Another Munich conference on security was held in a virtual video format and was chaired by Wolfgang Ischinger, the founder of this forum that has existed since 1962
The same one who in August last year declared “the end of the strategic partnership” between Russia and Germany.
Since that announcement came shortly after the launch of Klaus Schwab, the chairman of the World Economic Forum’s (Davos) “Great Reset” book, it is clear that Schwab and Ischinger were a “double whammy”; the fact that the latter was prompted by the Navalny poisoning episode, which “could not have been anticipated,” is not an argument. First of all, no one said that it could not have been “foreseen”, that is, planned; one might as well assume that this was exactly what had been done. Secondly, Navalny could simply have been exposed; if not him, they would have come up with something else, because the main thing was to declare a break with Russia, and what pretext is of secondary importance. This once again proves that “economic” Davos and “politico-military” Munich, on the one hand, serve as two sides of the same coin, and on the other, that they have a common master, who directs the entire Atlantic strategy of the West. The Vatican-inspired oligarchic project of “inclusive capitalism”, in which the so-called “total investors”, the beneficial companies that control all the big banks and companies in the world through globalisation, i.e. a big part of the world economy, are brought to the fore for the first time, points directly to these masters. Publicly so far – to transnational banks and corporations; but we understand that this is a euphemism for specific clan, more specifically family interests. “Inclusive capitalism” is a project of unlimited Jesuit-oligarchic dictatorship, in whose ideology an abstract quasi-social and quasi-religious heresy covers up quite concrete clan interests.
This year Munich, in contrast to Davos, where the leaders of Russia and China were invited, was conceived and held as a strictly Western get-together. The organizers thought of everything: it was clear that in the current situation Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would say firm ‘no’ to the plans of “the great reset”. After that Washington, represented by newly elected President Joe Biden, would proclaim a new “crusade” to the East.
This Munich U-turn, on the one hand, was prepared for Putin and Xi’s absentee polemic with Biden – the Russian and Chinese leaders’ speeches on the Schwab platform against the American president’s “appearances” to the State Department and the Pentagon. On the other hand, in Munich itself it was thoroughly covered in propaganda terms by Biden’s relative restraint against the background of French and German leaders’ “squiggling” in favour of “dialogue with Russia” and, after it, by appropriate “peacemaking” comments of “courtroom” experts like Alexander Rahr. They said that the West in general and Europe in particular, having heeded Russia’s warnings, had loosened its rhetoric and extended an “olive branch”. They have not weakened and stretched anything. It is simply that these comments not only disguise preparations for the escalation of a new Cold War, which has long been under way, into a “hot” phase, albeit still at the level of local conflicts. But they also shift the responsibility for these processes onto the Russian and Chinese sides. And they also routinely support Western accusations of Moscow and Beijing of “revisionism” against the existing world order of Pax Americana. Biden’s “guest speech” to Ischinger only confirms this, which is exactly what we are about to see.
Three main themes: the US-European ‘axis’ of the global world order, containment of China and Russia, and US leadership of international projects and programmes. Now specifically. First theme. America is “back”; it is once again “together with Europe” ready to meet major challenges, and “from a position of strength.” According to Biden, that means “strengthening our economic foundations, restoring our role in international institutions, elevating our values at home and advocating them worldwide, modernizing our military capabilities while taking the lead in diplomacy, reviving the American network of alliances and partnerships. That is: preventing China from diluting American dominance of the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) behind them with a more equal arrangement that takes into account the interests of the non-western world. Return to a format of “tolerance” in the spirit of promoting LGBT and BLM, ensuring the expansion of thus understood “democracy” around the world, both diplomatically and militarily. And to do this, taking NATO as a model, expand the network of alliances to the APAC and the Indian Ocean. And by uniting these two basins with a single “Indo-Pacific” concept, to create a continuous, if you will, front line covering the Eurasian continent from the south. To do what? To expand the fight against Russia and China along the perimeter of their borders, in accordance with the precepts of the pillars of Anglo-Saxon geopolitics, turning them into a limitrophic zone of confrontation. In other words, to return to the “Great Game” of the nineteenth century, aka the Cold War of the second half of the twentieth century.
Biden goes on to clarify and elaborate, apparently to rule out misinterpretation. “For us, there is a tipping point between those who argue that amid all the problems we face – from the fourth industrial revolution to the global pandemic – that autocracy is the best way forward, and those who understand that democracy is necessary – necessary to solve these problems.”
The reference to “the fourth industrial revolution” is, on the one hand, a signal of the new US administration’s full support for the plans for the “great reset”, moreover, in its force majeure format, considering the last US presidential election a tool for globalist mobilisation. On the other hand, “we must prove that our model is not a relic of our history; it is the only best way to restore our hopes for the future”. “Hopes for the future” are reflected in the project of the same “great reset” – the nullification of industry and population, and Donald Trump is an unfortunate misunderstanding that almost prevented this. This is why the legacy of the previous administration is being sacrificed for European loyalty. And there is a clear chain of command: the German and French leaders, unlike the other “underdogs”, “deserve” a personal curtsy (“Welcome, dear friend Karlsson; well, you come in too”).
The second theme is China and Russia. Three theses: 1) a long-term strategic rivalry with China; 2) opposition from Russia, which “seeks to weaken the European project and our NATO alliance”; 3) the introduction of a rift between Moscow and Beijing: “the problems associated with Russia may be different from those associated with China, but they are just as real”. The most important thing here is not only not to underestimate, but also not to overestimate Washington. A quarter-century ago, at the height of American global power, the late Zbigniew Brzezinski literally implored his followers not to allow an alliance in Eurasia that could challenge American leadership. Not that the successors missed the “maestro’s” advice, but the situation, resting on their laurels, has clearly “slipped through the cracks. The Russo-Chinese alliance, which Brzezinski had separately warned against, has come true (“where the hell were you looking?!”) and with the prospect of other powerful countries joining it, most notably Iran, and perhaps Turkey too if you consider the “passionate” impulse with which Biden took on Recep Erdogan. In football terms, the United States was leading 3-0 and, lazily playing the game, was dragging the matter to the final whistle, believing it was “in the bag”. Suddenly, they got a double and the score was 3-2. All of Biden’s “Munich” verbal exercises (one is tempted to call them excrement) were an incantation of the “football god” to help in the holding game. On the counterattack – in Donbass or around Taiwan – they can still manage it, counting on a numerical advantage in someone else’s box. But for the rest, it looks like they rely more on the ‘bus’ in their own penalty area. The stronger, the more foolish and the further away, the better. This is clearly not July 1941, or even November. It is rather Kursk in the early phase after Stalingrad: “Either you win or you lose”. Plus, there are squabbles, including within their own ranks: of course, Trump and “Russian hackers” are to blame for the failure of the geopolitical “blitzkrieg”, but who else?
In the third theme, on international projects and programmes, one has to admit that there are more “mysteries” than anything else. WHO, the climate to which Biden has returned the US by revising Trump’s legacy, is only one side of the issue. If anything is of concern, it is the organisational preparations of official Washington, which at this stage, on the one hand, are widely announced and, on the other, show a complete lack of transparency. We remember the first, and still the pre-election initiative of the new White House master about convening a “forum of world democracies” a year after his accession to power, that is, it must be understood, at the turn of 2021-2022. That is, apparently, UN participants without Russia and China, despite the fact that both Moscow and Beijing are permanent members of the Security Council. What such a gathering could mean was told at one time by the seizure-prone Senator John McCain, now deceased. We are talking about the equivalent of his proposed “League of Democracies”, that is, a structure claiming global reach, but at the same time under the control of Washington. Without Moscow and Beijing, of course.
In his speech in virtual “Munich”, Biden ventured a similar initiative which, to be blunt, is even more incomprehensible than the aforementioned “forum”. “On Earth Day, I will hold a summit of country leaders to help the countries that account for the largest amount of emissions to step up action on limiting emissions and make greater commitments, including activities to address climate issues here in the United States,” it sounded like. But first things first. First, the infamous “Earth Day”, notorious for mass blackouts to suit the extremist ambitions of “Greta Thunberg”, is “celebrated” this year on March 20. That is, there are only a few days left. Secondly, the composition of the “leaders” in terms of emissions is roughly clear – it is the EU in its entirety, and possibly India on that list. But what about China and Russia? But the main thing is not even that, but that Biden does not even mention the countries which are ahead of the rest of the world in absorbing emissions by their natural environment. And this is Russia in the first place, which, even if taken together with the gigantic Chinese industry, still adds up to more than the amount of absorption and emissions in favor of Russia. In other words, Biden with his initiative, firstly, deepens the perversion of climate process indicators, showing the usual adherence to “double standards” – emissions should be counted, but absorption not, because it is beneficial for the West. And second, he is also trying to set up a forum that pits Russia and China against opportunistic pro-Western participants in the so-called “climate process”. Of course, maybe the author of these lines, by the way, not at all new to this circle of issues, did not understand something. But it means that Biden explained it that way, having done his best to ensure an ambiguous perception. He will not really sound like Aesop. That already speaks volumes.
“I am grateful for Europe’s continued leadership on climate issues over the past four years. We need to invest together in the technological innovations that will enable us to launch a clean energy future and create clean energy solutions for global markets,” is a thought the new US president also raises questions. If ‘clean energy’ is only about ‘renewables’, the potential for supporting them in both the US and Europe has diminished significantly during this winter. Coal, bought in Russia in addition to gas, has proved more reliable than wind turbines, which have not withstood serious temperature “minus”.
If Biden includes hydropower plants and nuclear power plants in that list, the question is also how the electricity generated by them, especially from the hinterland of potential exporting countries, will be sent abroad. And how will they deal with the Japanese who shut down one-third of their nuclear reactors after Fukushima-1, quietly returned the rest, and now, after Fukushima-2, when it became clear that “it shook, it shook and it will shake”, they do not know what to do with it?
It seems that the verbal abracadabra proposed by the American president either follows the conjuncture of a program written for him, or, what is not less likely, moves the discussion of this question behind closed doors of “high” cabinets, where the overly “curious” public, including the European one, does not have access.
To conclude our analysis, it is not all so clear-cut. It seems that Biden, having decided on the anti-Russian and anti-Chinese strategy of his rule, has “hovered” on a tactical level. On the one hand, “with his eyes he seems to want to eat everybody up”. On the other, he sees that “he’s not in front of the herd”, so he “launches into negotiations”. More precisely, to persuade Europeans to join hands and, in a wedge, to march “nach Osten”. In vain! The situation in Europe is no longer what it is, we shall see in the autumn on the example of the Bundestag elections. And in the USA itself Biden has no carte blanche for the political course proclaimed in Munich. And Trump seems to be oriented towards 2024, and the objective situation that Biden’s democrats, when rushing to power, arranged according to the principle “the worse, the better”, boomerangs on them. And rightly so: they made a mess of the country in order to overthrow Trump, but they did not think about how they would clean up their mess after victory. This is often the case in big politics, and Biden is not the first or last in such a situation.
As for the view of these events and processes from Moscow and Beijing, the main thing is not to hurry and not to make a false start. If to take the “graph” of Soviet-before-perestroika degradation, Trump with his dynamism looks a lot like Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov, but Biden, not even trying to depict such dynamism (“everything will be like under my grandma”) – he looks like Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko. With all due respect to these figures, who to the Soviet Union “wanted the best, but it turned out as always. Biden, by way of sharing his experience, should be thinking about the text of Gorbachev’s soon-to-be-anniversary greeting. As they say, “stock up on popcorn”…
Vladimir Pavlenko, REGNUM