Underneath those record setting stocks and frantic central bank rescues have been risks developing in the sphere of geopolitics
Below are excerpts of some news articles and opinion columns and their corresponding links.
1) Russia threatens to aim nuclear missiles at Denmark ships if it joins NATO shield (Reuters, March 22,2015)
Russia threatened to aim nuclear missiles at Danish warships if Denmark joins NATO's missile defense system, in comments Copenhagen called unacceptable and NATO said would not contribute to peace.
Denmark said in August it would contribute radar capacity on some of its warships to the missile shield, which the Western alliance says is designed to protect members from missile launches from countries like Iran.
Moscow opposes the system, arguing that it could reduce the effectiveness of its own nuclear arsenal, leading to a new Cold War-style arms race.
War drums beat louder.
2) Putin Signs Pact With Breakaway Georgian Region (Radio Free Europe, March 18, 2015)
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a pact with a Moscow-backed breakaway region of Georgia, despite condemnation by Tbilisi and the West.
Putin and the de facto leader of South Ossetia, Leonid Tibilov, signed the "alliance and integration treaty" in the Kremlin on March 18.
Part of the treaty gives Russia responsibility for ensuring the defense and security of South Ossetia, including guarding its borders.
Security and mliitary forces currently tasked with defending the region are to be incorporated into Russia's armed forces or Russia security bodies.
More brinkmanship geopolitics
The reality is that the United States is not only creating the “appearance” of preparing to fight and win a nuclear war, but it actually is preparing to fight and win a nuclear war, although the idea that the United States can do that against another nuclear power is a dangerous delusion. Gen. Maj. Andrei Burbin, chief of the Central Command Post of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (SMF), made this clear in an unusual March 1 on-air briefing on Russia’s RSN Radio. The message he delivered was that “utopian” military schemes for “limited nuclear war” or a “counterforce” destruction of Russia’s nuclear weapons are illusory: They will fail, and the result will be retaliation against the U.S. by Russia using the missiles of the SMF. (See “Hear These Russian Warnings: They Might Save Your Life,” EIR, March 6, 2015.)…
Indeed, the delusion that the U.S. could wage and win nuclear war against Russia could lead to the end of civilization itself.
Yikes!
4) Russia Sends Nuclear-Capable Bombers to Crimea (Daily Signal March 20, 2015)
As NATO and Russia simultaneously launch military exercises stretching from Eastern Europe into the Arctic, Russian defense officials said this week that supersonic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons will be deployed to Crimea.
According to the Russian news agency TASS, Tupolev TU-22M3 strategic bombers will be positioned in the former Ukrainian territory as part of a snap military exercise involving Russia’s Navy’s Northern Fleet, which has been put on full alert, and other ground and air units across Russia. The Russian military drills comprise 40,000 troops, more than 41 warships, 15 submarines and 110 aircraft and helicopters, according to RIA news agency.
The TU-22M3 is capable of carrying the Kh-22 anti-ship missile, which was designed by the Soviet Union to target U.S. warships and is capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads.
Russia’s military exercises began Monday and are scheduled to last until Saturday. The stated intent of the mobilization, according to Russian defense officials, is to evaluate Russia’s northern defenses and the capabilities of its Northern Fleet.
5) Russia Orders Surprise Test of Central Nuclear Base (Newsweek March 4, 2015)
The Russian armed forces’ strategic missile command (RVSN) have ordered a snap inspection of the state of the nuclear arsenal in one of the country’s central military bases near the city of Yoshkar-Ola.
The surprise test, announced today by RVSN, will assess the condition of the intercontinental ballistic and nuclear missile units, as well as test the readiness of the nuclear facilities near Yoshkar-Ola in hypothetical emergency situations.
“During the tests, specific attention will be paid to matters of the command’s preparedness to eliminate hazards in the event of an accident related to the nuclear weapons and also in the instance and it will test the emergency squad of the command,” Colonel Igor Yegorov, the RVSN spokesman, told press.
6) ‘Tanks? No thanks!’: Czechs unhappy about US military convoy crossing country (RT.com March 22)
Czech anti-war activists have launched the ‘Tanks? No thanks!’ campaign to protest the procession of US Army hardware through the Eastern European country. They say it has been turned into a “provocative victory parade” near the Russian border.
The American military vehicles, which took part in NATO drills in Poland, Lithuania and Estonia, plan to cross the territory of the Czech Republic between March 29 and April 1 on their way to a base in the German city of Vilseck.
The exercise, entitled the ‘Dragoon Ride,’ will involve over a hundred Stryker vehicles, which the US is expected to station in Europe, and will see the convoy stop in a new city every night. Last week, it was authorized by the Czech government, without any debate in the parliament, Pressenza news agency reported.
The US procession has been labeled “an unnecessary and dangerously provocative military maneuvers, which only increase international tension” on the ‘Tanks? No thanks!’ page on Facebook.
7) Is Russia building a new supersonic aircraft? (news.com.au March 21)
ACCORDING to a Kremlin propaganda media outlet, Russia plans to be able to deploy its army anywhere in the world within seven hours. It’s a future that involves a fleet of huge heavy transport aircraft that will be capable of moving around 400 Armata tanks, with ammunition anywhere in the world.
According to the Military-Industrial Commission in Moscow, a new aircraft, named the PAK TA, will be capable of flying supersonic speeds (up to 1235km/h), can carry up to 200 tonnes and have a range of at least 7,000 kilometres. Or roughly the distance between Sydney and Hong Kong.
Russia is supposedly hopeful to build 80 of the new PAK TA cargo aircraft by 2024.
Woe to the average Russians whose resources will be rechanneled for the production of unproductive and destructive goods or instruments.
8) Russia's Vladimir Putin brandishes the nuclear option (CBC.ca March 17)
The Kremlin has hardly been secretive about its overall strategy. Two years ago it unveiled a new military doctrine of what it called asymmetrical warfare, in effect high-tech guerrilla fighting alongside unrelenting technological and propaganda offensives against smaller, less militarily able neighbours.
That so many in eastern Ukraine see themselves as victims of Kyiv and not of Moscow is testimony to the success of the propaganda offensive.
Along with the doctrine came a vast increase in Russia's military budget.
According to the World Bank, it stood at over four per cent of Russia's gross domestic product in 2014 and was due to climb by almost 25 per cent in 2015.
When it comes to its military, Russia far outspends its European neighbours and now even spends more than the U.S., at least when measured as a percentage of its GDP.
'No more illusions'
Putin has been equally open about his regime's goals.
After annexing Crimea in 2014, he delivered a triumphant speech saying the Kremlin reserved the right to intervene to protect and defend Russians wherever they lived.
Within weeks Russian-speaking separatists in eastern Ukraine had begun a military offensive, setting up Soviet-style local regimes with Soviet names — the Donetsk People's Republic and the Lugansk People's Republic.
In the following months, according to Western intelligence, these rebels were heavily armed by Russia, which has also provided hundreds, if not thousands of troops.
The Putin doctrine simply thumbed its nose at two international agreements, the Helsinki accords of 1974 signed by Russia's predecessor state, the USSR, and the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, signed by Russia.
The first guaranteed the inviolability of all borders in Europe and the second specifically guaranteed Ukraine's borders and independence in return for handing over to Russia 1,900 Soviet-era nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil.
Thanks in part to these Ukrainian weapons, Russia now has the largest nuclear stockpile in the world, 8,400 warheads to the 7,500 controlled by the U.S.
While Putin unleashes psychological warfare, the Russian economy will suffer.
9) U.S. Squares Off With China Over North Korea Missile Defense (Bloomberg, March 22)
The U.S. and China are squaring off over deployment of an anti-missile system in South Korea, the latest source of tension between the world’s two biggest economies as they vie for influence in Asia.
The U.S. is considering placing a Thaad ballistic missile defense system in South Korea to counter improved North Korean weapon technology. A group of lawmakers from the ruling Saenuri party has also begun lobbying for South Korea to purchase the Lockheed Martin Corp. missile system directly. China fears the U.S. could use Thaad to target its missiles and has called on South Korea to reject deployment.
“How can we fight with a knife when North Korea is brandishing a gun?” Won Yoo Chul, a lawmaker who heads the ruling party’s policy-setting committee, said in a March 20 interview. “North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat is advancing by the day and China’s response over Thaad is excessive.”
The Thaad issue has left South Korean President Park Geun Hye caught between the U.S, which maintains more than 28,000 troops in the country to defend against North Korea, and China, its biggest trading partner and ally in efforts to resolve historical and territorial disputes with Japan. Mounting evidence that the Kim Jong Un regime has developed the ability to launch nuclear-tipped missiles is adding urgency to the debate.
More encirclement strategy by the US government that will provoke a response in China.
10) Indonesia's president says China has no legal claim to South China Sea: newspaper (Reuters, March 22)
Indonesian President Joko Widodo says China's claims to the majority of the South China Sea have "no legal foundation in international law," Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported.
The comments, in an interview published on Sunday ahead of visits to Japan and China this week, were the first time Widodo, who took office in October, has taken a position on the South China Sea dispute.
Far from revisiting its assertive posturing in adjacent waters, China is seemingly determined to consolidate its position in the South China Sea at the expense of its smaller neighbors. The latest satellite imagery, released by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, indicate extensive Chinese construction activities in highly contested areas, particularly the Spratly Islands, which have been actively claimed by Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
Though Vietnam has occupied the greatest number of contested features in the Spratlys, China is the most capable, ambitious (and geographically distant) claimant in the area. Given the magnitude of the power asymmetry between Beijing and its Southeast Asian neighbors, China has the wherewithal to unilaterally dictate the tempo and trajectory of maritime disputes in the South China Sea. Despite being a relative late-comer, China has rapidly augmented its position, artificially transforming highly strategic features such as the Fiery Cross Reef, which has been enlarged to eleven times its original size.
The reef is a formidable military garrison, with up to two hundred Chinese troops stationed there. It is expected to host its own airstrip in the near future, a crucial prelude to what could become a de facto Chinese Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the South China Sea. This would complement China’s ADIZ in the East China Sea, paving the way for China to dominate the skies above the entire first chain of islands in the western Pacific.
Beating the drums of nationalism to divert the public’s attention from deepening economic troubles?
11) U.S. Navy Urges Southeast Asian Patrols of South China Sea (Bloomberg, March 18)
The commander of the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet called on Southeast Asian nations to form a combined maritime force to patrol areas of the South China Sea where territorial tensions flare with China.
Countries could streamline cooperation on maritime security while respecting sovereignty and coastal space, as in the case of counter-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden, Vice Admiral Robert Thomas said Tuesday at the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace Exhibition in Malaysia.
The U.S. has reassured allies in the region it will back them against China’s assertions to about four-fifths of the sea. China has ratcheted up pressure on some Association of Southeast Asian Nations members, and has accelerated reclamation work on reefs in the waters criss-crossed by claims from Vietnam, Taiwan, Brunei, the Philippines and Malaysia.
More business for the US military industrial complex at the expense of ASEAN's economies.
Public confidence in China's military is higher than ever. According to a public opinion poll, an overwhelming majority of Chinese citizens think the People’s Liberation Army is capable of facing and beating the United States if it comes to that over various disputed islands and maritime territories.
According to a study by the Perth USAsia Center, a foreign policy think tank that focuses on the Indo-Pacific region, over 87 percent of those surveyed agreed that China’s military was already equipped to “retake” the Diaoyu Islands, a cluster of resource-rich islands in the East China Sea, known as the Senkaku to the area's other claimants, the Japanese. Regarding potential military action in the South China Sea, where several Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, the Philippines and Brunei all dispute China’s territorial and maritime claims, the Chinese public still echo a sense of confidence, with 86 percent saying the PLA is capable of taking the area.
Incredible delusions. If there should be a war, then this will mean the end human civilization as we know of.
13) Islamic State Rises in Libya (FreeBeacon, March 20)
The Islamic State terrorist group is expanding its operations in Libya with high-profile attacks following the recent beheadings of 21 Christians, according to a State Department security report.
In Libya, Islamic State (IS), also known as ISIS or ISIL, formed out of existing al Qaeda-affiliated and Islamist extremist groups in early 2015. It is said to number between 1,000 and 3,000 fighters and has been exploiting the conflict between two Libyan groups fighting for control of the oil-rich North African state, Libya Dawn and Operation Dignity.
The Islamist and pro-al Qaeda Libya Dawn and the anti-Islamist Operation Dignity, headed by Lt Gen. Khalifa Haftar, have created rival parliaments and military forces and are said to receive foreign government support.
