Russia Sends A Surprise Message To NATO With Sudden, Massive Military Exercise, Shots Fired In Persian Gulf -

Russia Sends a Surprise Message to NATO With Sudden, Massive Military Exercise

Russian Army units in the south and west, as well as the Air Force and the Navy’s northern fleet, have been placed on high alert as part of a massive snap exercise aimed at checking the troops’ readiness, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday.

At a press briefing with top military commanders, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu stated the move came by way of “the decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces” — Vladimir Putin — and that “Troops in the Southern Military District, some units of the Western and Central Military Districts, as well as the Northern Fleet, the Air Force and the Airborne Troops, are to be put on full alert.”

Shoigu said the war games, which are slated to run through August 31, will allow troops to be prepared to “defend Russia’s interests amid emerging security threats,” — meaning those in the western and southwestern regions where the Russian units are now on high alert.

The threats being referred to are those posed by the increasingly militarized NATO forces in Eastern Europe, along the western border of Russia, and the endless warfare happening along the country’s southwest, where the U.S.-backed government in Kiev ensures eastern Ukraine remains a constant warzone.

Meanwhile, North Korea — following a successful test firing of a ballistic missile — issued another threat to the United States on Thursday, warningthat it would bring “nuclear hammers of justice” down if the U.S. hints at aggressive action in Southeast Asia, according to a statement from North Korea’s KCNA news agency.

“The [North] Korean people would deal merciless blows at them with nuclear hammers of justice,” the KCNA statement reads, “so that nails of injustice may not come out again, once an opportunity is given, now that the DPRK has in place all substantial means capable of standing up against the US nuclear hegemony.”

The North Korean threat highlights the posturing taking place in the South and East China seas. The U.S. and China have been brought to the brink of naval warfare in the South China Sea over territorial disputes, and China and Japan — a U.S. ally — are ratcheting up tensions in the East China Sea over similar questions of sovereignty.

And hanging above all that is the fact that China recently joined the Russian alliance with Bashar al-Assad in Syria — in direct opposition to the United States.

The Syria war, incidentally, got a little hotter yesterday when Turkish tanks officially crossed the border into northern Syria in support of a U.S.-led coalition campaign to, purportedly, root out ISIS.

Turkey, however, who just pledged to militarily support the U.S. coalition in a new campaign in northern Syria, also has big economic plans in the works with Russia — who’s on the other side of the Syrian conflict.

One thing is for certain, however: Russia is preparing. On August 19 it was reported that Russian troops carried out an exercise in which they commanded “NATO” soldiers to “lay down your arms.” A loudspeaker recording also told the “enemy” that their “treacherous attack is disturbing a peaceful nation” and that they should “stop being pawns for your leaders.”

Shots Fired in Persian Gulf; Iran Warns Encroaching U.S. Ships Will be ‘Severely Punished’

Iran’s defense minister vowed Thursday that any U.S. or other warships that enter Iranian waters would be “severely punished,” as the Pentagon confirmed that a U.S. patrol vessel had fired warning shots after being approached by an Iranian attack boat in an “unsafe” manner.

“It is a natural and routine program of the border patrol to do surveillance in the southern waters and to collect intelligence on foreign ships’ operations,” the Mehr news agency quoted Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan as telling reporters in Isfahan.

Whether American or otherwise, he said, “any destroyer of any sort would be severely punished if they are found to encroach our waters in Persian Gulf.”

In the latest in a series of incidents in the area, an Iranian vessel approached two U.S. Navy ships Thursday, prompting crew on the USS Squall – a Cyclone-class patrol coastal ship forward deployed to the U.S. Fifth Fleet in Bahrain – to fire three warning shots.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said he believed the shots were fired “into the water.”

“The Iranian craft, as I understand it, left at that point.”

The U.S. vessels had initially taken other steps aimed at de-escalating the situation, including the firing of flares.

“They felt the need to take an additional step to try and de-escalate the situation, and that was, again, to fire the warning shots,” Cook said.

“The onus here is on the Iranians to conduct themselves in a safe and professional manner, like navies all over the world do.”

The Broken Chessboard: Brzezinski Gives Up On Empire

The main architect of Washington’s plan to rule the world has abandoned the scheme and called for the forging of ties with Russia and China. While Zbigniew Brzezinski’s article in The American Interest titled “Towards a Global Realignment” has largely been ignored by the media, it shows that powerful members of the policymaking establishment no longer believe that Washington will prevail in its quest to extent US hegemony across the Middle East and Asia. 

Brzezinski, who was the main proponent of this idea and who drew up the blueprint for imperial expansion in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, has done an about-face and called for a dramatic revising of the strategy. Here’s an excerpt from the article in the AI:

“As its era of global dominance ends, the United States needs to take the lead in realigning the global power architecture.

Five basic verities regarding the emerging redistribution of global political power and the violent political awakening in the Middle East are signaling the coming of a new global realignment.

The first of these verities is that the United States is still the world’s politically, economically, and militarily most powerful entity but, given complex geopolitical shifts in regional balances, it is no longer the globally imperial power.”

Brzezinski points to the rise of Russia and China, the weakness of Europe and the “violent political awakening among post-colonial Muslims” as the proximate causes of this sudden reversal. His comments on Islam are particularly instructive in that he provides a rational explanation for terrorism rather than the typical government boilerplate about “hating our freedoms.” To his credit, Brzezinski sees the outbreak of terror as the “welling up of historical grievances” (from “deeply felt sense of injustice”) not as the mindless violence of fanatical psychopaths.

Naturally, in a short 1,500-word article, Brzezniski can’t cover all the challenges (or threats) the US might face in the future. But it’s clear that what he’s most worried about is the strengthening of economic, political and military ties between Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and the other Central Asian states. This is his main area of concern, in fact, he even anticipated this problem in 1997 when he wrote Chessboard.

Here’s what he said:

“Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America’s status as a global power.” (p.55)

“…To put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.” (p.40)

“…prevent collusion…among the vassals.” That says it all, doesn’t it?

The Obama administration’s reckless foreign policy, particularly the toppling of governments in Libya and Ukraine, has greatly accelerated the rate at which these anti-American coalitions have formed. In other words, Washington’s enemies have emerged in response to Washington’s behavior. Obama can only blame himself.

Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin has responded to the growing threat of regional instability and the placing of NATO forces on Russia’s borders by strengthening alliances with countries on Russia’s perimeter and across the Middle East. At the same time, Putin and his colleagues in the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries have established an alternate banking system (BRICS Bank and AIIB) that will eventually challenge the dollar-dominated system that is the source of US global power. This is why Brzezinski has done a quick 180 and abandoned the plan for US hegemony; it is because he is concerned about the dangers of a non-dollar-based system arising among the developing and unaligned countries that would replace the western Central Bank oligopoly. If that happens, then the US will lose its stranglehold on the global economy and the extortionist system whereby fishwrap greenbacks are exchanged for valuable goods and services will come to an end.

Unfortunately, Brzezinski’s more cautious approach is not likely to be followed by presidential-favorite Hillary Clinton who is a firm believer in imperial expansion through force of arms. It was Clinton who first introduced “pivot” to the strategic lexicon in a speech she gave in 2010 titled “America’s Pacific Century”.

The strategic objectives are identical, the only difference is that Brzezinski has made a course correction based on changing circumstances and the growing resistance to US bullying, domination and sanctions. We have not yet reached the tipping point for US primacy, but that day is fast approaching and Brzezinski knows it.

In contrast, Clinton is still fully-committed to expanding US hegemony across Asia. She doesn’t understand the risks this poses for the country or the world. She’s going to persist with the interventions until the US war-making juggernaut is stopped dead-in-its-tracks which, judging by her hyperbolic rhetoric, will probably happen some time in her first term.

Brzezinski presents a rational but self-serving plan to climb-down, minimize future conflicts, avoid a nuclear conflagration and preserve the global order. (aka–The “dollar system”) But will bloodthirsty Hillary follow his advice?

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