Archive for the ‘Global peace process’ Category
Posted by seumasach on July 8, 2017
Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
8th July, 2017
From the start, the “positive chemistry” in the Mother of All Sit-Downs was a given. The format – with only the four principals, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and two translators – prevented any leaks. What was originally scheduled for 35 minutes went on for 2 hours and 16 minutes, and not even an impromptu appearance by First Lady Melania Trump – they were late for the Elphillarmonie pomp and circumstance – managed to stop the flow.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process, Multipolar world | Tagged: detente with Russia, End Russia sanctions!, russia-china strategic partnership | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on May 14, 2017
Russia Insider
12th May, 2017
Within the Neoconservative ideology that holds sway over the American political establishment, it is axiomatic that democratic countries are peace-loving because they truly reflect in policy the peaceful and business-like mentality of the broad population. By contrast, authoritarian regimes are warlike because they are inherently unstable, lacking as they do genuine grass-roots support, and must resort to external aggression or threats of violence abroad to keep their people in line. Authoritarian regimes should be brought down one way or another if we are to enjoy global peace. So the story goes.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: detente with Russia, trump, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 31, 2017
M.K.Bhadrakumar
Asia Times
31st January, 2017
Three things stand out in the respective readouts on the phone conversation between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. One, they do not contradict each other in content, while the Russian readout is a more detailed version.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: US Russia cooperation | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 25, 2017
Justin Raimundo
Antiwar.com
24th January, 2017
The other day on Twitter someone tweeted me the news of the latest drone strike in Yemen, with the taunting message: “Congrats, @JustinRaimondo.” I had to laugh, and bemoan my fate: “I am now to be held responsible for everything the Trump administration does, especially their failure to go full pacifist!” Of course, you don’t have to be a pacifist to oppose our drone campaign, in Yemen or elsewhere, as I do, but the comment and my response underscore a basic flaw in the thinking of Trump’s anti-interventionist critics.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: End of empire, retreat from empire, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 22, 2017
Kevin Lim
Asia Times
21st January, 2017
When China’s President Xi Jinping articulated his idea of the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) in Astana in September 2013 and again a month later in Jakarta, what emerged was a vision to parlay large-scale economic dynamism into a foreign policy projecting Chinese influence overseas in the name of development. Inclusive and expansive at once, this is an ambitious vision and one which could seal ours as the Chinese century if it succeeds in weaving the loose ends of China’s overseas interests into a coherent whole. Three years into SREB, now better known as the “Belt& Road Initiative” (BRI), a part of the vision is slowly taking on flesh. The volume of media reports attests to this. What remains less clear is the strategic implications and opportunities of BRI on China’s partners. Occupying a slight sliver at the intersection of West Asia and the Middle East, Europe and Africa — regions of intimate relevance to BRI — Israel too has joined the new Silk Road caravan. Where does it fit in, and what difference does BRI make?
Read more
Posted in Global peace process, Multipolar world | Tagged: “Belt& Road Initiative” (BRI), Chinese soft power, One Belt One Road, Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 17, 2017
Whereas all is seen through the prism of ideology, the reality behind the Trump phenomena is the failure of the unipolar project. Facts have hard heads and must ultimately impose themselves. The conveyor belt for this realism is ,logically, the armed forces who, on the hand, suffered directly from the futile wars and, on the other, survived the attempts of the neoconservative chickenhawks to isolate and diminish them. In this sense it is a patriotic movement. But, far from making America great again, the real challenge is to make of the USA a functioning nation state.
Federico Pieraccini
Stategic Culture
15th January, 2017
The failed foreign-policy strategy of the neoconservatives and neoliberals has served to dramatically reduce Washington’s role and influence in the world. Important alliances are being forged without seeking the assent of the United States, and the world model envisioned in the early 1990s – from Bush to Kagan and all the signatories of the PNAC founding statement of principles – is increasingly coming undone. Donald Trump’s victory represents, in all likelihood, the last decisive blow to a series of foreign-policy strategies that in the end undermined the much-prized leadership of the United States. The ceasefire in Syria, reached thanks to an agreement between Turkey and Russia, notably excluded the United States.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process, Multipolar world | Tagged: China-Iran-Russia Triangle, End of empire, Russian diplomacy, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 11, 2017
South China Morning Post
10th January, 2017
Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma has offered the company’s e-commerce platform to help US businesses sell products to Asia, with the potential of creating up to 1 million American jobs, giving Donald Trump bragging rights of fulfilling his campaign vow even before he formally takes office.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on January 9, 2017
M.K.Bhadrakumar
Indian Punchline
5th January, 2017
The US President-elect Donald Trump caught the attention of observers of international politics ever since he walked into the lion’s den, WaPo editorial board office, and began talking about US foreign policies soon after securing the Republican Party nomination. A Trump presidency instantaneously found appeal as good for world peace.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: tripping up trump, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on December 14, 2016
Justin Raimundo
antiwar.com
14th December, 2016
While the Democrats morph into a neoconservative party of paranoiacs whose main issue is hating on Russia, and the John McCain-Lindsey Graham duo arises to make its last stand in a Trumpified GOP, Rex Tillerson is the perfect target of their ire. Seeking to delegitimize the President-elect as a Russian-controlled Manchurian candidate, the CIA-Clinton-Saudi axis of “resistance” is on the warpath, and Tillerson’s alleged ties to Vladimir Putin are taking center stage in what is bound to turn into a knock-down drag-out fight on the Senate floor.
Read more
Posted in Global peace process | Tagged: America's realist turn, detente with Russia, End of empire, trump agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 27, 2016
The loss of the Turkey “vassal” secures the failure of the state Department’s Syria policy. At the same time, China has made a bold move in supporting Damascus militarily showing that they cannot be “contained” in the Asia-Pacific. The writing is on the wall for US hegemony as it has been for some time: the question really is can the USA abandon exceptionalism and enter into power sharing agreements with it’s rivals. Such leadership is badly needed but as the USA fragments into a chaos of interest groups, lobbies and identities where can it come from? Both Clinton’s neoconservative revival and Trump’s anti-China isolationism look like the pure fantasy of a nation unable to realistically assess it’s own status.
Mike Whitney
UNZ
25th August, 2016
The main architect of Washington’s plan to rule the world has abandoned the scheme and called for the forging of ties with Russia and China. While Zbigniew Brzezinski’s article in The American Interest titled “Towards a Global Realignment” has largely been ignored by the media, it shows that powerful members of the policymaking establishment no longer believe that Washington will prevail in its quest to extent US hegemony across the Middle East and Asia. Brzezinski, who was the main proponent of this idea and who drew up the blueprint for imperial expansion in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, has done an about-face and called for a dramatic revising of the strategy. Here’s an excerpt from the article in the AI:
Read more
Posted in Global peace process, Multipolar world | Tagged: End of empire, retreat from empire | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 25, 2016
This is the logical culmination of the emergence of Russia as the dominant military and diplomatic force in the Middle East.
Independent
25th August, 2016
Vladimir Putin is ready and willing to host peace talks aimed at resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to Egypt’s president.
Read more
Posted in Palestine | Tagged: Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »