On a train bound for nowhere

Readin' peoples' faces

[The author advises to start playing the song at the end of this piece at the “A Satellite View” section of the article, then just loop it].

A recent Mercouris monologue (see Sources) based on the just announced military exercises between Russia and China got me thinking. (That is a 'yesxorno' warning).

The Russian and Chinese Navies recently held joint exercises in the north Pacific, and as I failed to mentioned recently, the Chinese are playing a deft game in a careful elevation of their Navy to within but below USA capabilities in the Aircraft Carrier arena. But, those exercises are nothing compared to this new cooperation. Quoting from the globaltimes.cn article:

The Zapad/Interaction-2021 exercise will be held in the Qingtongxia Joint Tactical Training Base in Northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region from early to mid-August

So, northern China, whatever. Sorry for the "war porn", but,

This will also be the first time that China will host a strategic drill that will see a foreign military invited, and the first time Russian forces will enter the Qingtongxia military base, observers said.

This is the first ever joint military exercised between China and anyone *in* China, and they'll be hosting Russian soldiers in their base. Indeed, it will be used as a joint command. This is completely unprecedented.

Will they be playing Chinese or European (Indian) chess?

The two sides will set up joint headquarters, as the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) Western Theater Command and Russia's Eastern Military District will dispatch more than 10,000 personnel, multiple types of aircraft, artillery pieces and armored equipment in exercises to test joint reconnaissance, early warning, electronic information attack and strike capabilities

I'm not military, but I know a battalion is about 500 - 700, and a brigade is 3 to 6 of these. We are thus looking here at multiple brigades possibly grouped into a single division, from both sides. And these are combined arms, aside from the mandatory command and logistics groups you have ground forces, armored units, artillery and air force, with reconnaissance, "early warning" and electronic warfare. This is everything but the navy and nuclear arms; it is a total combined arms land based exercise, involving many brigades, in China, from a joint divisional command.

The final initial point is that is likely to be the first of many of these.

What do the politicians say they are trying to achieve?

The purpose of the exercise is to consolidate the comprehensive strategic partnership in a new era between China and Russia, deepen the pragmatic cooperation and traditional friendship between the two militaries, and further display the determination and ability of both sides to combat terrorist forces and maintain regional peace and security

Obviously, more efficient integration of their armed forces is the key goal. For me, the key word is "terrorist". I'll get back to that at the end.

This exercise must have been planned months in advance, but follows a recent meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Dushanbe at which Russia's Defense Minister Shoigu called for two things, an increased military (and one also presumes intelligence) cooperation among the partners, and for a legal footing upon which this can be based.

We thus have a sequence of events all pointing towards the establishment of very close military ties between Russia and China, and an intention to expand this cooperation to involve other states in the SCO as that becomes possible and relevant. Thus, an Asian coordinated military block.

A Satellite View

Oh, yes, Russia and China have satellites. China has just landed and returned multiple moon missions, not to mention their multi-stage landing on Mars; but I mean, a wider view

During the 1990's, the SE Asian economies performed very well, and particularly China under Deng Xioaping. But, it all really took off when China was admitted to the World Trade organisation and globalisation on steroids took off. USA went down a two track economy; arms manufacture and financialisation at home, and multi-national behemoths abroad. Meanwhile, China became the manufacturing "workshop" of the world and invested heavily in both this capacity and its high tech and academic sectors amongst other initiatives.

During the same period Russia is plundered by the Chicago Boys and local oligarchs producing a complete nightmare for Russia in the '90s. Putin emerges and gets the economy moving, and today Russia has a solid economy with very little foreign debt, a confident people and have just produced a few ground breaking military technologies.

During the same period in the USA:

• its global corporations make buckets loads of money

• the government does nothing about national infrastructure

• jobs are off-shored

• their sanctions against Iraq kill half a million children which their then secretary of state would later declare as “worth it”

During the first of these three decades, the Russians and Chinese were likely most focused on their national agendas.

That seems to have changed a little in the second decade, with the initial signing of the "Friendly Neighbor" treaty. I feel that they began to watch much more closely what USA/UK/NATO were doing, and particularly to focus on their lack of strategy, and even more so on their disconnected tactics.

During this second period USA+UK are causing havoc (mass murder) in Iraq, and NATO under USA leadership seems to have had almost no idea what it was doing in Afghanistan. I contend that during this 2001 to 2010 period any semblance of strategic thinking vanished from the USA. It was greed and "victory by the gun" with no effective political strategy. Russia and China watched this, and other events like the various colour revolutions and sanctions, and influence on UN bodies, and learned much by observing these tactics. Of course, they also watched NATO military performance and methods.

I think the trigger was Libya. Neither Russia nor China blocked the no-fly zone as they did not think that what was to came was either on the cards or an intention. But, having seen that, and then the Maidan coup in 2014, it became all to clear what was up. Constant destabilization and plundering, on the one hand by covert intelligence and covert military forces, and on the other via just plain war, and quite often using extremist, usually Muslim, proxy forces as they had decades earlier in their part 1 in visiting the graveyard of empires. Syria is the clearest case of blatant payment for extremist proxy forces after the ‘80s. Interestingly, it has been a very wide coalition (collusion? conspiracy?) of external nations running an insurgent proxy-war.

By 2015, when Syria invited Russia to help, Russia had a stable economy and must have been developing the munitions that we have seen displayed. Equivalently, the Chinese were approaching Purchasing Power Parity with the USA, and were on a path to pass them, which they did a few years ago. The USA was still “stuck” in Iraq, with Iran having influence on both government and military, and were going nowhere in Afghanistan, but were politically trapped into being involved in both. They were similarly fiddling around in Africa. Nick Turse has been a dogged reporter on the USA in Africa; the atrocities and haphazard mixture of tactics devoid of strategy.

Meta-Strategy

I see a sort of "meta-plan" emerging. Russia takes the military lead, China takes the economic lead, and together they coordinate at the UN Security Council level. The threat problem was economic retaliation, which was to be handled primarily by China, but Russia too. Russia was more vulnerable, and thus the creation of the Mir credit card system and a parallel to SWIFT, minimal external debt and gold reserves, while China could use its "balance of account" economic influence to "balance the boat" if required, and had plenty of gold and USA Treasury bonds to play with.

Russia engages in Syria, gives Israel leeway but requires notification of actions in just the same way as the USA/Russia/Syria military action notification system worked. A few years later, Syria is stabilized, Iran's influence on Iraq is stabilized, and Russia had the ability to hint towards Hezbollah's restraint via influence in both Iran and Syria.

Meanwhile, the BRI is quietly rolling on, the key being the central Asian 'stans for connectivity, with advances made to key places like Pakistan. I bet they were both happy when Imran Khan was elected as President.

But, no diplomatic road is without pot holes, and the Trump/Israeli assassination of Solemeini must have really pissed them both off, not least Russia. Of course, Erdogan has been a complete maverick the whole time. Then there is Yemen and the Saudis. Quite some strategic diplomacy must have been required on all fronts. Similarly, Israel needed attention, which very recently seems to have devolved into a very stern look from the Russians.

The 2015 to 2020 period must be seen as the point when a coffin’s body was complete, and the lid being made. Indeed, this was when Alfred McCoy wrote his “end of empire” to come call.

An Aside

One of the things I really don't get is the USA problem with Iran. Maybe its the '79 revolution. But, the Republicans got Reagan because of the withholding of the prisoners and the CIA trade with Iran related groups gave them the money to fund the Contras against the Sandinistas to avoid the Boland amendment. The fact that this is now known does not diminish its effectiveness at the time.

To me, Iran is simple. A very old civilization that wants respect and has major regional influence via the Shia branch of Islam. A very loosely democratic Theocratic government with associated methodologies. What is hard to understand? They're still pissed about Mossedegh and the Shah and his Savak. Be cognizant of this and play diplomacy. I see the USA response to Iran as proof that they still have no decent thinkers advising their "leadership". The alternative is that Israel runs everything, which I don’t believe, though their influence is deep.

Post 10,000 Strong Joint Command Exercises in China between they and Russia, with Signals for a Regional Military Alliance on top of the Economic Alliance Being Built

Back to that keyword "terrorist" mentioned in the Chinese dispatch on the major military exercises, and the exercises themselves. At the simplest level, its a warning to the CIA, the Taliban, Pakistan, Turkey and the Saudi's. Don’t even try to use proxy extremist forces to destabilize what we are doing. Of course, the CIA and probably the Saudi's wont care, but others will notice. Actually, Shoigu mentioned developing "new tactics" against biological and chemical weapons, which I take as a hint to the CIA and MI-6 about the media supported lies (see Sources) in Syria.

The next level in the announcement is of regional military ties, and this creates Cold War II for NATO, who’ve just been given a command on USA soil in Virginia. Here is your calculated question: its a boondoggle or they are afraid of something and think that setting up a NATO command in Virginia will help against this threat. You call it.

Before this latest boondoggle military insanity Russia had announced its hyper-sonic missiles, S-500 mobile air defense system and the cheap, export, 5th generation, generic, light-weight fighter platform. Even as an idiot I can see what this means. S-400's to appropriate partners, "checkmates" to any we trust (*), and hyper-sonics to China.

(*) I would be very surprised if there was not a "kill switch" in the Checkmate. Its the export version, right?

Cold War II (CWII)

Mercouris makes one very relevant combined point the end of his presentation. He is referencing a Russian academic and his own recollection of history. The first part is the USSR "carrying" a collection of "dependent" countries. Mercouris declares this a little "melodramatic", but it is true. Russia has pulled a few in, but I do not believe you will see a mutual defense pact between Russian and anyone, with China the only possible exception (which would only ever be declared at the outset of hostility). The next point is Mercouris' in which he highlights that Russia was concerned about China during CWI. Now, they are not. Let that sink in.

A lesson learnt in the Napoleonic wars was "dont have a land war with Russia". This was strongly reinforced during WWII. Now, assuming that we take out Antarctica (not a country) and Canada (not a big player), the two largest countries by land area on the planet are Russia and China.

The new maxim is "dont have a land war with both Russia and China, who have a border and are building efficient transport infrastructure between them and amongst their neighbours".

Or, you can play around Taiwan.

Sources

China-Russia Hold Massive Military Drills in North China, Mercouris

Russia to join military drill in China, ‘displays mutual trust, eyes Central Asian security’, Global Times

Some Random Dudes on the Internet who can think and put in a tonne of work to disentangle a completely coordinated narrative of geopolitical influence (my title, see the original in the video title below), Aaron Mate and Guests

Federal Debt: Total Public Debt as Percent of Gross Domestic Product, St. Louis Federal Reserve

NATO’s new Atlantic command declared operational, NATO

“It Failed Miserably” – What If the US Lost a War and Nobody Noticed?, Byron King

The Gambler, Johhny Cash