Russia/NATO Security Draft Treaty: Pieces Moving on the Board
Pieces Moving on the Board
[Image: borrowed from AVCJ.]
Publication date: 2021-12-30
Update: 2021-12-31: The source for the MIC’s procurement process as a cause of the degradation in machine tooling by USA industries was remembered and added.
Update: 2021-01-05: Added a Scott Horton interview with Ray McGovern to sources.
A series of moves are being played on the geopolitical board around Ukraine (and Georgia). These moves are primarily between the Russian Federation and the United States of America, but also involve NATO and China.
In no particular order of significance:
Russia issues a draft treaty for itself and NATO which proposes a freeze on any further NATO expansion towards Russia's western border
Russia re-positions 10 000 combat personnel away from their previous positions within a couple of hundred kilometers of Russia's border with Ukraine
Russia declares that its high altitude, near space and space missile defense system, the S-550, is in full production and is combat deployed. This should be taken with a very large grain of salt. Martyanov informs that production is likely in 2024.
Russia declares with very little detail that it has performed a "salvo" test of its Zircon hyper-sonic missiles (discussed in the Mercouris video)
US agrees to talks with Russia before a follow-up meeting between Russia and NATO
US mulls over more economic sanctions against Russia, including denying use of the SWIFT inter-bank messaging system
Economic sanctions against Russia could include limits on foreign currency exchange (to/from Ruble)
The most significant of these events would seem to be the agreed discussions between Russia and the USA, and then Russia and NATO. The Russian military will have a role within the Russian negotiating party, which brings the military announcements into focus.
Missiles and Movements
The "salvo" test of the Zircons was declared by President Putin, but with no follow up by the Russian Military, it is thus unconfirmed. Nonetheless, one can be sure that the USA's satellite monitoring services like the NRO will be looking and they will know. You can’t fire multiple hyper-sonic missles without heat signatures. When “negotiations time” comes, the reality of the test will be known to both sides.
A "salvo" is merely the firing of multiple missiles simultaneously or in quick succession. Its a "battle readiness" test. If as claimed the test was performed and it was successful this may give the USA Navy and its NATO allies some pause.
The declaration of the full production and some combat deployment of the S-550 will concern all parties operating satellites, including the aforementioned NRO. This follows the mid-December event in which Russia destroyed with a missile one of its old satellites. Necessarily this was reported as alarming because people on the “International” Space Station (which China is forbidden from joining, despite their recent successes landing on the moon and Mars) had to "duck and cover" because debris was generated. Near Earth Orbit is littered with debris and defunct satellites. Yes, Russia added to this. They must have considered the cost benefit analysis worthwhile.
Did "the Russians" withdraw from the Ukraine border? Hell no! They, like any other nation can deploy their troops anywhere within their borders they wish, or to those of other nations which invite them into their own national territory. It seems a geopolitical move designed to establish a favorable position for the upcoming security discussions.
Why did they "secretly" do this on Christmas morning? Firstly, in this day and age one cannot reposition 10 000 combat troops with all of their logistical support "secretly". The USA military would have known about it in real time. Why Christmas? Well, firstly, Christmas for the Russian Orthodox church is January 7th. Perhaps Russia was choosing a low news period to do this so that the message was delivered to the USA military and political spheres and could largely bypass the narrative matrix, thus alleviating the intended recipients from having to make comment. Mr McGovern laments (or makes fun of) the lack of reporting (already linked above). It seems that this was entirely Russia’s intent.
Negotiations
Its all about the upcoming security discussions. Recall that 6 months ago before Europe realized just how poor its "spot price" energy policies were (scroll down to the Byron King article) that the USA and Russian Federation Presidents met in Switzerland at Biden's request. A few "initiatives" came out of that, one of which was cyber-security cooperation, the results of which are invisible. “Crickets”, as they say. Perhaps the efforts have turned to ashes? The second key initiative was Ukraine, with a particular focus on reviving, or to put it more bluntly strongly encouraging Ukraine to properly engage in, the Minsk Accords. A complete lack of progress on that front seems to be the motivation behind the proposed draft security treaty between Russia and USA/NATO.
In the time-frame of the release of the draft treaty the Russian and Chinese leaders Putin and Xi held a meeting during which Xi declared that their national relationship "exceeds an alliance" thus formally declaring their unified support for each other which this newsletter examined months ago. The discussions will occur between Russia and US/NATO. China, though not a partner, will be watching very closely. Recall that China has extensive economic ties with Ukraine, as does Russia. Ukraine is in a very tight spot.
The draft treaty contains language to which NATO can never agree. It is thus a bargaining position. It will be most interesting to see what comes of the negotiations, with militaries at the table, and recent demonstrations of Russia's (and thus to some extent, China's) military capabilities. Russia has said all along that there is no military solution to Ukraine. The current problem was created by the USA with their "most blatant coup in history".
The USA's policy and diplomatic apparatchiks are playing their usual games. The current one is to ask Russia to be a party to the Minsk process. Russia is not that stupid. As Admiral Ackbar declared in Star Wars (the original film) "Its a trap!" Should Russia get involved, the US/NATO side would scuttle the whole thing, create further conflict and blame Russia for it. See the Lavrov interview (if you speak Russian) or the official transcript in English, for Russia’s “Nah-uh” on this trap.
Analysis and Background
The inspiration for this article was listening to Paul Jay interview Lawrence Wilkerson and some of Alexander Mercouris's monologue, both of which are linked below.
Jay asks Wilkerson if the purpose of the NATO expansion into the former Warsaw Block countries was purely the sale of USA produced weapons to them. Wilkerson responds:
That's about half of it.
Wilkerson continues with a lovely piece of further commentary. These weapons systems are so expensive that the USA has to subsidize their purchase. Thus, essentially the USA tax payer is paying for their own defense forces with 50+% of their discretionary budget, but also paying for other allied nations to purchase these systems. It is downright insane. The annual 4 billion USD subsidy to Israel for this exact purpose, doubly so. This is what "Ike" was talking about with the "Military Industrial Complex" and its “undue influence” back in 1961.
During an interview (see Sources) about Andrew Cockburn’s latest book he describes another aspect of this weapons production process and warped military spending. The USA's military production facilities are spread all over the nation so that most congressional representatives will have some local backlash against a reduction in military spending, and, of course, the military contractors own or heavily influence most of USA commercial media. So, the congress critters are caught in a crossfire. But, another more insidious problem has been metastasizing in the industrial complex.
As the MIC extended its influence over the political and media sphere, and crazy things like "no bid contracts" began, effective testing of military hardware was reduced, and the contractors were able to make wonderful profits but with inferior products. Back in the 1960's, 70's and 80's the USA had excellent Machine Tooling capacities. It takes technology and expertise to produce high end military equipment and as the gravy train of public funding and increasing budgets were unable to be audited and testing of the quality of systems under purchase waned, the core industrial base of expert machine tooling was lost. This is a hidden casualty in the military procurement racket. The technology is easy enough to rebuild, but the expertise will likely take a decade or three to recover.
Mercouris considers the threatened further economic sanctions against the Russian Federation. It takes no expert so see the ineffectiveness of this threat. French President Macron stated some months ago that the whole strategy was a failure. Mercouris takes it a little further and promises another episode looking at this in more detail. The summary is that SWIFT is an inter-bank messaging system, a bit like encrypted email with signatures. It facilitates but does not execute large financial transfers. Russia has already built its own alternative and is working with China to integrate the version that they have already built.
The threats of limiting foreign exchange between the Russian Ruble and other currencies are folly. It will bifurcate world currency exchanges into US+NATO and Russia+China+EveryoneElse which will undermine the dollar as an exchange standard. The Chinese RMB was admitted to the IMF's Special Drawing Rights currency basket back in 2016 to join the USD, Euro, Yen and Pound. A decade or so ago, the G8 used to represent two thirds of the world's trade. Now, the G7, represents one third. The "dragon in the room", as McGovern would say, is China. It is the largest economy globally in PPP terms, with Russia the sixth. Both have good relations with India, another rising economy, and already established regional relations with the BRICS group, the independent association of South American and Caribbean economies CELAC, and of course the BRI/EAEU/SCO group in all of Asia except some of the south east.
On the "economic sanctions" threat barge was also a "withdrawal of technology" flag. Foreign Minister Lavrov in his discussions with Solovyov references an effort by Russia to develop a new civilian aircraft in the style of the old "737", a narrow bodied craft. They wanted to use carbon fibre for the wings. They contacted USA suppliers, but no contract could be signed. The result? Russia built its own civilian carbon fibre production capacity.
So, the "economic sanctions" threat matrix looks like:
Removal from SWIFT: minor annoyance
Deny Ruble currency exchanges: undermines the USD as an international exchange currency
Technology denial: encourage Russia/China to build domestic replacements
Its a "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke from a tired comedian to a tired room.
Wilkerson made one other comment which really caught me off guard. He and Jay were discussing China/SCO's BRI mega-project. Lawrence’s recommendation is that the USA should be encouraging it, and getting involved. China have all this money and they're using it to build ports, railways, bridges, and telecommunications networks etc.. This is a good thing, says Wilkerson, and the USA should not fight it, but engage and participate.
I almost fell off my chair.
Sources
Agreement on measures to ensure the security of The Russian Federation and member States of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Russian Foreign Ministry (Unofficial Translation), 2021-12-17
What! No Russian Invasion of Ukraine?, Ray McGovern, Antiwar.com, 2021-12-27
OK, This Is An Official WOW!!, Andrei Martyanov, his newsletter, 2021-12-29
U.S., Russia set for Jan 10 security talks amid Ukraine tensions, Trevor Hunnicutt and Andrew Osborn, Reuters, 2021-12-28
Kicking Russia Off of SWIFT Might Not Be the Nuclear Option, Amy Mackinnon and Robbie Gramer, Foreign Policy, 2021-12-10
Russia shoots down satellite in ‘debris-generating event’: US Space Command, Jorge Fitz-Gibbon, New York Post, 2021-12-16
Xi to Putin: Our Relationship ‘Exceeds an Alliance’, Ray McGovern, Antiwar.com, 2021-12-16
12/30/21 Ray McGovern on the Dumb but Dangerous Tension With Russia Over Ukraine [MP3 (direct)], Scott Horton interviews Ray McGovern, Scott Horton Show, 2021-12-30
Sergey Lavrov major interview live exclusive for 2021 Solovyov LIVE (Eng Subs), uploaded by Reckless Abandon, 2012-12-27
Transcript published by the Russian Federation Foreign Ministry
[The below piece begins with a story of a winter hunt, which is a short and pleasant article. Below it (on the same page) is that to which I refer.]
Germany Marches Toward Energy Stalingrad - By Byron King, Byron King, Bonner Private Research (newsletter), 2021-12-29
Why is Biden Pushing Putin on Ukraine? - Larry Wilkerson, Paul Jay interviews Larry Wilkerson, TheAnalysis.news, 2021-12-29
Russia Salvo Launches Tsirkon, Deploys S-550, Scoffs at Sanctions, Ahead of Talks with US, Alexander Mercouris, his youtube channel, 2021-12-29
America's War Machine, Chris Hedges interviews Patrick Cockburn, On Contact, 2021-12-16
IMF Adds Chinese Renminbi to Special Drawing Rights Basket, IMF News, IMF, 2016-09-30
Culture
[Sorry to re-use this, but it just fits too well].
The Beatles - Back In The U.S.S.R. (2018 Mix / Lyric Video), from the (White Album) released in 1968, The Beatles youtube channel, uploaded 2018-11-06
If you like what you read here, you can please the author by sharing it.
Do Not Subscribe: This blog does not and will not ever issue "notifications". Do not "subscribe", it wont help. Use RSS. The URL is the obvious: https://yesxorno.substack.com/feed .
Copyright and Licensing
This work is copyright to the blog's author with CC BY-SA 4.0 licensing. Have fun, reuse, remix etc. but give credit and place no further restrictions. Lets build culture. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode