Posted by seumasach on August 19, 2009
M.K.Bhadrakumar
20th August, 2009
In his distinguished diplomatic career spanning four decades, there is not a trace of record to show that Richard Holbrooke, United States special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, dabbled in energy security issues. His current visit to Pakistan – en route to Afghanistan – has been officially projected as aimed at helping his host country find a way to overcome its electricity shortage.
Posted in Afghanistan | Tagged: Afghanistan, New Cold War, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on August 1, 2009
M K Bhadrakumar
31st July, 2009
Like the star gazers who last week watched the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, diplomatic observers had a field day watching the penumbra of big power politics involving the United States, Russia and China, which constitutes one of the crucial phenomena of 21st-century world politics.
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Posted in Multipolar world, New Cold War | Tagged: Chinese diplomacy, Chinese soft power, Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Moldova, NATO expansion, New Cold War, Russian diplomacy, SCO | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 24, 2009
A desperate letter from a remote imperial outpost receives a less than sympathetic reception in certain quarters in the imperial heartland
Justin Raimundo
24th July, 2009
An “open letter” from the ghosts of the cold war begs for an appropriate response
With the end of the cold war, and the implosion of the Soviet empire, one would have thought the entanglements engendered by half a century of US-Russian hostility would have ended. One would, unfortunately, be quite wrong. It wasn’t enough that we nurtured and emboldened the resistance movements in Central and Eastern Europe: it wasn’t enough that we helped the newly-freed “captive nations” throw off their chains, and enter the international scene as fully-fledged political and economic entities – oh no. There was more to come.
Posted in New Cold War | Tagged: Eastern Europe, End of empire, missile defence system, New Cold War, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 21, 2009
M.K.Bhadrakumar
18th July, 2009
The Central Asian question is no more the same as it was in the 1990s. No one speculates anymore that it was inevitable that the region would descend into anarchy. However, the problems endemic to a critical period of state formation linger. The transition economies were just about switching gear when the global economic crisis struck. Growth slackened. Foreign investment dwindled. Commodity prices crashed.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Afghanistan, Chinese soft power, Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), New Cold War, Russian diplomacy, SCO | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 20, 2009
F.Wlliam Engdahl rense.com
19th July, 2009
One of his first foreign visits as new President took Barack Obama to Ankara for a high-profile meeting with Prime Minister Recep Erdogan and other leading Turkish officials. Obama engaged in classical “horse trading” wheeling and dealing. “I give you support for Turkey’s EU membership; you open the diplomatic door to Armenia,” appears to have been the core of the deal. What other inducements the US President gave in the case of Turkish influence within NATO and such is secondary. Obama’s goal was to break a political deadlock in Turkey to construction of a major gas pipeline to Germany and other EU countries in direct opposition to Russian Gazprom’s South Stream pipeline. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: georgia, Iran, Multipolar world, Nabucco pipeline, New Cold War, Obama agenda, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 15, 2009
Posted in New Cold War | Tagged: New Cold War, Obama agenda, Russian diplomacy | 1 Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 15, 2009
Nebojsa Malic
15th July, 2009
At a meeting in March 2009, Secretary Clinton presented her Russian counterpart with a red button that was supposed to read “Reset” in Russian. Instead, it read “Overload.” It seemed like an innocent mistake, a syllable lost in translation. But was it, really?
Posted in New Cold War | Tagged: Nabucco pipeline, New Cold War, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 14, 2009
14th July, 2009
Russia will not back tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities in exchange for a new arms cuts deal with the US, a foreign ministry official says.
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Posted in Iran, New Cold War | Tagged: Iran, missile defence system, New Cold War, Obama agenda, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 10, 2009
Arguably, a new element of tension appeared by a conscious strategy by the Obama administration to insert a wedge between Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and create a rift within the Kremlin. To quote noted Russia-watcher Peter Lavelle, “Either Obama believes he has already mastered Russian politics … or he is being given some very bad advice … In Russia today, it is simply impossible to play Medvedev off against Putin. Both represent the same policy approaches, including foreign policies, but in different ways.”
“Biden’s remarks didn’t actually warrant a Russian rebuttal. But Moscow probably decided to put Obama’s hawkish deputy on the mat while the boss was in town to balance to some extent the mischievous briefings given by White House officials, touting a growing US-Russia convergence over Iran, which of course was exaggerated hype.”
So Obama tried to put a wedge between Putin and Medvedev and between Russia and Iran: both failed miserably as anyone with any grasp of Russia diplomacy at all could have predicted. As with the interventions in Iran and Honduras, the old box of tricks is still being used, but they just don’t work anymore.
M.K.Bhadrakumar
11th July, 2009
The Cold War may or may not be lurking in the shade, but the mystique of Russian-American summitry lingers. In an event packed with animated passions in the run-up to it, and loaded with history, as the summit in Moscow on July 6-7 indeed was, what ultimately matters is the morning after.
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Posted in New Cold War | Tagged: Afghanistan, georgia, Iran, New Cold War, Obama agenda, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 10, 2009
Petras is one of the very few on the left to view Obama’s strategy objectively. He is right to stress that global conditions are no longer favourable for US intervention: we are witnessing, before our very eyes, the end of empire.
James Petras
9th July, 2009
The recent events in Honduras and Iran, which pit democratically elected regimes against pro-US military and civilian actors intent on overthrowing them can best be understood as part of a larger White House strategy designed to rollback the gains achieved by opposition government and movements during the Bush years.
Posted in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq | Tagged: Afghanistan, End of empire, Iran, Iraq, James Petras, New Cold War, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on July 8, 2009
The meaning of Biden’s sabre-rattling now becomes clear: it’s part of a fiendishly clever scheme to put a wedge between Russia and Iran. It’s becoming an amusing spectator sport watching the cretinous US leadership trying to cope with the reality of their ebbing power.
8th July, 2009
The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman has said the recent remarks by US Vice President Joe Biden, who said Israel has the right to attack Iran, have surprised Moscow.
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Posted in New Cold War | Tagged: Iran, missile defence system, New Cold War, Obama agenda | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 