For the sake of America, Ukraine, Russia, and the world — we need immediate diplomacy, not reckless commitments to prolong the war in Ukraine forever.

That's why, in the Maine Senate today, I called out the propaganda of the corporate media and the Washington war machine.

Senator DROPS Ukraine TRUTH BOMBS In HISTORIC SPEECH

Sen. Eric Brakey 

@SenatorBrakey

Mar 10

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BY GUS LEONISKY:

TO BE A RULER OF THE WORLD, IGNORANCE (OR DISTORTION THEREOF) OF HISTORY IS A PREREQUISITE.

SECOND, THE WILL FOR DOMINATION IS ESSENTIAL.

THIRD THE TOOLS OF DOMINATION ARE WAR AND SOFT POWER (CULTURAL IMPLANTATION)

— AND FOURTH CREATE A FAKE COMPETITION IN A RIGGED CORRUPT SYSTEM. 

People in Ukraine are dying and they blame Putin for being a thug by wagging war against their free country. He is a thug… Who can blame them — though so far, not that many people —compared to a full open warfare — have been killed, mostly Ukrainian soldiers. 

The Ukrainians don’t know that their sacrifice or plight, lies at the heart of a 1905 “commitment”… I am with them. Why should we care about old stuff that have no bearing on our enjoyment of life that Vladimir Putin is taking away now with his ruthless armies.* (READ MORE TOWARDS THE END OF THIS VERY LONG CONGLOMERATE OF IDEAS).

One power often hidden in this political caper is the Catholic Church — hell-bent on conquering the world. It’s in the BIBLE! 

Joe Biden despite his advanced senility is still a staunch catholic. The major tenet of this religion is DECEPTION. We have already studied the deals made during WW2 between the Ukrainian NAZIS, the Germans NAZIS and the Catholics. It’s not pretty. Presently, the Pope has been chastised by the Ukrainians for having reminded the world about the glorious Russian history. But one SHOULD see that the Pope is playing to the Orthodox audience as a friend, while the church has been a devil in history. In short, the Catholic Church should not indulge in ANY DIPLOMACY. It is a kingdom that since its inception has been involved in fomenting wars against other believers. While the armies of the Pope are now very small, the tools of DECEPTION and secrecy are still very powerful. Neither Russians, nor Ukrainians should trust the Catholics — especially not trust Joe Biden, the warrior and bullshitter since day one, when he cheated on his exams. Meanwhile, as stated in “The Age of Deceit” by Gus Leonisky in 2005 on this site, AMERICA is the most deceitful country on the planet and has been the most successful because of this. 

AMERICA invented a lot of controllIng globalist entities such as the IMF,  the WORLD BANK and the OECD…

SOFT POWER MANIFESTS IN ORGS LIKE THE OECD…. Here is the org patting itself on the back:

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives. Our goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all. We draw on 60 years of experience and insights to better prepare the world of tomorrow.

Together with governments, policy makers and citizens, we work on establishing evidence-based international standards and finding solutions to a range of social, economic and environmental challenges. From improving economic performance and creating jobs to fostering strong education and fighting international tax evasion, we provide a unique forum and knowledge hub for data and analysis, exchange of experiences, best-practice sharing, and advice on public policies and international standard-setting.

THIS OF COURSE IS GRAND ‘“ANGLO/SAXON” (AMERICAN) DECEPTION THAT HAS BEEN ASSIGNED TO MAKING DECISIONS ON YOUR BEHALF WITHOUT RECOGNITION OF YOUR CULTURAL IDENTITY.

YOU BECOME AMERICANISED…

YOU EAT THE FAST FOOD BURGER AND WATCH “HOLLOWOOD” MOVIES — AND TAKE THE BLUE PILL OF AMERICAN EMPIRE DISINFORMATION. 

LIKE AMERICA, THE OECD LIES:

HERE IS THE VIEW OF THE OECD ON THE NATO-PROVOKED RUSSIAN MILITARY INTERVENTION IN UKRAINE. WHAT FOLLOWS IS GRAND WESTERN DISINFORMATION DESIGNED TO BLAME RUSSIA AND RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION FOR WHAT HAPPENED. WHAT FOLLOW ARE LIES BY THE OECD: OECD SPECIALLY CRAFTED DISINFORMATION IS MIXED WITH IRRELEVANT STATISTICS AND OF COURSE IS FULL OF OMISSIONS. IT’S LONG AND WINDED… AND WILL TELL YOU THAT THE TRUTH IS RUSSIAN LIES…: YOU WILL NOTICE THAT THE OECD ACCUSES RUSSIA OF DOING EXACTLY WHAT THE OECD DOES…. THE OECD IS PERVERSE:

https://www.oecd.org/ukraine-hub/policy-responses/disinformation-and-russia-s-war-of-aggression-against-ukraine-37186bde/

Systematic information manipulation and disinformation have been applied by the Russian government as an operational tool in its assault on Ukraine (Council of the European Union, 2022[1]). The spread of disinformation by the Russian government and aligned actors, as well as the actions taken in response by the Government of Ukraine, allied governments and international organisations, provide an important perspective and lessons on how to counteract false and misleading content.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is notable for the extent to which it is being waged and shared online. While social media have played a role in previous wars – for example, Russian soldiers were identified on the battlefield in the Donbas region during the 2014 invasion and videos from the war in Syria were shared on TikTok – Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has illustrated how social media is changing the way war can be chronicled, experienced and understood (The Economist, 2022[2]). This is largely due to the rapid rise in internet coverage and the use of social media; 75% of Ukrainians use the internet, and 89% of the population is covered by at least 3G mobile technology (International Telecommunication Union, 2021[3]). In comparison, when the Russian Federation (hereafter “Russia”) invaded Ukraine in 2014, just 4% of Ukrainian mobile subscribers had access to 3G networks or faster, and during the war in Syria in 2015, only 30% of the Syrian population was online (The Economist, 2022[2]). Thanks in part to this dynamic, the ongoing war in Ukraine has also clarified the extent of the disinformation threat. Although the use of disinformation as a weapon has always existed, the social media landscape has multiplied its reach and potential penetration.

The disinformation surrounding Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marked an escalation in Russia’s longstanding information operations against Ukraine and open democracies. Matched by increased restrictions on political opposition in Russia, disinformation narratives progressed from propaganda and historical revisionism – for example, insisting that Crimea had “always been Russian” after Moscow’s annexation in 2014 (Coynash, 2021[4]; Chotiner, 2022[5]) – to false claims about neo-Nazi infiltration in Ukraine’s government and conspiracy theories about Ukraine/US bioweapons laboratories. These efforts represent a handful of the ways in which the Russian government and aligned actors use disinformation as a weapon and to distract, confuse and subvert opponents.

The spread of disinformation around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reflects wider challenges related to the shift in how information is produced and distributed. Platform and algorithm designs can amplify the spread of disinformation by facilitating the creation of echo chambers and confirmation bias mechanisms that segregate the news and information people see and interact with online; information overload, confusion and cognitive biases play into these trends (for additional discussion of these factors, see (Matasick, Alfonsi and Bellantoni, 2020[6])). A particular challenge is that people tend to spread falsehoods “farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth”; this is particularly the case for false political news (Vosoughi, Roy and and Aral, 2018[7]). For example, one study found that tweets containing false information were 70% more likely to be retweeted than accurate tweets (Brown, 2020[8]). Another study found that false information on Facebook attracts six times more engagement than factual posts (Edelson, 2021[9]). In addition, feedback loops between the platforms and traditional media can serve to further amplify disinformation, magnifying the risk that disinformation can be used to deliberately influence public conversations, as well as confuse and discourage the public.

The flow of – and disruption caused by – Russian disinformation has significantly increased since Russia's invasion in February 2022. In turn, Ukraine’s response to the Russian disinformation threat has built upon progress made in strengthening the information and media environment since 2014 and in establishing mechanisms to respond directly to information threats. These include efforts to provide accurate information, ensure that media organisations can continue operations, and policy efforts to combat the threats posed by Russian state-linked media.

Internationally, governments rapidly recognised the disinformation threat in the context of Russia’s large-scale aggression against Ukraine. In response, they have highlighted narratives and tools used by the Russian government, sanctioned media and personalities, and supported media environments domestically, as well as in Russia and Ukraine. International organisations similarly executed fact checking and debunking programmes, as well as provided cross-organisational mechanisms for information sharing and technical support. That said, lessons from government responses to the threat posed by disinformation during the first few months of the war will not necessarily represent what should be done in peace time due to the complicated and urgent circumstances brought on by the war. As Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine continues, striking the balance between countering disinformation while at the same time facilitating press freedom and a whole-of-society approach to strengthening information ecosystems and democracy will need to be considered.

The information threat from the Russian Federation

Russia’s disinformation campaigns purposefully confuse and undermine information environments. Their efforts seek to cause confusion, complicate efforts to reach consensus, and build support for Russia’s goals, while undermining the legitimacy of Ukraine’s response. While such efforts can pose the greatest risk in fragile democracies dealing with complicated historical, societal and economic issues, such as Ukraine, undermining the information space to this end has destructive implications for all democracies. Understanding how the Russian government controls media environments at home and the way mis- and disinformation is spread abroad is vital to counteract the threats posed to democracy and freedom of expression.

Disinformation tactics

Disinformation is the false, inaccurate, or misleading information deliberately created, presented and disseminated, whereas “mis-information” is false or inaccurate information that is shared unknowingly and is not disseminated with the intention of deceiving the public (Wardle and Derakshan, 2017[10]; Lesher, Pawelec and Desai, 2022[11]). Russian action fits squarely with the definition of disinformation. The Russian disinformation narratives are often false, or obscure facts with half-truths and “whataboutisms” (efforts to respond to an issue by comparing it to a different issue that does not engage with the original one). Russian actors employ a diverse strategy to introduce, amplify, and spread false and distorted narratives across the world. Its efforts rely on a mix of fake and artificial accounts, anonymous websites and official state media sources to distribute and amplify content that advances its interests and undermines competing narratives (Cadier et al., 2022[12]).

Russian propaganda and disinformation activities are produced in large volumes and are distributed across a large number of channels, both via online and traditional media. The producers and disseminators of this content include paid internet “trolls”, or people who post inflammatory, insincere, or manipulative messages via online chat rooms, discussion forums, and comments sections on news and other websites (Paul and Matthews, 2016[13]). Strategies have also included more targeted approaches. For example, in 2020, Facebook identified a Russian military operation targeting Ukraine that had created fake Facebook profiles who posed as journalists and who attempted to spread disinformation in a way that appeared to be more credible (Facebook, 2021[14]).

Similar tactics have continued and expanded during the war, pointing to the ongoing evolution of disinformation approaches and constant need to adapt and respond. The UK Government, for example, found that TikTok influencers were being paid to amplify pro-Russian narratives. Disinformation activities also amplified authentic messages by social media users that were consistent with Russia’s viewpoint in an effort to increase the spread of such narratives, giving an artificial sense of support while evading platforms’ measures to combat disinformation (The Guardian, 2022[15]). Efforts to manipulate public opinion on social media took place on Twitter and Facebook, with extensive efforts also concentrated on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. Evidence also exists of disinformation campaigns taking place in the comments sections of major media outlets (The Guardian, 2022[15]).

More overtly, the Russian government runs co-ordinated information (and disinformation) campaigns on its own social media accounts. For example, 75 Russian government Twitter accounts, with 7.3 million followers garnering 35.9 million retweets, 29.8 million likes and 4 million replies, tweeted 1 157 times between 25 February and 3 March 2022. Roughly 75% of the tweets covered Ukraine and many furthered disinformation narratives questioning Ukraine’s status as a sovereign state, drawing attention to alleged war crimes by other countries, and spreading conspiracy theories (Thompson and Graham, 2022[16]). Russian government accounts have also been linked to “typo squatting” (registering websites with deliberately misspelled names of similarly named websites) of popular news organisations containing false information. For example, Russian actors created a fake website of the Polish daily newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, to spread disinformation about the atrocities reported in Bucha (Stefanicki, 2022[17]).

These tactics did not begin with the large-scale invasion of Ukraine. In 2017, for example, Facebook found evidence that the Internet Research Agency – a Russian-based organisation that has created and used false accounts to deceive and manipulate people (Stamos, 2018[18]) – had exposed 126 million of its users to political disinformation ahead of the 2016 US election (Dwoskin, 2021[19]). Facebook says it has uncovered disinformation campaigns in more than 50 countries since 2017, with the countries most frequently targeted by foreign disinformation operations in this period being the United States, Ukraine and Britain (Facebook, 2021[14]).

The impact of social media goes beyond its use as a direct source of information, given that feedback loops between social media, traditional media in OECD Member States, and Russian state-backed media can rapidly amplify information (and disinformation). Such a feedback loop was observed, for example, in the case of a conspiracy theory about Ukrainian biological facilities masked as a secret bioweapons programme. The theory was originally shared by Twitter accounts connected with conspiracy theories in the United States, amplified by “off-line” media outlets (in this case cable news), and subsequently shared by Russian state propaganda (Ling, 2022[20]).

Common disinformation themes

In the run up to Russia’s invasion on 24 February, disinformation messages broadly sought to demoralise Ukrainians, sow division between Ukraine and its allies and bolster public perception of Russia (Wahlstrom et al., 2022[21]). Claims included that the military build-up prior to the invasion was for training exercises only; messages focused on historical revisionism delegitimising Ukraine as a sovereign state (that Ukraine has no historical claim to independence and was created by Russia); claims about neo-Nazi infiltration in the Ukrainian government; claims of threats to Russian populations in Ukraine and about the Ukrainian government committing genocide in those parts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts illegally controlled since 2014 by Russian-backed separatists; spreading “whataboutisms” that downplayed Russia’s large-scale invasion by drawing attention to alleged war crimes by other countries; etc. (Wahlstrom et al., 2022[21]) (Cadier et al., 2022[12]).

Since the war began, disinformation efforts have continued to focus on exploiting splits within Ukraine and between other governments. Analysis of Russian government and state-backed media during the war shows that current narratives revolve around several key themes. These include conspiracy theories about Ukrainian and US bioweapons research and so-called false flag operations, where Russia has claimed that acts they carried out were in fact committed by Ukraine with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility (Thompson and Graham, 2022[16]; Alliance for Securing Democracy, 2022[22]; Ilyushina, 2022[23]). The list of Ukraine-specific disinformation narratives is longed and constantly evolving (Box 1).

Box 1. Most common disinformation narratives

The following list compiles some of the most common myths and disinformation from more than 220 websites with a history of publishing false, pro-Russia propaganda and disinformation.

• Classified documents showing Ukraine was preparing an offensive operation against the Donbas
• The massacre of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, during the first month of the war was staged
• The United States is developing bioweapons designed to target ethnic Russians and has a network of bioweapons labs in Eastern Europe
• Ukraine threatened Russia with invasion
• US paratroopers have landed in Ukraine
• Ukraine staged the attack on the hospital in Mariupol on 9 March 2022
• European universities are expelling Russian students
• Ukraine is training child soldiers
• The war in Ukraine is a hoax
• Russia was not using cluster munitions during its military operation in Ukraine
• NATO has a military base in Odessa
• Russia does not target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine
• Modern Ukraine was entirely created by communist Russia
• Crimea joined Russia legally
• Ukrainian forces bombed a kindergarten in Lugansk on Feb. 17, 2022
• The United States and the United Kingdom sent outdated and obsolete weapons to Ukraine
• Nazism is rampant in Ukrainian politics and society, supported by Ukrainian authorities 
• Anti-Russian forces staged a coup to overthrow the pro-Russia Ukrainian government in 2014
• Russian-speaking residents in Donbas have been subjected to genocide

Source: Cadier et al. (2022[12]), “Russia-Ukraine Disinformation Tracking Center”, News Guard, https://www.newsguardtech.com/special-reports/russian-disinformation-tracking-center/ (accessed on 17 April 2022).

Russia’s efforts to manipulate the information space, and even specific narratives, mirror those used to justify its military intervention in Georgia in 2008, the illegal occupation of Crimea and its intervention in the Donbas in 2014. For example, Russian claims to be protecting Russians and Russian-speakers overseas are not new. In 2014, Russia stated it invaded Donbas on the pretext that ethnic Russians were being threatened in Eastern Ukraine. Similarly, in 2008, the Russian government blamed Tbilisi for committing ethnic cleansing and illegally distributed Russian passports to “protect” Russians in South Ossetia, as it did in Donbas (Seskuria, 2022[24]).

Mechanisms used by Russia to restrict the information space

While the narratives and overarching goals used have remained largely consistent, the tools available for disseminating false and misleading content, and Russia’s ability to control its own information environment, have continued to evolve. The government’s control over its domestic media (including traditional media, such as television and print, and online media) and the information and news the public receives allows it to squeeze out independent and fact-based reporting, replacing them with official narratives across major channels. In such a closed system, lack of access to reliable polling data or reporting makes it difficult to know the extent of public support for the war within Russia or of the public’s trust in the messages they are receiving. While by early April roughly 15 400 Russians had been arrested for protesting against the war (McCarthy, 2022[25]), and opposition and independent media reports have received tens of millions of views online, in the absence of protected civic space that allows people to air their views, the true extent of public support for the war against Ukraine in Russia is unclear.

Reduced freedom of expression, limited opportunity for public debate and the state’s growing influence over the traditional and non-traditional (online content, social media) news and information landscape is reflected in Russia’s World Press Freedom Index (Reporters Without Borders, 2022[26]) ranking from Reporters Without Borders, having steadily decreased since 2010 (Figure 1). Furthermore, independent public service broadcasters do not exist in Russia, and independent media are effectively banned. Such restrictions also make it easier to control narratives abroad on Russia’s war in Ukraine by forcing foreign media based in Russia to self-censor their reporting in response to banned themes and words (Reporters without Borders, 2022[27]).

Figure 1. World Press Freedom Index Rank

Source: (Reporters Without Borders, 2022[26]).

Roskomnadzor, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, enforces the state’s opposition to information to which it objects. Two days after the 2022 invasion, Roskomnadzor announced that media organisations could only publish information from official government media outlets on the war. The announcement also declared immediate investigations into 10 media outlets for the “dissemination of unreliable publicly significant information” (RFE/RL, 2022[28]) and ordered them to delete news and commentary that used terms such as “invasion” and “war” (outlets are instead required to use the term “special military operation”) ( (Izadi and Ellison, 2022[29]). The media outlets affected included the radio station Ekho Moskvy and TV Dozhd (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022[30]), which were subsequently blocked from broadcasting on 1 March; until then they had “been the sole remaining major independent broadcasters in Russia in the radio and television market, respectively” (International Press Institute, 2022[31]). They were blocked for the “purposeful and systematic” publishing of news that contained “calls for extremist activity, violence and deliberately false information regarding the actions of Russian military personnel as part of a special operation to protect the contested separatist states of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic” (International Press Institute, 2022[31]). Roskomnadzor is also in close contact with Russia’s security forces (Box 2).

Box 2. Roskomnadzor’s monitoring of anti-war sentiment

Since September 2020, Roskomnadzor has been increasing its monitoring of online protest and anti-war sentiment using an automated monitoring system called the “Office of Operational Interaction”. The system monitors mass media and internet communications for content that could counter official positions, such as criticism of Russian state officials, sanctions pressure, religious/ethnic conflict, and “pro-Western” interpretations of WWII history. Roskomnadzor sends daily monitoring reports to regional and local branches of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as regional governments and federal inspectors.

Source: Meduza (2022[32]), “The Hunt for ‘Antimilitarism’: Leaked Documents Indicate That Russia’s Federal Censor Has Been Monitoring the Internet for Peace Activism since at Least 2020”, https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/04/13/the-hunt-for-antimilitarism (accessed on 14 April 2022).

News aggregators, which do not produce the content that they share, can also be affected by Russia’s control of the information space. For example, Roskomnadzor restricted access to Google News, accusing it of providing access to "false" information about Russia’s war against Ukraine, based on a decision taken at the request of the Russian General Prosecutor's Office (Reporters without Borders, 2022[27]). Roskomnadzor also threatened to fine Google over “illegal” YouTube videos containing information about Russia’s “special military operation” (Roth, 2022[33]).

In addition to Roskomnadzor’s censorship, one of Russia’s most effective means of controlling narratives around the war has been via its law on spreading “fake news” about Russia’s armed forces, adopted by the State Duma on 4 March 2022. The law is ambiguous, allowing for wide application. For example, the law covers “public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”, without specifying what qualifies as false information. The law also provides legal means to apply fines of up to 500 000 roubles (EUR 6 200) or to imprison citizens for up to fifteen years for violations (TASS, 2022[34]; Bloomberg, 2022[35]).2

The Russian government has also taken direct actions against journalists and citizens. Soon after the outbreak of the war, journalists and citizens were arrested across the country for their reporting or public comments (Committee to Protect Journalists, 2022[36]). For example, in Sakhalin, a teacher was fined 30 000 roubles (roughly EUR 370) for telling students that she considered the invasion of Ukraine a mistake (Сибирь.Реалии, 2022[37]). An artist in St. Petersburg was arrested, pending trial on 31 May, for replacing price tags in a shop with information about Russia’s bombing of civilians (Meduza, 2022[38]).

The government is simultaneously limiting access to social media platforms within Russia. Foreign-based companies are much harder to control than local equivalents (such as VKontakte or Odnoklassiki), which are popular among the population and where the means of applying pressure by the Russian state are more numerous (Figure 2). The Russian government took control of VKontakte in 2014, for example, after its founder refused to hand over information on anti-Kremlin protestors (Allyn, 2022[39]).

ETC… ETC… ALL THIS iS BULLSHIT FROM THE OECD… WE KNOW. BUT IT IS DESIGNED TO SWAMP THE NARRATIVE WITH “FACTS” WHICH ARE NOT FACTS, BUT DELUSIONAL PORKIES…

SEE:

War Games in the Black Sea - Now What? w/ Col Doug Macgregor

MEANWHILE:

https://www.theinteldrop.org/2023/09/11/the-west-is-shocked-russia-is-turning-old-tires-into-weapons/

The West is shocked: Russia is turning old tires into weapons

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SOFT POWER:

Institutions, and Resources

The soft power of any state government depends mostly on three fundamental resources.

by Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

If we are taking into consideration the relations between international relations (IR) and diplomacy, founded on the contractual relations between the states, it can be argued that soft power in this case mostly depends on the ability of the state authorities to build and maintain international institutions. From the time after 1945, as consequences of the bloody result of WWII, international, transnational, and supranational multilateral institutions and organizations became valued by the international community more and more primarily as a certain mechanism of the rule of international law for the sake to preserve the stability and functioning of the international system in global policy and IR. State authority can achieve soft power within the framework of institutional power, by designing institutions, agenda-setting, or creating the will of the coalition as a whole – like the policy of the USA within NATO, for instance.

In principle, there are five focal factors on which the soft power of the state authority directly depends within the framework of the international, transnational, and supranational institutions:

• The state authority has to be familiar with the norms and rules of multilateral international, transnational, and supranational institutions. Most of those institutions are today still indispensable factors for the sake of the operation of international communication and IR regardless of the fact that some of them are unfair, corrupted, and unequal.
• The state authority has to learn to set agendas not merely and visibly for its own selfish interest, but as well as for more broader public interest at least concerning the target group of the countries for the very practical reason that only the agenda which represents the greater number of public interest and political aims is having real chances to be accepted by others. Nevertheless, the process of setting the agenda surely reflects a discourse power but at the same time it as well as requires a state authority to have strong communication skills in order to create consensus in a group especially in the case when exists divergent and/or diametrically opposite views.[1]
• The workable, attractive, and finally successful design solution for a problematic issue that is created by a state authority during the discussion usually attracts the representatives of other states or institutions/organizations to follow it and, consequently, increase its soft power.[2]
• Credibility-saving is as well as of extreme significance to the soft power of the state authority in any kind of multilateral international institution like the national image in IR is a crucial element or factor of soft power. In practice, for instance, if the state authorities more comply with international rules and norms, usually the reputation of their countries is rising and, therefore and consequently, they can create stronger social and political capital which can enhance the soft power of their governments in the international society.
• An action by the state authority founded rather on inclusive interests than self-interests is increasing its soft power in IR. Contrary, selfish patriotic nationalism is becoming usually a disadvantage concerning the accumulation of soft power.[3]

The soft power of any state government depends mostly on three fundamental resources: 1) The culture of the state, i.e., its people; 2) The political system of the state; and 3) The foreign policy of the government. All three of these resources can be more or less attractive or not attractive for others for different political, ethnonational, confessional, or ideological reasons. For instance, soft power founded on the attractiveness of the government’s foreign policy can be fruitful only if others see it as legitimate according to the norms and rules of international law and having moral authority.

Nevertheless, there are parenthetical conditions that are the focal factors in determining whether the resources of soft power are going to be translated into the behavior of attraction that can influence others and direct their policies toward favorable outcomes. It has to be clearly noticed that with soft power, what the target thinks is of extreme importance followed by the target matters as much as the agents.

In many practical cases, culture is an important resource of soft power but usually and especially by the countries of Great Powers (GP).[4] Culture, in general, is the pattern of social behaviors by which certain groups are transmitting knowledge and values to other groups, and it is functioning on multiple levels.[5] However, many cultural aspects are universal, some of them are national or very particular to social strata or small groups (for instance, ethnocultural minorities). One of the crucial features of culture is that it is never static, and different cultures are interacting in different ways. For Western policymakers, one of the cardinal questions in this matter is: Can Western cultural attraction reduce current extremist appeals in Islamic societies? Many researchers, especially Americans, see in this case an unbridgeable cultural and civilizational divide. However, in Iran, for instance, Western music and films are popular with many youngsters like in some other Islamic states. That is a way how the Western cultural soft power is promulgated in Islamic culture and society.

However, culture, political values, and foreign policies are not the only resources that are producing soft power but they are cardinal. For instance, military resources are able to produce soft power too like hard power policy. The same is in many practical cases around the world true of economic resources which are used to attract the policy of a certain state. A successful economy is a very significant and powerful resource of attraction under the umbrella of soft power, like both Japan and China in the case of the Asia-Pacific region, for instance, have each discovered. The economic power is able, at the same time, to provide the resources that are proper to be used as hard power inducements in the form of aid or coercive sanctions. In reality, however, it is very difficult to make difference in what part of an economic or financial relationship is comprised of hard and soft power. For instance, the centralized bureaucratic apparatus in Brussels of the European Union (EU) is keen to describe the desire by other (East European) states to join the EU as a sign of the EU’s soft power (primarily seen in financial aid).[6]

Many realists argue that the difference between hard and soft power is a contrast between realism and idealism, but, in essence, there is no contradiction between realism and soft power. In other words, soft power cannot be considered a form of liberalism or idealism as it is, in essence, a form of power or one way of getting desired results in politics. Nevertheless, legitimacy is a powerful reality and, consequently, competitive struggles over international legitimacy became a significant part of enhancing or depriving actors of soft power.

In soft power policy are no state authorities involved as diplomacy in our time includes a variety of non-state actors like different corporations, organizations, institutions, NGOs, etc. all of them have to a certain degree soft power of their own. In practice, even individual celebrities can use their soft power.

Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirovic

Ex-University Professor

Research Fellow at Centre for Geostrategic Studies

https://theduran.com/soft-power-multilateral-international-institutions-and-resources/

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Othello and the war: Berlin Bulletin, September 11, 2023

By Victor Grossman (Posted Sep 11, 2023)

The war in Ukraine, a horrific tragedy for the people of that unhappy country, fateful as well for many young Russians and potentially menacing for all the world, with burnished weapons of every size and destructive power waiting in silos or submarines for a slip, a blunder, a provocation. Tragic byproducts are further splits in weak, divided peace and leftist movements around the world. Who should bear the blame? For many the answer is a foregone conclusion. For some an inner dispute continues.

As one of those plagued by such torment, my bookish background calls to mind a tragedy of the stage—one of the most memorable. Is a parallel possible? The handsome African general Othello, though deeply in love with his beautiful young Venetian wife Desdemona, uses his strong hands to strangle her—a shocking crime. But, scene for scene, Shakespeare shows us how his sly enemy Iago conspired to cause this tragedy, misusing all around him to make Othello believe that his Desdemona betrayed his love. Do Iago’s intrigues absolve Othello? They cannot. But they reveal where the blame is really concentrated: Iago’s hatred, greed, jealousy, plain evilness, paired with a cunning ability to dissemble and deceive. “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve,” Iago resolves.

I am not what I am.

Can a pure coincidence—a change of two letters in Iago’s name—lead us to the conniving spirit weaving a web which Vladimir Putin ripped through in February 2022? He is certainly no Othello, and Zelensky has zero similarity with Desdemona. But what about NATO? Hasn’t its role been a long series of Iago-like intrigues, deception—and violence as well? Wasn’t its focus from its start directed at defeating the USSR, which for President Reagan was “the focus of evil in the modern world”?

An article in the Washington periodical “The Hill” described key methods used to defeat this “evil empire“: “… covert support of the Solidarity movement in Poland, an increase in pro-freedom public diplomacy through instruments like the National Endowment for Democracy, a global campaign to reduce Soviet access to Western high technology and a drive to hurt the Soviet economy by driving down the price of oil and limiting natural gas exports to the West.” This “secret declaration of economic war” forced the USSR, still not fully recovered from the immense damage done by the fascist invaders in World War II, to spend some $8 billion annually to deflect its impact.

However, the offensive was successful. George H. W. Bush could announce:

For over 40 years, the United States led the West in the struggle against Communism and the threat it posed to our most precious values… The Soviet Union itself is no more. This is a victory for democracy and freedom…

But soon after politely thanking Mikhail Gorbachev “for his intellect, vision and courage” in helping to make this victory possible, U.S. favor switched to the man who used tanks against the elected Duma so as to throw Gorbachov out and seize power. Bush made future principles clear:

We have been heartened and encouraged by President Yeltsin’s commitment to democratic values and free-market principles, and we look forward to working with him.

The Cold War chapter of history seemed closed. In January 1990 West German Foreign Minister Genscher stated that “the changes in Eastern Europe and the German unification process must not lead to an ‘impairment of Soviet security interests.’ Therefore, NATO should rule out an ‘expansion of its territory towards the east… closer to the Soviet borders.’” On February 10 Chancellor Kohl promised; if the Soviets approved German unification NATO would not expand to the east. Secretary of State James Baker assured Foreign Minister Shevardnadze three times of the “not one inch expansion” and told Gorbachev that “… also for other European countries it is important to have guarantees… not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread eastward.”

But—shades of Iago—this pledge was not put into writing, there were no signatures. Within a year Poland’s Foreign Minister visited NATO Headquarters and President Lech Walesa said that Poland wants “a safe Europe, which is guaranteed by NATO”. In March 1992, NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner assured Poland that “the door to NATO is open.” In 1999 Czechia, Hungary and Poland became NATO members, followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

Yeltsin was a weak, acquiescent head of state who opened the Russian door to capitalists from near and far (the Russian ones were called oligarchs). By 2000 the population had been robbed of billions, the economy neared total collapse—until a tough new ruler took over. Vladimir Putin rescued the economy in the nick of time, and was intent on raising Russia up from the third level it had been demoted to and re-establishing it as a major power.

In Munich, in February 2007, Putin recalled the “one inch” promises and questioned “the so-called flexible frontline American bases with up to five thousand men in each. It turns out that NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders… I think it is obvious that NATO expansion does not have anything to do with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended? And what happened to the assurances our western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today? No one even remembers them.”

The expansive plan to surround European Russia, economically and militarily, centered on Ukraine. As early as 2008, in a secret cable made known by Julian Assange, the American ambassador to Moscow, William Burns, sent a far-sighted warning to Washington:

Following a muted first reaction to Ukraine’s intent to seek a NATO Membership Action Plan at the Bucharest summit, Foreign Minister Lavrov and other officials have reiterated strong opposition, stressing that Russia would view further eastward expansion as a potential military threat.

“NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains ‘an emotional and neuralgic’ issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene,” the cable said.

Burns was promoted; he now heads the CIA. But his wise warning was purposefully disregarded.

This became crystal clear when Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton’s right-wing aide, spent $5 billion or more to organize an opposition to Ukraine’s elected government and then overthrow it in a bloody putsch in February 2014. A hacked telephone call revealed that she had even selected the next premier—in league with gangs of armed men, many wearing Nazi symbols, some giving Hitler salutes, and all honoring their dead hero Stepan Bandera, who had urged and led the murder of thousands of Russians, Jews, Poles and Hungarians in 1941.

In March 2016 the expert Australian journalist John Pilger warned  that nuclear warhead spending “rose higher under Obama than under any other American president… In the last 18 months, the greatest build-up of military forces since World War Two, led by the USA, is taking place along Russia’s western frontier. Not since Hitler invaded the Soviet Union have foreign troops presented such a demonstrable threat to Russia.

Ukraine has become a CIA theme park. Having orchestrated a coup in Kiev, Washington effectively controls a regime that is next door and hostile to Russia: a regime rotten with Nazis, literally. Prominent parliamentary figures… openly praise Hitler and call for the persecution and expulsion of the Russian-speaking minority… In Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia—next door to Russia—the U.S. military is deploying combat troops, tanks, heavy weapons.

In fact, the first measures taken by the new USA-backed Kiev government were to suppress the Russian-speaking parts of the country—leading to the breakaway of Crimea and the Donbas region—and to civil war. And while swift membership in NATO was not possible, a series of naval and military maneuvers on Russia’s southern  borders was pursued, with most NATO members joining in.

In February 2022, just as Ambassador Burns had warned, Russia did feel forced to intervene. A frightening decision, with terrible, bloody results. I must condemn Putin, just as the audience blames Othello. But should Iago be praised?

What is the goal of those who finance, support and largely control the leaders in Kiev—and urge a battle until victory? Pres. Biden, at a Business Roundtable meeting of the wealthiest American elite, declared,

There’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it. We’ve got to unite the rest of the Free World in doing it.

Noble sentiments—invoked in countless variations by almost every president, especially when the USA was engaged in a subversion, conflict, regime change, blockade or direct military intervention. No, when leafing through my history books, I cannot find one case where such actions by the USA and its NATO gauntlet in any way furthered a better “new world order”—or anything but death and destruction, chaos, misery, corrupt new rulers: Iran, Guatemala, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Honduras, Iraq, Congo, Ghana, Libya, most dramatically in Chile, most lengthily against Cuba, most catastrophically in Vietnam, and perhaps most bitterly in decades of support for apartheid in South Africa and the enforced “settlement” of Palestine. Is there a single example where Washington’s ”new order” brought improvement, not new suffering? I can think of none!

Looking beyond the Othello level to the world stage, I see three immense threats endangering not only the people of Ukraine and quite likely Russia, but all of us, everywhere. First of all—the climate catastrophe, heightening temperatures spreading from the Equator to the poles and, with them, disappearing islands, retreating coastlines, the extinction of fauna and flora, the despair of whole populations faced by droughts, floods, fires and hurricanes.

Secondly, in response to worsening living standards for millions, caused by the environmental collapse, by wars such as in Ukraine, by the resulting distortions of world trade and by weak labor movements whose resistance is limited by the lack of an active, uncorrupted, multipolar Left, there is a growing danger of brutal fascism. This became all too apparent in Washington in January 2021, it is visible in the growing strength of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), it is reflected in elections in France, Italy, Scandinavia, Austria and elsewhere.

Thirdly, and most menacingly, though all too often overlooked or ignored; the danger of atomic conflict and world conflagration. With growing military confrontation and both sides’ fear of defeat, a simple error of judgement, a mistakenly strayed missile, perhaps a local provocation could set in motion a chain leading to total catastrophe.

Lurking behind all three, I am convinced, we can find a dwindling number of obscenely wealthy clusters of the world’s multimillionaires and billionaires. No matter which field we examine, we find more or less a handful of corporations dominating it. Five or six auto makers, five or six pharmaceutic developers, even less seed and herbicide monopolists, a few mighty film-makers, newspaper czars and TV barons, even among book publishers. There are perhaps a few dozen of such mighty groups.

Three are especially alarming. The giant fossil fuel drillers, dealers and transporters, many more than a century in merciless boring and mining, have done the most to poison the world, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, from Amazon forests to the Niger delta—while bribing  the hungry media bosses to help them dupe millions in the belief that the climate damage they cause does not take place.

Potentially even more dangerous is the “Silicon Valley” kind of wizardry, dominated by Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Twitter/X, Facebook, Google, which increasingly influence our shopping, our entertainment, our social life (or lack of it), our mind patterns, with growing control of our purchases, preferences, movements, even, with such as Alexa, in our living rooms and bedrooms. Also our political decisions! And AI threatens far worse!

Yet even more fearsome are the armaments manufacturers. Dominated by six or seven in the USA, augmented by makers of mass killer machines in other countries, with the Germans, like Krupp or Rheinmetall having the lengthiest, ugliest backgrounds. These companies, to stay on top and please their profiteers, must produce more and more. When arms storage sites and hangars are full, their contents must be used to make room for more; expiration dates and warnings of obsolescence also demand action! Such manufacturers can never favor peaceful solutions; they would be their undoing!

These ruling clusters of the extremely wealthy—and there are some Russian and Chinese oligarchs among them—are influencing, dominating or controlling minds and actions of governments everywhere. It is they who deceive and defy on climate issues, it is they who, while rarely resorting to genuine fascism—as yet—frequently hold its ugly features and methods in reserve, not all too overtly. But when worsening living conditions or better organizers lead to growing resistance or even rebellion from below, endangering a smooth flow of profits or even their end, those reserves, impatiently  polishing their weapons and their connections, are kept waiting eagerly in the wings.

Which brings me back to the stage—to Othello and Iago. I stress again; I can never approve of killing, no matter how motivated, not of killing and destruction in a neighbor’s country, except in self-defense. And Shakespeare lets Othello die, killing himself in a form of retribution.

But neither can I accept a lack of clarity about who really caused and precipitated the tragedy. Putin is no angel, no hero, not an Othello. Nevertheless, I believe that he is primarily motivated by the wish to defend Russia against encirclement, suffocation followed by subservience or dismemberment—the fate of an insubordinate Yugoslavia not so long ago. Perhaps he keeps in mind the fates of men who defied Washington’s drive for world hegemony: the heart attack of Milošević in a prison cell, the death of Allende, the torture and dissolving in acid of Patrice Lumumba, the castration and public hanging of Afghanistan’s Najibullah, the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the murder and oceanic body disposal of Osama bin Laden, the sodomy killing of Muammar Gaddafi.

Until the war on Ukraine began most of the violence in the world was a product of the intrigues, the aggression, the weapons managed and controlled by those powerful clusters who maintain such a tight control of congressmen and senators, half of them millionaires, of Supreme Court majorities, almost always of the White House, also of the Pentagon, CIA, NED, FBI and dozens of other institutions. It is they, a tiny number, less than 0.1%, whose wealth outweighs that of half the world’s population, but who can never be sated. They want to rule the whole world.

Two large barriers remain, two big countries bar their course. They are not the faultless, Utopian models some of us once dreamed of; they, too, require a host of basic changes and improvements. But they are barriers all the same, tough barriers in fact, also armed with Satanic weapons.

The world needs to drop a curtain on this confrontation, increasingly threatening in Ukraine, increasingly dangerous in East Asia. Regardless of differences it must be halted—not bloodily as in Shakespeare’s tragedy, but with some form of détente, however reluctant either side may be.

Such a cease fire and successful negotiations must be the world’s immediate and urgent goal. Ultimately it must face a deeper imperative; not only reining in the super-rich, super-powerful intriguers—but, as they are an outdated but constant source of danger and dismay, their total banning from the world stage.

About Victor Grossman

Victor Grossman, born in NYC, fled McCarthy-era menaces as a young draftee, landed in East Germany where he observed the rise and fall of its German Democratic Republic (GDR). He has described his own life in his autobiography Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany (University of Massachusetts Press, 2003), and analyzed the GDR and questions of capitalism and socialism in Germany and the USA, with his provocative conclusions, along with humor, irony and occasional sarcasm in all directions, in A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee (New York: Monthly Review Press). His address is wechsler_grossman [at] yahoo.de (also for a free sub to the Berlin Bulletins sent out by MR Online).

https://mronline.org/2023/09/11/othello-and-the-war-berlin-bulletin-september-11-2023/

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SOME WEBSITES HAVE BEEN DELETED BY THE AMERICANS WHO CONTROL WHAT IS SAID. HERE WE NEED TO FOLLOW :

Michel Chossudovsky (born 1946) is a Canadian economist and author. He is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Ottawa[1][2] and the president and director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which runs the website globalresearch.ca, founded in 2001, which publishes falsehoods and conspiracy theories.[3][4][5] Chossudovsky has promoted conspiracy theories about 9/11.[6][7][10][11]

In 2017, the Centre for Research on Globalization was accused by information warfare specialists at NATO’s Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (STRATCOM) of playing a key role in the spread of pro-Russian propaganda.[12] A report by the U.S. State Department in August 2020 accused the website of being a proxy for a Russian disinformation campaign.[13]

Biography

Chossudovsky is the son of a Russian Jewish émigré, the career United Nations diplomat and academic Evgeny Chossudovsky, and an Irish Protestant, Rachel Sullivan. Raised in Switzerland, Chossudovsky moved to Canada and joined the University of Ottawa in 1968.[10] According to the Ottawa Citizen, Chossudovsky's academic research kept him "on the margins of mainstream academia," but won praise from anti-establishment intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky. In 2005, shortly after Chossudovsky began writing about terrorism, the Citizen reported that Chossudovsky's was "a popular figure among anti-globalization activists," and that some of his students referred to him as "Canada's Chomsky."[10] At that time, some colleagues were becoming uncomfortable with Chossudovsky's ideas, with one professor describing them as having "a conspiratorial element."[10]

In 2005, Chossudovsky published the book America's "War on Terrorism". According to The New York Times, the "conspiracy-minded book... argued that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were simply a pretext for American incursions into the Middle East, and that Bin Laden was nothing but a boogeyman created by the United States".[6] The book was found on a bookshelf in Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad, Pakistan compound.[6][14][7] According to the Vox website, the book's theory is that "9/11 was a United States government conspiracy to start the Iraq War and enable a 'new world order' to help corporate interests. Bin Laden was, at best, a pawn in CIA interests."[7]

Chossudovsky has contributed to the French magazine Le Monde diplomatique.[15] He is frequently quoted by or appears on the Kremlin-backed RT (formerly known as Russia Today) or in material issued by the Sputnik news agency.[12] The Centre for Research on Globalization regularly reposts content from both outlets.

Centre for Research on Globalization

"Globalresearch.ca" redirects here. Not to be confused with Global News or GlobalSecurity.org.

In 2001, Chossudovsky founded the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), becoming its director and the editor of its online resource, Global Research. Located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the CRG describes itself as an "independent research and media organization" providing "analysis on issues which are barely covered by the mainstream media".

The Centre for Research on Globalization promotes conspiracy theories and falsehoods.[22] According to Peter Knight, it "published influential early articles alleging that the U.S. intelligence agencies had far more forewarning than they claimed" of the September 11 attacks.[23] that the United States and its allies fund al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and that sarin was not used in the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, which globalresearch.ca articles characterized as a false flag operation orchestrated by terrorists opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.[12][16] Other articles published on the site have asserted that the 7 July 2005 London bombings were perpetrated by the United States, Israel, and United Kingdom.[10] Chossudovsky has himself posted articles on the site which suggested that Osama bin Laden was a CIA asset, and accusing the United States, Israel and Britain of plotting to conquer the world.[10] The Centre has also promoted the Irish slavery myth, prompting a letter by more than 80 scholars debunking the myth.[21]

According to PolitiFact, the Centre "has advanced specious conspiracy theories on topics like 9/11, vaccines and global warming."[17] Foreign Policy magazine has commented that the Centre "sells books and videos that 'expose' how the September 11 terrorist attacks were 'most likely a special covert action' to 'further the goals of corporate globalization.'"[18] A 2010 study categorized the website as a source of anti-vaccine misinformation.[19] The Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab described it as "pro-Putin and anti-NATO".[24] The Jewish Tribune, citing a complaint from B'nai Brith Canada, describing the website as being "rife with anti-Jewish conspiracy theory and Holocaust denial."[25] Writing for The New Republic in 2013, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, lecturer in digital journalism at the University of Stirling, describes the Centre's website as a "conspiracy site".[20]

In November 2017, The Globe and Mail reported that the Centre's website was "in the sights" of NATO information warfare specialists investigating "the online spread of pro-Russia propaganda and of disinformation." According to the Globe, NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (StratCom) believed that the site was playing a "key accelerant role in helping popularize articles with little basis in fact that also happen to fit the narratives being pushed by the Kremlin" and the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. The report described the site as an "online refuge for conspiracy theorists" and suggested that NATO specialists viewed it as "a link in a concerted effort to undermine the credibility of mainstream Western media—as well as the North American and European public's trust in government and public institutions."[12] Asked to comment on the report, Chossudovsky responded through his lawyer, saying that the Centre did not have ties to pro-Russia or pro-Assad networks, was not "affiliated with governmental organizations" and did not benefit from their support.[12]

An August 2020 report by the U.S. State Department Global Engagement Center stated that Global Research is, by a significant margin, the most accessed proxy website allied with the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign. By the estimation of report's authors, it has accumulated 12.4 million page views, with around 351,247 readers for each article. Chossudovsky is a board member of other pro-Russian websites which attempt to spread conspiracy theories.[13] Responding via his lawyer, this time to CBC News, Chossudovsky again denied the 2020 accusations made against him.[5]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports that his Global Research website functions as a conduit for Russian-linked disinformation. [26]

The CRG has been accused of spreading CCP propaganda.[27][28] An article on Global Research making the false assertion that the coronavirus pandemic was not real was carried by 70 other outlets, according to the August 2020 State department report.[13] Chossudovsky himself has described it as being a "manufactured pandemic".[5] Earlier in 2020, his list of 10 questions was tweeted by the foreign minister of Iran. They included the claim that the United States government was responsible for the international coronavirus pandemic.[29] Global Research published an article entitled "COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US" was posted on social media by a senior official in the Chinese foreign ministry.[28][30][31] Chinese state media have reported such unfounded speculation which has been carried by Chossudovsky's website with, according to The Globe and Mail, misattributed sources.[31] Reportedly, the two articles on this theme have since been removed from the globalresearch.ca website.[32]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Chossudovsky#Centre_for_Research_on_Globalization

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CAPITALISM

CAPITALISM

BY Shiraz Durrani

There are no walls
in this prison
It is built on a foundation of fear, intimidation, and threats.

Keep the history book closed 

Keep the historian in prison 

The prison without walls 

Has room for many. 

The poem, Kenya, A Prison Without Walls depicts the situation in Kenya. But that situation is not confined to Kenya only. It is the situation in countries under capitalism for working people. Although a sizeable number are held in prisons with walls, particularly in the USA, others are held in other types of prisons created by capitalism and imperialism. The primary type is the economic one where working people are reduced to almost slave-like situations and kept at the bottom of the social and economic order by debt created to keep them in life-long bondage to capitalism. Whether it is student loans, housing mortgages or loans that people are forced to acquire for food and rents, the result is the control of working people through financial manipulation. Employment, when available, cannot provide enough funds to survive. Once the wages of one person (male usually) was enough for the survival of the entire family. The capitalist thirst for extraction of ever more surplus value now means that even with two members of a family working, the wages are sometimes not enough even for food. All social services, once provided by the state, are being privatised and made ever more difficult to access. The provision of food is no longer the responsibility of a disappearing welfare state. It is being returned to the community through a volunteering process they call ‘food banks’. Even as branches of financial banks close, food banks are flourishing in Britain. In such ways, capitalism takes away the self-respect and dignity of working people for having to depend on others for their survival, even though they work ever harder.

And there are other types of prisons that control working people. An important one is the imprisonment of minds, done through distortion and hiding of news and knowledge that can liberate the captured working-class minds. Mass media, education, publishing, and similar avenues are used to control what information about their world, their culture, their history is available to people.

Another prison created by capitalism is the prison of hate against other people. Thus, people’s potential class allies are turned into their enemies. This is achieved by capitalism creating and reinforcing divisions among people, based on religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other supposed differences which had not prevented people from living together peacefully in the past.

Such measures are not undertaken for their own sake. They are meant to prevent people from resisting their exploitation and oppression by capitalism. That is the way that capitalism has survived, even though it has been rejected by working people.

But it is not just people who are thus put into prisons without walls. The tactics used against people are also deployed against countries, which are tied down by invisible chains of debt by capitalist institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organisation. Just as people are tied down by life-long debts, countries similarly face never-ending debts and interest payments, depriving funds for supporting people. International financial institutions are the unseen forces that imprison countries.

Capitalism then creates its own jailers in countries of the South to run their profit-extracting machinery. Whereas they had to send in their own agents to do the dirty work of exploiting and oppressing people, they have now franchised these functions to the newly created (by capitalism!) agents of capitalism who are of the same colour and come from the same countries as those of the exploited people. They are thus less conspicuous as oppressors from outside and do the same work but with little payment from imperialism. Their wages are paid from the resources of people and countries they exploit and manage on behalf of capitalism. That is another reason for the survival of capitalism in the South.

Capitalism has impoverished people to such an extent that there is now a growing tide of resistance everywhere, including in the Global North. Resistance at an international level also comes from the actions of BRICS, which is taking steps to create an alternate financial, trade and support structure aimed at countries currently ‘imprisoned’ by capitalism and international finance. The battle has begun. But it will be a fierce struggle before capitalism itself is put into prison.

——-

Selection from the forthcoming book by Shiraz Durrani: GUERRILLA INCURSIONS INTO THE CAPITALIST MINDSET: Essays with Focus on Kenya,1979-2023.  To be published by Vita Books (Nairobi).

Shiraz Durrani is a Kenyan political exile living in London. He has worked at the University of Nairobi as well as various public libraries in Britain where he also lectured at the London Metropolitan University. Shiraz has written many articles and addressed conferences on aspects of Kenyan history and on politics of information in the context of colonialism and imperialism. His books include Kenya’s War of Independence: Mau Mau and its Legacy of Resistance to Colonialism and Imperialism, 1948-1990 (2018, Vita Books). He has also edited Makhan Singh – A Revolutionary Kenyan Trade Unionist (2017, Vita Books) and Pio Gama Pinto: Kenya’s Unsung Martyr,1927 – 1965 (2018, Vita Books). He is a co-editor of The Kenya Socialist. and edited Essays on Pan-Africanism (2022, Vita Books, Nairobi). His latest book (2023) is Two Paths Ahead: The Ideological Struggle between Capitalism and Socialism in Kenya, 1960-1990. Some of his articles are available at https://independent.academia.edu/DurraniShiraz and books at:  https://www.africanbookscollective.com/search-results?form.keywords=vita+books

https://countercurrents.org/2023/09/capitalism-the-prison-without-walls/

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BY GUS LEONISKY: THE WORLD AMERICAN EMPIRE

*People in Ukraine are dying and they blame Putin for being a thug by wagging war against their free country. He is a thug… Who can blame them — though so far, not that many people —compared to a full open warfare — have been killed, mostly Ukrainian soldiers. 

The Ukrainians don’t know that their sacrifice or plight, lies at the heart of a 1905 “commitment”… I am with them. Why should we care about old stuff that have no bearing on our enjoyment of life that Vladimir Putin is taking away now with his ruthless armies.

A serious article in Pearls and Irritations asks the question: why did not Biden and Blinken sign a non-aggression pact with Russia. Why did they tell Putin to fuck off when he asked the US and NATO to respect decent red lines? Why? It would have been simple: sign an agreement that stops Ukraine dreaming of becoming a NATO member. Sign an agreement that Ukraine will respect the Minsk agreements. End of story. Putin happy and Ukraine can live in peace. So why did the US not agree on Russia’s terms and did not want to even discuss these proposals anyway?

The USA started to become a world Empire and dreamt to divide the world in pie portions. They still do. See their Navycom... This has been done under the theory of Mackinder… I know, some people thought it was a bullshit theory… Mackinder was doing the theorising for the British Empire in 1905 and, though, Gus can only find unreliable tidbits, one can assume that Mackinder and Cecil Rhodes worked together for the British Empire “to conquer the world”. By 1919, this “second" British Empire had crashed somewhat. WW1 and all that, you know… The Yanks were preparing to take over anyway. They already had "conquered" the Latin Americas...

Sir Halford John Mackinder (15 February 1861 – 6 March 1947) was an English geographer, academic and politician, who is regarded as one of the founding fathers of both geopolitics and geostrategy. He was the first Principal of University Extension College, Reading (which became the University of Reading) from 1892 to 1903, and Director of the London School of Economics from 1903 to 1908. 

Critics of his theory argue that in modern days, it is outdated due to the evolution of technological warfare, as, at the time of publication, Mackinder only considered land and sea powers. In modern days there are possibilities of attacking a rival without the need for a direct invasion via cyber attacks, aircraft or even use of long range missile strikes.

Other critics argue that "Mackinderian analysis is not rational because it assumes conflict in a system where there is none”. ALL These criticisms are not valid. One can start a conflict by proxy. We’ve seen this done time and time again by the USA in many countries. Meanwhile, the core values of the prizes have become incommensurable. So what is it all about:

According to Mackinder, the Earth's land surface was divisible into:

• The World-Island, comprising the interlinked continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa (Afro-Eurasia). This was the largest, most populous, and richest of all possible land combinations.

• The offshore islands, including the British Isles and the islands of Japan.

• The outlying islands, including the continents of North America, South America, and Oceania.

The Heartland lay at the centre of the world island, stretching from the Volga to the Yangtze and from the Himalayas to the Arctic. Mackinder's Heartland was the area then ruled by the Russian Empire and after that by the Soviet Union, minus the Kamchatka Peninsula region, which is located in the easternmost part of Russia, near the Aleutian Islands and Kurile islands. In modern days this is called Siberia. So why would Siberia attract envy from the West? (see map).

Answer: RESOURCES. 

We are also told that Mackinder's theory was never fully proven as no singular power in history has had control of all three of the regions at the same time. Apparently, the closest this ever occurred was during the Crimean War(1853-1856) whereby Russia attempted to fight for control over the Crimean Peninsula, ultimately losing to the French and the British. Yet the Russians never threatened the outlying islands, though Sydney Harbour, Australia, still has old fortification built “to stop a Russian Invasion”. 

We should know what happened to Crimea since and why the West still does not recognise Crimea as Russian… The Russian ownership of Crimea goes against the deep desire of the Empire to control the Heartland. The "greatest prize” so far, which some US analyst called "Ukraine coming to the West” which is part of conquering the next: the Heartland. This would come after having defeated Russia, the Baltic states and half of China which in the times of Mackinder (1905) was a populous degenerate opium smoking lot. The rest of the "Rimlands" were to be easily controlled from the sea, including China. 

Is this Mackinder’s plan still alive? Yes. It has been modified though and improved by other “thinkers” of the US Empire, such as Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and Brzezinski… The Heartland is still the big prize, but Putin (and Xi) is in the way. This is why Blinken and Biden did not want to sign anything that would prohibit the US from accessing the Heartland “legally”, by force or by cajoling, eventually. 

Are you still with me? 

Putin would know all this history and he had one alternative: Pack up and give the Heartland to the Empire or fight back, prevented “prizes” such as Ukraine fall in the hand of the Empire… It sounds a bit far fetched, I know…  But we're dealing with the US deep State (the Swamp) the people of which have no qualms and no morals, except conquer. I ask you, does the US Empire want to destroy Russia. Your guess could be better than mine which is YES… My other guess is that Putin hates war as much as anybody else in the streets of Kyiv or Moscow protesting against him. But history in evolution is not a kind mistress. The West has been lying to Russia since 1917 and is still lying with renewed vigour.

In 1946 in the famous "Long Telegram" George Kennan, a US diplomat based in Moscow, denounced that the next threat to the existence of the free world would come from the Soviet Union. According to Kennan the combination of ideological elements, namely the Marxist-Leninist thesis of the capitalist encirclement aimed at killing the proletarian revolution, and cultural attitudes, namely the expansionist and imperialistic ambitions inherently part of Russian history, should have pushed the United States to annihilate the Communist threat through a farsighted containment along the Soviet borders.

It is from this moment that, by understanding the importance of the hegemony over Eurasia, the United States decided to enter into the Great Game, since then fought by the British Empire, and to make the control over the Heartland one of its priorities.

Gathering the legacy of Sir Halford Mackinder, one of the founding fathers of geopolitics, the focus of Washington's foreign agenda shifted from the control over the "backyard", namely Latin America, to Eurasia. According to Mackinder, Eurasia was different from any other continent, because it was the land of great civilizations, the residence of a large part of the world population, strategically accessible and unattainable with an adequate network of infrastructures, and with an incomparable wealth in terms of natural resources.

Because of these reasons, according to him, the British should have invested more resources not in the maintenance of a thalassocracy but in avoiding the formation of a hegemonic power in Eurasia by means of sabotages, the creation of buffer states, secret diplomacy.

In particular, Mackinder was worried about the possibility of a Russian-German alliance because from the union of the Teutonic industrial potentials with the endless resources offered by the Russian soil it could emerge a lethal power for the British hegemony, which was not only decadent but also anachronistic because founded on the domination of the seas in the era that would have enshrined the rule of land transport.

See: https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/36261

Does Putin want to invade Poland? Etc… I don’t think so, but I have been wrong before in saying he would not invade Ukraine and stop at protecting the breakaway republics. But we don’t know what sort of nasty secret message he had been given by the Ukrainian government and the West to prod him to go a yard further. By now he has decided to take away the new Western Jewel, THE DONBASS IN Ukraine (FORMERLY RUSSIAN TERRITORIES). A few people will die, not the zillions promised by the Washingtonians. I hope. Unfortunately, the Ukrainians will have to swallow the bitter pill. All of this in the protection of Russia and of the Heartland, under attack from the Empire…

THIS IS WHY JULIAN ASSANGE IS STILL IN PRISON…

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TACTICS OF THE EMPIRE:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14650040802578658

The US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the Twenty-First Century

Pages 26-46 | Published online: 21 Feb 2009

BY Emre İşeri 

From an offensive realist theoretical approach, this paper assumes that great powers are always looking for opportunities to attain more power in order to feel more secure. This outlook has led me to assert that the main objective of the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century is primacy or global hegemony. I have considered the US grand strategy as a combination of wartime and peacetime strategies and argued that the Caspian region and its hinterland, where I call the Eurasian Heartland, to use the term of Sir Halford Mackinder, has several geo-strategic dimensions beyond its wide-rich non-OPEC untapped hydro-carbon reserves, particularly in Kazakhstan. For my purposes, I have relied on both wartime strategy (US-led Iraq war) and peacetime strategy of supporting costly Baku-Tbilis-Ceyhan (BTC) to integrate regional untapped oil reserves, in particular Kazakh, into the US-controlled energy market to a great extent. This pipeline's contribution to the US grand strategy is assessed in relation to potential Eurasian challengers, Russia and China. The article concludes with an evaluation of the prospects of the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century.

INTRODUCTION

From an offensive realist theoretical approach, this paper assumes that great powers, for my purposes the US, are always looking for opportunities to attain more power in order to feel more secure. In other words, great powers have a natural inclination to maximise their power. One of the main reasons for this analytical footing is based on my observation that this theory has a great deal of explanatory power for understanding US foreign policy in the post-9/11 period. This outlook has led me to assert that the main objective of US grand strategy is primacy or global hegemony.

Even though the region surrounding the Caspian Sea, where I call the Eurasian Heartland 1 , is not a target of the ‘war on terror’, political control of this region's hydrocarbon resources and their transportation routes has several geo-strategic dimensions beyond energy considerations. From the perspective of US policy-making elites 2 , the Caspian region's geo-strategic dimensions for the United States are not restricted to energy security issues; they have implications for the grand strategy of the United States in the twenty-first century. In that regard, the US not only aims to politically control regional energy resources, in particular Kazakh oil, but also check potential challengers to its grand strategy such as China and Russia. One should note that analysis of grand strategies of those states is beyond the scope of this article, therefore, they are treated as potential challengers, rather than great powers, and their positions in the Caspian energy game has been elaborated in that sense.

In the first part of the paper, I will talk about my offensive realist theoretical approach. In addition to its assumptions, its limitations will be noted. In the second part, I will define the concept of grand strategy as the combination of wartime and peacetime strategies and analyse US grand strategy in the twenty-first century in that respect. In the third part, geo-strategic dimensions of the Eurasian Heartland for the US grand strategy will be analysed in relation to Eurasian challengers. The significance of politically controlling Kazakh oil resources will also be underlined. In the fourth part, Russia's interests and policies on Caspian hydro-carbon resources will be analysed in relation to US interests. In the fifth part, China's energy needs and its Caspian pipeline politics will be analysed in relation to US-controlled international oil markets. It will be concluded by indicating the significance of ensuring stability of the international oil markets for the success of US grand strategy in the twenty-first century.

OFFENSIVE REALISM

The offensive realist point of view contends that the ultimate goal of states is to achieve a hegemonic position in the international order. Hence, offensive realism claims that states always look for opportunities to gain more power in order to gain more security for an uncertain future. Until and unless they become the global hegemon, their search for increased power will continue. Offensive realism has been based on five assumptions: (1) The system is anarchic; (2) All great powers have some offensive military capabilities; (3) States can never be certain about other states' intentions; (4) States seek to survive; and (5) Great powers are rational actors or strategic calculators.

My approach is closer to the offensive realist position mainly because of my supposition that, particularly after September 11, US behaviour conforms to the prognostications of offensive realist arguments. With the rhetoric of the ‘war on terror,’ the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were apparent products of an offensive realist objective, namely to underpin the United States' sole super power status in the post−Cold War global order.

I assume that there is a direct link between the survival instincts of great powers and their aggressive behaviour. In that regard, we agree with Mearsheimer that “Great powers behave aggressively not because they want to or because they possess some inner drive to dominate, but because they have to seek more power if they maximize their odds of survival.” 3

One should be aware, however, that this power maximisation strategy has some limits. Structural limitations prevent states from expanding their hegemony to the entire globe. Hence, it is nearly impossible in today's world to become a true global hegemon. In order to make our point more tangible, we need to first take a look at the meaning of hegemon in relation to great powers: 

A hegemon is a state that is so powerful that it dominates all other states in the system. No other state has the military wherewithal to put up a serious fight against it. In essence, a hegemon is the only great power in the system. A state that is substantially more powerful than the other great powers in the system is not a hegemon, because it faces, by definition, other great powers. 4

Pragmatically, it is nearly impossible for a great power to achieve global hegemony because there will always be competing great powers that have the potential to be the regional hegemon in a distinct geographical region. Clearly, geographical distance makes it more difficult for the potential global hegemon to exert its power on potential regional hegemons in other parts of the world. On the one hand, the ‘global hegemon’ must dominate the whole world. On the other hand, the ‘regional hegemon’ only dominates a distinct geographical area, a much easier task for a great power. For instance, the United States has been the regional hegemon in the Western hemisphere for about a century, but it has never become a true global hegemon because there have always been great powers in the Eastern hemisphere, such as Russia and China, which have potential to be regional hegemons in their geographical are. Since US policy-making elites have acknowledged that ‘stopping power of sea’ 5 restricts the US from projecting a sufficient amount of power in the distinct continent of Eurasia to become the global hegemon, they have been preparing their strategies to prevent emergence of regional hegemonies that have potential to challenge US grand strategy.

US GRAND STRATEGY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY

Paul Kennedy's definition of ‘grand strategy’ that includes both wartime and peacetime objectives: “A true grand strategy was now to do with peace as much as (perhaps even more than) war. It was about the evolution and integration of policies that should operate for decades, or even for centuries. It did not cease at a war's end, nor commence at its beginning.” 6 Put simply, grand strategy is the synthesis of wartime and peacetime strategies. Even though they are separate, they interweave in many ways to serve the grand strategy.

Since the United States, which is the hegemonic power of capitalist core countries, has dominance over the global production structure, it is in its best interest to expand the global market for goods and services. For instance, free trade arrangements usually force developing (i.e., “third-world”) countries to export their raw materials without transforming them into completed products that can be sold in developed markets. Therefore, the global free market has long been the most viable strategy for acquiring raw materials in the eyes of the US policy-making elites. This is what Andrew J. Bacevich refers to when he talks about the US policy of imposing an ‘open world’ or ‘free world’ possessed with the knowledge and confidence that “technology endows the United States with a privileged position in that order, and the expectation that American military might will preserve order and enforce the rules.” 7 In other words, the principal interest of the US is the establishment of a secure global order in a context that enables the US-controlled capitalist modes of production to flourish throughout the globe without any obstacles or interruptions. This is also simply the case for the openness of oil trade. “In oil, as more generally, the forward deployment of military power to guarantee the general openness of international markets to the mutual benefit of all leading capitalist states remains at the core of US hegemony. An attempt to break this pattern, carve out protected spaces for the US economy and firms against other ‘national’ or ‘regional’ economies would undercut American leadership.” 8 Since the US imports energy resources from international energy markets, any serious threat to these markets is a clear threat to the interests of the United States. As Leon Fuerth indicates, “The grand strategy of the United States requires that it never lose the ability to respond effectively to any such threat.” 9

With the end of the presidency of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush took office in January 2001. People with backgrounds and experience in the oil industry dominated his cabinet's inner circle. Vice President Dick Cheney had served as the chief executive of the world's leading geophysics and oil services company, Halliburton, Inc. National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice (who later became the US Secretary of State) had served on the board of Chevron Corporation. As a Texan, George W. Bush himself had far-reaching oil experience, and Commerce Secretary Don Evans had served 16 years as the CEO of Tom Brown Inc., a large, independent energy company now based in Denver, after working for 10 years on its oil rigs. As William Engdahl has succinctly explained, “In short, the Bush administration which took office in January 2001, was steeped in oil and energy issues as no administration in recent US history had been. Oil and geopolitics were back at center stage in Washington.” 10

In the early days of the Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney was assigned the task of carrying out a comprehensive review of US energy policy. He presented the result, known as the National Energy Policy Report (NEPR) of May 2001, 11 to President Bush with the recommendation that energy security should immediately be made a priority of US foreign policy. In the NEPR, the growing dependency of the United States on oil imports for its energy needs was emphasised, and this was characterised as a significant problem. The National Energy Policy Report read, in part, “On our present course, America 20 years from now will import nearly two of every three barrels of oil – a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have America's interests at heart.” 12 In other words, as William Engdahl sardonically observed, “A national government in control of its own ideas of national development might not share the agenda of ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco or Dick Cheney.”13 In 2010, the United States will need an additional 50 million barrels of oil a day, 90 percent of which will be imported and thus under the control of foreign governments and foreign national oil companies. Therefore, given its strategic importance for a country's economy, it can be plausibly argued that oil (including its price, its flow, and its security) is more of a governmental matter than a private one. Despite the area's political and economic instabilities, the Middle East's untapped oil reserves are still the cheapest source of oil in the world; furthermore, they amount to two thirds of the world's remaining oil resources.

Thus, governmental intervention by the United States was required to secure the supply of Middle East oil to world markets. William Engdahl correctly notes that “with undeveloped oil reserves perhaps even larger than those of Saudi Arabia, Iraq had become an object of intense interest to Cheney and the Bush administration very early on.” 14 Iraq's authoritarian regime under Saddam Hussein was pursuing the idea of ‘national development,’ according to which state institutions would have full control over the extraction, production, and sale of oil. According to Michael Hirsh, “State control guarantees less efficiency in the exploration for oil, and in the extraction and refinement of fuel. Further, these state-owned companies do not divulge how much they really own, or what the production and exploration numbers are. These have become the new state secrets.” 15 From the perspective of US policy-making elites, the Iraqi oil reserves were too large and too valuable to be left to the control of Iraqi state-owned companies, hence, a regime change in Iraq was required.

“Several slogans have been offered to justify the Iraq War, but certainly one of the most peculiar is the idea proffered by Stanley Kurtz, Max Boot, and other neoconservative commentators who advocate military action and regime change as a part of their bold plan for democratic imperialism.” 16 [Emphasis added.] However, it is dubious to what extent this neoconservative plan serves the purposes of American grand strategy. George Kennan, former head of policy planning in the US State Department, is often regarded as one of the key architects of US grand strategy in the post-war period. His candid advice to US leadership should be noted: 

We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. 17 [Emphasis added.]

As Clark observes, “While the US has largely been able to avoid ‘straight power concepts’ for five decades, it has now become the only vehicle for which it can maintain its dominance. Indeed, Kennan's term ‘straight power’ is the appropriate description of current US geopolitical unilateralism.” 18 Thus, the US's unilateral aggressive foreign policy in the post-9/11 period has led me to argue that the ultimate objective of US grand strategy is ‘primacy’ among competing visions 19 and what I understand from primacy is global hegemony or leadership. This aggressive strategy of the US to expand its hegemony to the globe was outlined in The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, published by the Bush Administration in September 2002, and it has come to be publicly known as the Bush Doctrine to form ‘coalitions of the willing’ under US leadership.

The United States has long maintained the option of pre-emptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security … the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as the time and place of the enemy's attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively. 20

Those elements of the doctrine that scholars and analysts associated with empire-like tendencies were on full display in the build-up to the unilateral invasion of Iraq by the United States in 2003.

As Pepe Escobar notes, “The lexicon of the Bush doctrine of unilateral world domination is laid out in detail by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), founded in Washington in 1997. The ideological, political, economic and military fundamentals of American foreign policy – and uncontested world hegemony – for the 21st century are there for all to see.” 21 The official credo of PNAC is to convene “the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests”. 22 The origin of PNAC can be traced to a controversial defence policy paper drafted in February 1992 by then Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and later softened by Vice President Dick Cheney which states that the US must be sure of “deterring any potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role” 23 without mentioning the European Union, Russia, and China. Nevertheless, the document Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources for a New Century 24 released by PNAC gives a better understanding of the Bush administration's unilateral aggressive foreign policy and “this manifesto revolved around a geostrategy of US dominance – stating that no other nations will be allowed to ‘challenge’ US hegemony”. 25

From this perspective, it can be assumed that American wartime (the US-led wars in Afghanistan 26 , and Iraq) and peacetime (political support for costly Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project) strategies all serve the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century. A careful eye will detect that all of these strategies have a common purpose of enhancing American political control over the Eurasian landmass and its hydrocarbon resources. As Fouskas and Gökay have observed,

As the only superpower remaining after the dismantling of the Soviet bloc, the United States is inserting itself into the strategic regions of Eurasia and anchoring US geopolitical influence in these areas to prevent all real and potential competitions from challenging its global hegemony. The ultimate goal of US strategy is to establish new spheres of influence and hence achieve a much firmer system of security and control that can eliminate any obstacles that stand in the way of protecting its imperial power. The intensified drive to use US military dominance to fortify and expand Washington's political and economic power over much of the world has required the reintegration of the post-Soviet space into the US-controlled world economy. The vast oil and natural gas resources of Eurasia are the fuel that is feeding this powerful drive, which may lead to new military operations by the United States and its allies against local opponents as well as major regional powers such as China and Russia. 27

At this point the question arises, what is the geo-strategic dimensions of the Eurasian Heartland and its energy resources for the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century?

GEO-STRATEGIC DIMENSIONS OF THE EURASIAN HEARTLAND

The Heartland Theory is probably the best-known geopolitical model that stresses the supremacy of land-based power to sea-based power. Sir Halford Mackinder, who was one of the most prominent geographers of his era, first articulated this theory with respect to ‘The Geographic Pivot of History’ in 1904, and it was later redefined in his paper entitled, Democratic Ideals and Reality(1919), in which “pivotal area” became “the Heartland.” According to Mackinder, the pivotal area or the Heartland is roughly Central Asia, from where horsemen spread out toward and dominated both the Asian and the European continents. While developing his ideas, Mackinder's main concern was to warn his compatriots about the declining naval power of the United Kingdom, which had been the dominant naval power since the age of the revolutionary maritime discoveries of the fifteenth century. He proceeded to expand on the possibility of consolidated land-based power that could allow a nation to control the Eurasian landmass between Germany and Central Siberia. If well served and supported by industry and by modern means of communication, a consolidated land power controlling the Heartland could exploit the region's rich natural resources and eventually ascend to global hegemony. Mackinder summed up his ideas with the following words: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland: Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island (Europe, Arab Peninsula, Africa, South and East Asia), who rules the World-Island commands the World.” 28

The Heartland Theory provided the intellectual ground for the US Cold War foreign policy. Nicholas Spykman was among the most influential American political scientists in the 1940s. Spykman's Rimlands thesis was developed on the basis of Mackinder's Heartland concept. In contrast to Mackinder's emphasis on the Eurasian Heartland, Spykman offered the Rimlands of Eurasia – that is, Western Europe, the Pacific Rim and the Middle East. According to him, whoever controlled these regions would contain any emerging Heartland power. “Spykman was not the author of containment policy, that is credited to George Kennan, but Spykman's book, based on the Heartland thesis, helped prepare the US public for a post war world in which the Soviet Union would be restrained on the flanks.” 29 Hence, the US policy of containing the USSR dominated global geopolitics during the Cold War era under the guidance of ideas and theories first developed by Mackinder. In the 1988 edition of the annual report on US geopolitical and military policy entitled, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, President Reagan summarised US foreign policy in the Cold War era with these words: 

The first historical dimension of our strategy … is the conviction that the United States' most basic national security interests would be endangered if a hostile state or group of states were to dominate the Eurasian landmass – that part of the globe often referred to as the world's heartland … since 1945, we have sought to prevent the Soviet Union from capitalizing on its geostrategic advantage to dominate its neighbours in Western Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and thereby fundamentally alter the global balance of power to our disadvantage. 30

From Reagan's assessment of US foreign policy during the Cold War, with its emphasis on the significance of the Eurasian landmass, we can draw some inferences about US policy in the post-Cold War era, albeit with a slight twist. During the Cold War era, it was the USSR that the United States had endeavoured to contain, but now it is China and to a lesser extent Russia. And, once again, the Eurasian landmass is the central focus of US policy-making elites.

The imprint of Mackinder on US foreign policy has also continued in the aftermath of the demise of the geopolitical pivot, the USSR. “Mackinder's ideas influenced the post-Cold War thesis – developed by prominent American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski – which called for the maintenance of ‘geopolitical pluralism’ in the post-Soviet space. This concept has served as the corner-stone of both the Clinton and Bush administration's policies towards the newly independent states of Central Eurasia.” 31

Extrapolating from Mackinder's Heartland theory, I consider the Caspian region and its surrounding area to be the Eurasian Heartland. In addition to its widespread and rich energy resources, the region's land-locked central positioning at the crossroads of the energy supply routes in the Eurasian landmass have caused it to receive a lot of attention from scholars and political strategists in recent times. Until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, this region had been closed to interaction with the outside world, and therefore, to external interference. Since then, the huge natural resources of the region have opened it up to the influence of foreign powers, and the Caspian region has therefore become the focal point of strategic rivalries once again in history. This has led several scholars and journalists to call this struggle to acquire Caspian hydrocarbon resources the ‘New Great Game,’ 32 in reference to the quests of the Russian and British empires for dominance over the region in the nineteenth century.

Without a doubt, the growing global demand for energy has fostered strategic rivalries in the Caspian region. Oil's status as a vital strategic commodity has led various powerful states to use this vital resource and its supply to the world markets as a means to achieve their objectives in global politics. For our purposes, I shall focus on the geo-strategic interest of the United States in the Caspian region.

The United States, which politically controls the Gulf oil to a great extent, is not actually energy-dependent on oil from the Caspian region. Hence, US interests in the Caspian region go beyond the country's domestic energy needs. The political objective of the US government is to prevent energy transport unification among the industrial zones of Japan, Korea, China, Russia, and the EU in the Eurasian landmass and ensure the flow of regional energy resources to US-led international oil markets without any interruptions. A National Security Strategy document in 1998 clearly indicates the significance of regional stability and transportation of its energy resources to international markets. “A stable and prosperous Caucasus and Central Asia will help promote stability and security from the Mediterranean to China and facilitate rapid development and transport to international markets of the large Caspian oil and gas resources, with substantial U.S. commercial participation.” 33

In line with the acknowledgement of the increasing importance of the Caspian region, Silk Road Strategy Act 34 has put forward the main features of the US's policies towards Central Asia and the Caucasus. As Çağrı Erhan asserts, Silk Road Strategy Act has been grounded on the axis of favouring economic interests of the US and American entrepreneurs and this main line is supplemented with several components such as ensuring democracy and supporting human rights that conform to an American definition of globalisation. 35 As a matter fact, a 1999 National Security Strategy Paper emphasised economic issues and referred to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline Project Agreement and Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline Declaration on November 19, 1999.

We are focusing particular attention on investment in Caspian energy resources and their export from the Caucasus region to world markets, thereby expanding and diversifying world energy supplies and promoting prosperity in the region. A stable and prosperous Caucasus and Central Asia will facilitate rapid development and transport to international markets of the large Caspian oil and gas resources, with substantial U.S. commercial participation. 36

In that context, the US finds it necessary to establish control over energy resources and their transportation routes in the Eurasian landmass. Therefore, from the US's point of view, the dependence of the Eurasian industrial economies on the security umbrella provided by the United States should be sustained. To put it clearly, US objectives and policies in the wider Caspian region are part of a larger “grand strategy” to underpin and strengthen its regional hegemony and thereby become the global hegemon in the twenty-first century.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, has repeatedly emphasised the geo-strategic importance of the Eurasia region. He claimed that the United States' primary objective should be the protection of its hegemonic superpower position in the twenty-first century. In order to achieve this goal, the United States must maintain its hegemonic position in the balance of power prevailing in the Eurasia region. He underscored the vital geo-strategic importance of the Eurasian landmass for the United States in his 1997 book entitled, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives: 

Eurasia is the world's axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world's three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and historical legacy. 37

Therefore, Brzezinski called for the implementation of a coordinated US drive to dominate both the eastern and western rimlands of Eurasia. Hence, he asserts that American foreign policy should be concerned, first and foremost, with the geo-strategic dimensions of Eurasia and employ its considerable clout and influence in the region. In that regard, Peter Gowan summarises the task of the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century with these words,

US Grand Strategy had the task of achieving nothing less than the shaping of new political and economic arrangements and linkages across the whole Eurasia. The goal was to ensure that every single major political centre in Eurasia understood that its relationship with the United States was more important than its relationship with any other political centre in Eurasia. If that could be achieved, each such centre would be attached separately by a spoke to the American hub: primacy would be secured. 38

In order to accomplish that task, the US has the requirement to politically control Eurasian energy resources, in particular oil.

Since the invention of Large Independent Mobile Machines (LIMMs) such as cars, planes and tractors, they have incrementally begun to shape our lives in many ways. LIMMs enable us to do what we do, they make us have jobs, they make the water flow, and they make supermarkets full of food. To put it simply, LIMMs have become the main elements of international economic activities. “For a society in which LIMMs play a central role no other energy resource is efficient as oil. It is compact and easy to use, in its natural state it is located in highly concentrated reservoirs, and it can be transformed into a usable energy product rapidly, cheaply and safely.” 39 To put it simply, oil is the lifeblood of modern economies and the US relies on the international energy market to ensure its security.

As Amineh and Houweling observe, “Oil and gas are not just commodities traded on international markets. Control over territory and its resources are strategic assets.” 40 This is particularly the case for the Caspian region, which is located at the centre of the Eurasian Heartland, and whose potential hydro-carbon resources has made it a playground for strategic rivalries throughout the twentieth century, and will likely continue to do so in the twenty-first century. As the Washington-based energy consultant, Julia Nanay, has observed, “New oil is being found in Mexico, Venezuela, West Africa and other places, but it isn't getting the same attention, because you don't have these huge strategic rivalries. There is no other place in the world where so many people and countries and companies are competing.” 41

The demise of the USSR marked the emergence of the Caspian region as a new energy producer. Until that time, the importance of the region as an energy source had not been appreciated with the exception of Baku, which enjoyed an oil boom for a few decades in the late nineteenth century. Even though there are disagreements on the extent and quantity of potential energy resources in the region, and thus on its geo-strategic significance, a consensus does exist on the fact that the region's economically feasible resources would make a significant contribution to the amount of energy resources available to world energy markets. The principal reason for this consensus emerges from Kazakhstan's rich oil reserves at the age of volatile high oil prices.

With its geopolitical positioning at the heart of Central Asia, Kazakhstan is one of the largest countries in Eurasia. It is sharing borders with two potential Eurasian great powers Russia and China. Apart from its significant geopolitical location, Kazakhstan has massive untapped oil fields in Kashagan (the largest oil discovery in the past 27 years) and Tengiz (discovered in 1979 to be comparable in size to the former), with its little domestic consumption and growing export capacity. “Its prospects for increasing oil production in the 2010–20 time frame are impressive, given the recognized potential offshore in the North Caspian. Production estimates for 2010 range upward of 1.6 mmbpd, and by 2002 Kazakhstan could be producing 3.6 mmbpd.” 42

Kazakhstan views the development of its hydrocarbon resources as a cornerstone to its economic prosperity. However, Kazakhstan is land-locked. In other words, Kazakhstan cannot ship its oil resources. Therefore, it is required to transport its oil through pipelines, which would cross multiple international boundaries. Thus, “one thing that is now confusing to foreign oil company producers in Kazakhstan is the ultimate US strategy there with regard to exit routes. If the goal is to have multiple pipelines bypassing Russia and Iran, any policy that would encourage additional oil shipments from the Caspian across Russia, beyond what an expanded CPC can carry and existing Transneft option, works against the multi-pipeline strategy and further solidifies Kazakh-Russia dependence.” 43 In addition to Russia, China also considers Kazakh oil resources as vital to its energy security as elaborated below.

“Therefore, the countries of Central Asian region represent a chess board, harkening back to Brzezinski's imagery, where geopolitical games are conducted by great powers, mainly the United States, Russia, and China. And Kazakhstan is at the center of this game.” 44 Hence, Kazakhstan has become the focal point of strategic rivalries in twenty-first century.

Since Kazakhstan's untapped oil reserves at the Eurasian Heartland have great potential to underpin stability of US controlled international energy market, these resources play a viable role for the US grand strategy. For the stability of a worldwide market space, Kazakh oil development and its flow to the international energy market, just like Iraqi oil, plays a viable role. In that regard, it is not a surprise to acknowledge that George W. Bush created the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPD) commonly known as the Cheney Energy Task Force's report on May 2001, 45 which recommends initiatives that would pave the way for Kazak oil development. US Senator Conrad Burns indicates, “Kazakh oil can save the United States from energy crisis” and avert the US's long dependence on Middle East oil. 46 He also argues that Caspian oil could be very important both for strengthening world energy stability and providing international security by noting the importance of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline project for the export of Kazakh oil. Hence, Kazakhstan could become a major supplier of oil in the international energy market, whereby it would alleviate the disastrous consequences of coming global peak oil to the US.

The non-OPEC character of Kazakh oil is also a fringe benefit to the US`s interests in diversifying the world`s supply of oil in order to underpin stability of its internal oil market. “Non-OPEC supplies serve as a market baseload, consistently delivering the full level of production of which those resources are capable. Clearly, diversifying and increasing these non-OPEC sources provides a more secure core of supplies for the United States and other consumers to rely upon.” 47 Thus, “the question is not OPEC versus non-OPEC. Rather, the issue to address is how to continue encouraging non-OPEC supply growth and diversity, preferably with the involvement of international oil companies (or IOCs, including US oil companies).” 48 Hence, non-OPEC Kazakh oil development and its secure flow to Western markets would enhance stability of the international energy market.

One should also note that US interests in Kazakh oil development and this secure export is not restricted to oil. It also provides political leverage to the US in the Eurasian landmass. The flow of landlocked Kazakh oil to the international energy market though BTC would not only bypass Russia and Iran`s influence in the region, but also shift Kazakhstan's security orientation towards the US and would open the channels of cooperation in the war on terror. Thus, joining Kazakh wide, rich oil reserves to the BTC will accelerate this pipelines' geo-strategic importance. Hence, BTC`s fringe benefit to the US will be “to project power into the Caspian/Central Asian arena in order to check Russian, Chinese and Islamist influences (Iran in particular).” 49

In that regard, rivalry over regional energy resources and their export routes are only a part of a multi-dimensional strategic game to politically control the Eurasian landmass. “Although new strategic developments might determine the choice, but the export options for Caspian oil in 2020 remain the same: the old North to Russia, South to Iran, West to South Caucasus and Turkey, East to China, or Southeast to India.” 50 For our purposes, we will analyse Russian, Chinese and European interests in Caspian hydrocarbon resources.

RUSSIA

Russia has been playing an important role in the Caspian region. It has a significant influence in the region as the largest trading partner for each newly independent state, and the principal export route for regional energy resources. Thus, analysis of Caspian energy and its development should take Russian policy dimension into consideration.

“Russian policy toward the development of the energy resources of the Caspian Basin is a complex subject for analysis because it nests within several broader sets of policy concerns.” 51 These policy concerns could be classified under three dimensions: First, Russia's relations with the US, which has been actively pursuing its interests in the region. Second, Russia's relations with former Soviet states or its so-called ‘near abroad’. Third, Russian policy toward its own domestic sector should be considered.

Before analysing Russian policy on Caspian energy resources, one should take a closer look at her monopoly over existing pipeline routes. Russia had provided the only transportation link through Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline and most of the rail transportation from the region until the opening of an ‘early oil’ pipeline from Baku, Azerbaijan to Supsa, Georgia in April 1999. Currently, the Russian route is the most viable option for Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to export their oil reserves to the world markets. With the completion of the Chechen bypass pipeline, Azerbaijan commenced exporting its oil reserves through Russian territory in the second half of 2000. Moreover, completion of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) pipeline has led to the flow of Kazakh oil exports from the Tengiz oilfield to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Russia has been developing its own oil fields and expanding its existing pipeline system in the Caspian region. State owned oil company Lukoil, gas company Gazprom, and pipeline network operator Transneft were the principal tools at the hands of Russian diplomats. In June 2002, conclusion of a wide range of agreements with Kazakhstan marked a decisive victory for Russia over Kazak oil export channels. As indicated below, this set of agreements also opened the way for Kazakhstan to link its oil resources to the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline. Meanwhile, Russians have been looking for ways to increase their Caspian oil exports. In that regard, Moscow has ambitious plans to increase the total capacity of its pipeline network around the Caspian.

To make it straight, Moscow considers maintaining its monopoly over the flow of Caspian energy resources would lead Russia not only to gain political leverage over European countries with ever-increasing energy needs, but also regain its political dominance over the newly independent countries. In that regard, not only American physical presence but also US-origin oil companies' investments at the ‘back garden’ of Russia are perceived as a vital threat to Russian national security. This is simply the case for the US-sponsored Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline project. “The Russian government has always understood that this pipeline was part of the broader US strategy to cut all links with Moscow among the former Soviet states in the Caucasus, building a new economic infrastructure that would dissuade the Caucasus group from ever renewing these ties.” 52

Moscow anticipates that sooner or later the US will project Turkey as a regional energy hub for the export of hydrocarbon resources of the Middle East and Central Asia to Europe. Therefore, the US has supported an East-West energy corridor and pushed forward several pipeline projects bypassing Russia such as BTC, BTE, and NABUCCO. Moscow perceives the US's insistence on an East-West energy corridor as a strategy to isolate Russia strategically from the EU. At the end of the day, Russia graphed its famous energy weapon and developed an energy strategy to break this process. Thus, Russia has been pushing ahead the trans-Balkan project known as the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline. The pipeline will be 280 kilometres long and carry oil from the Bulgarian port of Burgas on the Black Sea to Greece's Alexandroupolis on the Aegean. The $1 billion project has significant geo-political implications that go beyond exporting Caspian region hydrocarbon resources to Europe. First, the Russian project will undermine the US attempt to dictate the primacy of the BTC as the main Caspian export pipeline to Western markets. Second, Russia considers the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline as an extension of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) that already connects the oilfields in western Kazakhstan with the oil terminal at Novorossiisk . Thus, Kazakhstan will continue to depend on Russia to export the bulk of its oil to the Western market, even if BTC will be linked to Astana. Finally, the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline will lessen the amount of Caspian oil required to be exported through the Odessa-Brody pipeline in Ukraine. Through the Odessa-Brody pipeline, Poland and Ukraine had been expecting to have direct access to the Caspian oil reserves; however, it looks like their hopes to bypass Russia will not be realised. Thus, Moscow has revealed to Washington that it will not let Ukraine gravitate towards the US orbit.

According to M. K. Bhadrakumar, former Indian ambassador to Turkey, “A spectacular chapter in the Great Game seems to be nearing its epitaph.” 53 In that regard, Russia's influence over Kazakhstan has been enhanced with the signing of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline project on March 15, 2007 contrary to Western media reports speculating on Russia's declining influence on Kazakhstan.

Besides its pipeline initiatives, Russia prefers to play a zero-sum game through its national oil companies (NOCs) to produce Caspian hydrocarbon resources. In that regard, the US's initiatives to develop regional resources in a more efficient manner do not attract much attention from Russian diplomats who rely on ‘relative gains’ rather than ‘absolute gains’. 54 In order for cooperation to flourish between them, the US should find a way to convince Moscow that Russian NOCs do not have the technological and financial resources to develop hydrocarbon reserves, whereby Russia will need Western oil companies, preferably American-origin ones, to produce its hydrocarbon reserves. Apart from regional hydrocarbon resource development, the US needs Russian help to foster peace and stability in Eurasia. It looks like a modus vivendi can be reached only if Russia adopts free market principles and considers absolute rather than relative gains . However, there are no clear signals in that respect.

CHINA

China has incrementally given the Caspian region increasing geo-strategic importance since the end of the Cold War. According to Guo Xuetang, “As the US established a military presence in Central Asia and the United States carried out preventive military activities against China in East and South Asia by strengthening the US-Japan alliance, deploying more strategic submarines and other deterrent weapons, and ingratiating with the Indians to counterbalance China's rising power, China's leadership has faced tougher geopolitical competition over Central Asia.” 55

Since the mid-1990s, energy security has gradually become an important concern for China as domestic energy supplies have failed to meet domestic demand. China is the third largest coal producer and second largest consumer in the world. Thus, this shortfall arises from a shortage of energy in the forms required. Dramatic growth of the use of road transport in China has also accelerated the demand for oil products. Therefore, domestic oil production has failed to keep pace with the demand, whereby China became dependent on imported oil in 1995. With this trend of growing oil demand, domestic production will soon reach its peak point. Apparently, energy supply security, and the availability of oil in particular, has become an increasingly urgent concern for the ruling Chinese Communist Party. Despite the fact that there are several interrelated and independent variables to calculate China's future oil demands, “a consensus seems to exist that annual demand is likely to rise from a present level of around 230 million tonnes to 300 million tonnes by 2010 and at least 400 million tonnes by 2020, though unexpectedly low rates of economic growth would reduce demand to below these levels. Over this period China's share of world oil consumption will probably rise from its current level of about 6% to as high as 8–10%.” 56

Hence, China has been looking for ways to build pipeline routes to export Caspian oil reserves eastwards while the United States has been looking to export Caspian energy westwards. Dekmeijan and Simonian have observed that “as an emerging superpower with a rapidly expanding economy, China constitutes one of the potentially most important actors in Caspian affairs.” 57Its rapidly increasing energy demands and declining domestic energy supplies indicate that China is increasingly becoming dependent on energy imports. According to Dru C. Gladney, “Since 1993, China's own domestic energy supplies have become insufficient for supporting modernization, increasing its reliance upon foreign trading partners to enhance its economic and energy security leading toward the need to build what Chinese officials have described as a ‘strategic oil-supply security system’ through increased bilateral trade agreements.” 58 In that regard, China, as the second largest oil consumer after the United States, has defined its energy security policy objectives in a manner “to maximise domestic output of oil and gas; to diversify the sources of oil purchased through the international markets; to invest in overseas oil and gas resources through the Chinese national petroleum companies, focusing on Asia and the Middle East; and to construct the infrastructure to bring this oil and gas to market.” 59

For our purposes, China's objective to diversify the sources of imported oil from the Caspian region plays a vital role. As Speed, Liao, and Dannreuther have observed, “Since the mid-1990s official and academic documents in China have proclaimed the virtues of China's petroleum companies investing in overseas oil exploration and production in order to secure supplies of Chinese crude oil, which could then be refined in China.” 60 In that regard, China has begun to make generous commitments, the largest of which were in Kazakhstan. According to these scholars, “At the heart of this strategy lies the recognition that China is surrounded by a belt of untapped oil and gas reserves in Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East.” 61 In the Kazakh region, there is high potential for further hydrocarbon discoveries.

The target for China's oil industry is to secure supplies of 50 million tonnes per year from overseas production by 2010. The fulfilment of this objective is directly related to China's involvement in strategic rivalries over the Caspian basin energy resources. Due to the emergence of Japan as a competitor for Russian hydrocarbon resources and Russia's indecisiveness about the Siberian pipeline, which would export high amounts of Russian crude oil to China, former Soviet members, in particular Kazakhstan, have emerged as more viable options. 62

China made generous commitments through its state-owned oil company, CNPC, to actualise the West-East energy corridor. This is particularly the case for the commitments made in Kazakhstan to develop two oilfields in Aktunbinsk and an oil field in Uzen. One should note that this pipeline has crucial political dimensions that supersede the significance of its commercial returns. As William Engdahl indicates, “the pipeline will undercut the geopolitical significance of the Washington-backed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which opened amid big fanfare and support of Washington.” 63 Thus, it would be plausible to assert that, to use a similar phrase to the one of Mackinder's, who controls the export routes, controls the energy resources, who controls the energy resources, controls the Eurasian Heartland. However, these arguments are valid only to a certain extent.

One should also note that, as Dru C. Gladney has stated, “the pipeline is important for the United States but hardly a vital concern… . The United States is interested in the stability and economic development of the region and in ensuring that a mutually beneficial relationship is established with the Central Asian republics. Because the Central Asian region of the CIS shares borders with China, Russia, and Iran, these newly independent states are important to the United States with or without oil.” 64 Another point that should be kept in mind is that “alternate sources of hydrocarbons for China would mean decreasing reliance on the Middle East as a sole source, thus decreasing competition in the region and the potential for tensions in the Persian Gulf.” 65 One should be clear on the point that so far as pipeline initiatives would promote the establishment of free-market democracies, the United States would welcome them on the condition that the oil flow would not be in substantial amounts. Gladney concludes, “In this regard, a pipeline to China could help to bring Kazakhstan into the global economy, as well as to wean it from sole dependence on Russia.”66 Hence, it will contribute to the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century.

CONCLUSION

From an offensive realist perspective, I have argued that the principal objective of US grand strategy in the twenty-first century is global hegemony. I have underlined that a true grand strategy is a combination of wartime and peacetime strategies, therefore, I asserted that American wartime (the US-led wars in Afghanistan, and Iraq) and peacetime (political support for the costly BTC pipeline project) strategies all serve the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century. I have also argued that the region surrounding the Caspian basin plays a vital role the US grand strategy. In that regard, I preferred to call that area, to use term of Sir Halford Mackinder, the Eurasian Heartland. I have demonstrated that this area has significant untapped non-OPEC oil reserves, particularly in Kazakhstan, that will underpin stability of US-controlled international oil markets. Interests and policies of Russia and China, two main Eurasian challengers of US grand strategy in the twenty-first century, are also analysed. It is concluded by noting that as long as the Caspian region's untapped oil reserves are developed in a manner contributing to regional stability and economic development, there is not much cause for concern over the success of the US grand strategy in the Eurasian Heartland.

Nevertheless, one should bear in mind that unless the US finds a way to stabilise international oil markets and decrease the price of oil, the success of the US grand strategy in the twenty-first century is dubious. Volatile high oil prices not only hurt the proper functioning of US-controlled international economic structure, but also make it more difficult for the US to manipulate oil producers (i.e., Russia and Iran) and consumers (i.e., China and India) in order to serve its grand strategy.

Notes

Professor Emre İşeri is a full-time member of the Department of International Relations, Yaşar

University, İzmir. He is also an associate member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Global

Faultlines.

After completing his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Politics and Public Administration at İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University in 2002, he completed two Master educations, one at Marmara University from EU Politics and International Relations department and the other at the University of Kent from International Conflict Analysis department in 2005. Dr.İşeri completed his Ph.D. at Keele University from the International Relations department with his thesis titled “US Grand Strategy and the Eurasian Heartland in the 21 st century” in 2008. He started his academic career as Teaching Assistant at Keele University of International Relations department. He continued his academic career as a full-time lecturer at the University of Kadir Has from 2009 to 2013. Serving as one more year as Assistant Professor at Yaşar University, he was appointed to the Associate Professorship at the same university in 2014. He has been also teaching part-time on energy politics at the MA program in Mediterranean Studies of the University of the Peloponnese. He has been currently teaching courses on International Political Economy, American Foreign Policy, Middle Eastern Politics ( both in undergrad and grad levels), Turkish Foreign Policy.

His areas of current research agenda include energy policy, political communication, Euro-Asian politics, and Turkish foreign policy. He published articles/chapters in numerous books and journals, including Geopolitics, Journal of Balkan and Near East Studies, Energy Policy, Turkish Studies, Security Journal, South European Society and Politics (SESP), European Journal Communication (EJC), Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, and International Journal of Communication (IJC).

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