be stillborn since 2007. At the moment Belarus – the republic going through a period of chill in the relations with Russia – is being lured into GUAM to fill in the vacuum left by Ukraine which no longer takes any interest in the bloc…”

2010-08-24
Hannes HOFBAUER (Austria)
Kosovo is American
“Kosovo is Serbian”, is one of the key slogans in every political statement throughout Belgrade and Serbian Diaspora-meetings all-around the world. Orthodox monasteries all over the country seem to prove this point of view. “Kosovo is Albanian territory”, is the answer of the majority of the 1,9 million people living on this territory.>“Kosovo is European”, is the statement of Brussels authority underlining the fact of Kosovo being part of the “Euro”-zone and under EU-supervision. Historically Serbian, ethnically Albanian, economically European periphery. Yes and no. However, geopolitically, Kosovo is American.

2010-08-24
Taras DYACHENKO
The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Will Echo in the Arctic
“The catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico has had repercussions worldwide. Oil grands like BP, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, and Conoco-Phillips are increasingly tapping into offshore resources, and in the process their marine expansion breeds heightened risks to the environment. In the nearest future, the offshore drilling will largely relocate to the Arctic zone…”

2010-08-27
Vladimir YURTAYEV
Iran joins peaceful nuclear club
“Until the last moment the Western mass media continued speculations on possible military attack on Iran’s nuclear objects by the US and/or Israel. The launch of the Bushehr plant on Augsut 21 in fact put an end to this discussion. The threat of Chernobyl disaster’s repetition can chill even very hotheaded people. Now we can expect the US to start working on more complicated scenarios of its blitzkrieg in Asia…”