18 January 2014 — Strategic Culture Foundation
The Turkey Trap
18.01.2014 | 11:36 | Mikhail AGHAJANYAN
Although they helped stabilize the situation, the emergency personnel measures taken by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and the reshuffling of the cabinet after the December corruption scandal did not eliminate the contradictions which are undermining the country’s sociopolitical system… And if one is to believe the estimates of the American intelligence center STRATFOR, one of the main factors in international relations in 2014 will be events caused by economic stress and political unrest in Turkey…
«US Naval Might is Waning» They Say Tongue in Cheek
18.01.2014 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
…The U.S. Navy surface fleet must become more offensively lethal. As Aviation Week reported on January 12, Vice Adm. Thomas Copeman, commander of the Naval Surface Force and U.S. Pacific Naval Surface Force, emphasized, «The surface force must greatly improve its offensive lethality». «We must move beyond the missile as a defensive system», he says in his «Vision for the 2026 Surface Fleet» report, which was released earlier this month in advance of the Surface Navy Association Conference and Symposium being held Jan. 14-16 in Arlington, Va. Mr. Copeman said, «Our weapons development and purchasing trajectory must rebalance in favor of energy-based weapons for defense that will affordably deliver the capability and capacity required to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations through the coming decades»…
The Strategic Consequences of Edward Snowden’s Revelations (I)
17.01.2014 | 00:00 | Dmitry MININ
One of the most important world events of 2013 was Edward Snowden’s revelation that the United States is attempting to keep all of humanity under surveillance using cutting-edge electronic devices. In the final days of last year, the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor addressed the international community in a televised speech in order to once again point out the seriousness of the problem. In his speech Snowden referred to George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’, saying that the means of monitoring people described by Orwell (the novel was written in 1948) seem laughable compared to what is being done today…
Viktor Orban in Moscow
17.01.2014 | 00:00 | Pyotr ISKENDEROV
…The European Union is not a monolith. A number of its member countries have already made it clear that they do not plan to uncomplainingly follow the directives of Brussels in the energy field, although they do not call their EU membership into question (at least, not yet). At the very moment when the European Parliament members in Strasbourg were starting their discussions at their winter session, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Moscow for a working vis-it…
Nuclear Issues: Words and Deeds (II)
16.01.2014 | 09:07 | Andrei AKULOV
On January 3 Defense Ministry spokesman said the Russian military plans to test around 70 types of rocket and missile weaponry at a major testing site this year. According to Colonel Igor Yegorov, the Ministry’s spokesman, the testing program at the Kapustin Yar range in southern Russia will include about 300 launches of rockets, missiles, and aerial drones as part of more than 180 R&D projects… Russia has insisted that further offensive nuclear reductions also depend on a resolution of its concerns about U.S. strategic missile defense plans. US missile defense and ongoing nuclear forces modernization programs, the Prompt Global Strike concept and evident US superiority in non-nuclear high-precision long-range weapons, the growing proliferation of nuclear weapons on the world (the aspect the US avoids to take into account while putting forward strategic forces cuts proposals) – all these factors define the Russia’s stance on the issue…
Nuclear Issues: Words and Deeds (I)
16.01.2014 | 00:00 | Andrei AKULOV
US President Obama has stated his goal of nuclear-free world… Many started to say the US has lost interest in nukes, while the plans to lower the threshold hit the snag in the form of Russia’s refusal to follow suit… In a June 19, 2013 address at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Obama said, «We may no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe». Sounds emotionally moving… All these issues are to top the propaganda agenda before the Nuclear Security Summit to be held in the Hague on 24 and 25 March 2014… Has the US really «lost interest in nukes»? Does Russia boost its potential without any reason or provocation? Does this argument hold water? Or is it a retaliatory measure on the part of Moscow to keep up the existing balance? A cursory look at facts will help to make a judgment…
What is Germany’s Interest in South Sudan?
16.01.2014 | 00:00 | Vladislav GULEVICH
…Berlin’s policy regarding Sudan should generally be in keeping with the policies of Washington and London, namely: the partition of a formerly united country and the separation of South Sudan should not just mean the separation of a large area with considerable strategic importance from Khartoum, but also a change in the ownership of a significant part of Sudan’s oil resources. In this instance, the interests of Germany, the US and Great Britain are the same – these Western powers are eager to «protect» East Africa from penetration by China…
Iraq on Brink of Civil War
15.01.2014 | 00:00 | Nikolai BOBKIN
…Iraq is not the only country threatened by Islam religious strife. The conflict between Sunnis and Shiites is a strategic absurd – the war without winners. The United States is responsible for inciting the conflict. Its interventions in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq, tipped the delicate balance of forces and provoked the regional competition between Riyadh and Tehran, which strives for dominance in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia has nothing but sand and oil, it imports foodstuffs and water, its chances to win in the fight against Iran are negligibly small…
Geneva II – Washington’s Plan B for Regime Change in Syria
15.01.2014 | 00:00 | Finian CUNNINGHAM
The fatal problem with the Geneva II negotiations on Syria, due to open next week in Switzerland, is that the process is furtively being treated by the US and its allies as a lever for regime change. It is their Plan B for regime change, where Plan A is the failed covert military tactic… If Western interests are allowed to dominate the process, then the Geneva II is doomed to fail in its ostensible objective of achieving a peaceful resolution to the Syrian conflict…
Reality Check for US’ Indian Partner
14.01.2014 | 00:00 | Melkulangara BHADRAKUMAR
What happened in the US-Indian diplomatic row over the arrest and detention of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade in New York and her return to Delhi last week is fairly straightforward: the US intelligence made a concerted attempt to “recruit” an Indian career diplomat, and Delhi successfully thwarted it… The Khobragade case provides a reality check. Even the fat cats who serve as American lobbyists in Delhi should be realizing that they don’t call the shots, after all, when it comes to national security issues. This is one good thing. But more fundamentally, the state of play in the US-Indian relations stands exposed. The Delhi elites didn’t want to hear about the ex-CIA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s startling disclosures that India, especially its diplomats in the US, has been a prime target for the Americans. But the downstream developments can no longer be wished away…
Limits of Globalization and BRICS Economic Cooperation
14.01.2014 | 00:00 | Alexander SALITZKI
…The very coming into existence of BRICS (initially the triangle of Russia – India – China) goes back to the well-known event when then Russian Prime Minister Evgeny Primakov turned the plane around in 1999 as he was flying to the United States for a visit at the very time NATO started to bomb Yugoslavia. There was a feeling the time was right to set limits for globalization in politics (the way it was implemented by the West by the end of the XX century) as its economic aspects were coming under harsh criticism after the crises of 1997-1998…
Who Benefits from Terror Plague? The Answer is Blowing in the Wind
13.01.2014 | 00:00 | Olga SHEDROVA
Terrorism came into being as soon as humanity appeared, but the US special services turned it into a threat of global scale. The end of the 1970s can be considered as the starting point. Back then the Central Intelligence Agency launched a training program for «Islamic brigades» to entangle the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic into the war in Afghanistan… The war on terror declared by the United States on September 11 only made international terrorist groups stronger and even made them come to power in some countries. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria became victims of US anti-terror fight… Today Al-Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliated armed group, formally listed as a terrorist organization by US State Department, is a United States leading partner in Syria. No surprise the White House policy evoked protest among US military making Congress bombarded with e-mail protests «Obama, I will not deploy to fight for your al-Qaida rebels in Syria»…
Greenbacks for blue buckets: USAID support for instability in Russia
13.01.2014 | 00:00 | Wayne MADSEN
Latin America and the U.S.: The Apotheosis of Distrust
12.01.2014 | 00:00 | Nil NIKANDROV
The year 2013 was shockingly damaging to relations between the U.S. and the countries of Latin America. Edward Snowden’s revelations showed that in the Western Hemisphere, Washington is trying to play only by the rules it itself has written. Using such spying programs as Prism, Boundless Informant and others, U.S. intelligence was collecting strategically useful information throughout the South American continent and using it to ensure the effectiveness of its policy in the region…
Vitali Klitschko as a Product of German Politics
12.01.2014 | 00:00 | Dmitriy SEDOV
Berlin has already done much to lay the groundwork for the successful rise to power of the people it needs in Kiev, and the person Germany has programmed to carry out its future plans in Ukraine is Vitali Klitschko. Why is Germany gambling on a high-profile sportsman with global renown who is inexperienced in politics? To begin with, it would seem that it is because after many years living abroad, Vitali Klitschko has become a real cosmopolitan… There is also another reason, however, why German political circles have gambled on Vitali Klitschko becoming the future president of Ukraine: he has a close connection with Germany, which has become something like a second home to him…
Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture Foundation on-line journal www.strategic-culture.org.
The New Dark Age 