Autor: João

Political Economy

Por | 1 jun, 2018 | , , |

America’s Fifth Column Will Destroy Russia   This is the lecture I would have given if I had been able to accept the invitation to address the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in Russia this weekend. Paul Craig Roberts May 25, 2018 Executive Summary:  From the standpoint of Russia’s dilemma, this is an important column.  Putin’s partial impotence via-a-vis Washington is due to the grip that neoliberal economics exercises over the Russian government. Putin cannot break with the West, because he believes that Russian economic development is dependent on Russia’s integration within the Western economy. That is what neoliberal economics tells the Russian economic and financial establishment.  Everyone should understand that I am not a pro-Russian anti-American.  I am anti-war, especially nuclear war.  My concern is that the inability of the Russian government to put its foot down is due to its belief that Russian development, despite all the talk about the Eurasian partnership and the Silk Road, is dependent on being integrated with the West. This totally erroneous belief prevents the Russian government from any decisive break with the West. Consequently, Putin continues to accept provocations in order to avoid a decisive break that would cut Russia off from the West.  In Washington and the UK this is interpreted as a lack of resolve on Putin’s part and encourages an escalation in provocations that will intensify until Russia’s...

Ler mais

War and Peace

Por | 1 jun, 2018 | , , |

Russia’s Maddening Patience   Dmitry Orlov May 24, 2018 A lot of commentators noticed a curious fact: during the May 9 parade in the Red Square in Moscow, Putin appeared in the presence of Israeli prime minister Netanyahu. Around that same time, Israeli air force was firing rockets at Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria (lots of which the Syrian air defenses shot down) and the Syrians were firing back at Israeli positions on the Golan Heights (which are occupied Syrian territory, so it didn’t count as an attack on Israel proper). Why didn’t Russia rise to the defense of its ally Syria? Moreover, there was talk of selling Russia’s very powerful S-300 air defense system to Syria, and that offer was subsequently withdrawn. Is this really how an ally behaves? Or take another example: relations between Russia and the Ukraine has been in a downward spiral ever since the 2014 Kiev putsch which overthrew the constitutional government. There is a festering sore of a military standoff in the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine, a constant drumbeat of Ukrainian provocations against Russia, and Russia has been saddled with economic and political sanctions by the US and the EU supposedly in response to the annexation of Crimea and the unsettled conflict in the Donbass that has claimed some ten thousand lives. And yet the Ukraine’s largest trading partner remains… Russia....

Ler mais

War and Peace

Por | 1 jun, 2018 | , , |

Putin’s Peace Efforts Are Coming To Naught   Paul Craig Roberts May 24, 2018   The Trump regime has sabotaged Putin’s peace efforts in Syria, Iran, Ukraine, and North Korea. In the interest of peace Putin has avoided responding to US and Israeli provocations in Syria. Putin went so far as to invite the war criminal and genocidal maniac Netanyahu to Russia for the celebration of Russia’s victory over Germany in World War II. Netanyahu accepted, but showed Putin who is boss by ordering illegal Israeli military attacks on Syrian army positions just prior to his departure for Russia. Washington rewarded Putin’s peace efforts by occupying with US and French troops the part of Syria still held by Washington’s mercenaries sent to overthrow Assad and by re-supplying the Muslim extremists Washington is using against Assad’s secular government. With US and French troops present, Putin has halted the offensive to clear all of Syria of the foreign invaders. If Americans or French are killed, Putin knows that the demonization of Russia will reach a new high pitch and Washington will use it to counteract Europe’s dissatisfaction with Washington. The box into which Putin has been put by the Russian government’s misjudgement of US and Israeli intentions allows continuing US-led attacks on Syrian military positions. See: https://www.rt.com/news/427601-us-coalition-strike-syria/ Previously Putin blocked the planned US invasion of Syria by arranging for all of...

Ler mais

World Cup

Por | 31 maio, 2018 | , |

Russia’s World Cup blues are only to be expected   While the US may only be a bystander at one of the world’s biggest sporting events, it will not sit on the sidelines if a number of other issues arise M. K. Bhadrakumar May 31, 2018   Sporting events are great occasions to project “soft power.” Adolf Hitler hosted the Berlin Olympics in 1936 to project the image of a peace-loving, benign Germany. The western world had no qualms about participating in that event. But when it comes to Russia, the legacy of the two events it hosted were mired in political controversy – the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the 1994 [2014] Winter Olympics in Sochi. In 1980, the western world led by the United States boycotted the event, protesting against the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. And in 1994 [2014], the West stole the thunder from the Sochi Winter Olympics after the regime change in Ukraine that caught Russia hopelessly flat-footed, leading to cascading US and EU sanctions. But Vladimir Putin is a self-confessed sports nut and Russia finds itself hosting the most glamorous sporting event of the world – the FIFA World Cup 2018 from June 14 to July 15. Moscow must be heaving a sigh of relief that there is no western boycott of the event and three European teams are actually the favorites to...

Ler mais

SI/SN

Por | 31 maio, 2018 | , , |

Situação Internacional S 28 – Forum Econômico Internacional de São Petersburgo (SPIEF-22) : Angela Merkel e Emmanuel Macron estiveram na Rússia na semana passada, presentes no Forum. Shinzo Abe também lá esteve. Há quem queira ver nessas visitas um sinal de relaxamento das tensões entre Rússia e o Ocidente. . . Emmanuel Macron inclusive deu uma de Charles de Gaule, lembrando aos russos que a França é potência mundial, tem poder de veto no Conselho de Segurança da ONU e tem um exército para se defender de qualquer ameaça. Mas parece que Vladimir Putin não embarcou nessas conversas não. . . A lei da consequência não prevista nem desejada da ação política está em pleno vigor: o unipolarismo dos Estados Unidos promove o multipolarismo no mundo. . . E a OTAN está entrando no continente sul-americano por intermédio da Colômbia. . . Hoje é memorial day, feriado no país da guerra permanente. . . T 29 – Crise financeira e guerras cambial e comercial são assuntos de hoje: deu tudo errado na União Europeia, avisa George Soros. . . A Itália é o estopim da crise do euro, diz o WSJ. . . As próximas eleições na Itália poderão virar um referendo sobre o euro, diz o Reuters. . .  Jim Rogers avisa que ao primeiro sinal de problema na economia americana Donald Trump vai culpar os chineses e ataca-los com tarifas. . . Os...

Ler mais

Tópicos recentes