CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Hardly any westerners are aware that the US government has spent the 21st century slaughtering millions in wars of aggression, or that it’s circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and working to destroy any nation which disobeys its dictates. This stuff should be the first thing anyone learns when they’re beginning to research international conflicts and global power dynamics. Instead it’s like this obscure esoteric secret that’s hidden from them while they’re fed an IV drip of propaganda about Russia and China.
US EXCEPTIONALISM
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Russia and the West: Piercing the Fog of Hysteria
18 minutes readPEPE ESCOBAR—Putin made it very clear that Russia’s legitimate strategic interests would have to be respected again. And that Russia was about to recover its de facto “veto rights” in managing world affairs. Well, the Putin doctrine was already being implemented since the Georgian affair in 2008.
Ukraine is a patchwork of morsels that belonged until recently to different empires – Austro-Hungarian and Russian – as well as several nations, such as Russia, Poland and Romania. It regroups Catholicism and Orthodoxy, and has millions of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers with deep historical, cultural and economic links with Russia. So Ukraine was a de facto new Yugoslavia.
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Introducing Multipolarista – New independent media outlet reporting on end of US unipolar hegemony
5 minutes readAs the world moves toward multipolarism, and the US hegemon tries its best to sabotage and sink this development, the media barely explain the topic, and the incredibly high stakes involved in the process. The Grayzone’s senior editor Ben Norton, who resides in Nicaragua, is now creating a separate channel to focus precisely on this immensely important transformation.
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Massive lies, hypocrisy and cynicism characterise the Anglo-American history of dealings with Russia, and their way of doing foreign policy in general. Now as their plots unravel in Eastern Europe, it will be hard for the hardliners in Washington and London to keep the warmongering hysteria going. The Ukraine itself, says Mercouris, is denying the imminence of a Russian attack. And France’s Macron, with Germany’s support, is looking for a way to defuse the crisis. Meanwhile, the sheer brutishness and arrogance of US and UK maneuvers in Europe are clearly pushing Germany and France into an open break with London and Washington.
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Much is being made out of the threat of sanctions against Russia. But such threats won’t deter Moscow. For a start, even draconian sanctions have proved to be a weak coercive tool. Indeed, US sanctions had a poor coercive track record in North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Vietnam, etc.
Russia is a big power. It has huge reserves, which currently stand at a record $638.2 billion — the fourth largest in the world. Russia’s credit position is good and it owns much of its debts. It has no critical need of US investors. Russia is in no desperate need to sell its currency.
Having gone through four traumatic shocks previously in its 30-year post-cold war history, Russia knows how to absorb shocks. Therefore, while Russia may take a big hit and there could be currency volatility causing outflow of capital initially following the sanctions, its reserves give a big cushion.