Tired Of Losing Yet?

All the foreign policy gains made by President Trump are being quickly unraveled by the Zhou regime. For example, one of the center pieces of the Trump policy of forging a stronger NATO was blocking the Nordstream2 Baltic Sea pipeline from Russia direct to Germany. The effect of Nordstream2—well understood by all concerned—is to circumvent shipping gas through Poland. This means that Poland is once again caught between Germany and Russia, now dependent on those two long term enemies for natural gas supplies. Thus Poland is in a weaker position as an ally of the United States close to the Russian border, while Germany is also now more independent of US control over NATO. This was a predictable result of Zhou’s totally compromised relationship with foreign rivals of the US.

Another center piece of Trump’s foreign policy now appears to have collapsed—the strategic outreach to India, as an ally to counter Chinese power projection throughout the India Ocean and Middle East. Zerohedge covered this yesterday:

Putin's Coup In India Will Shock The US

This was a repub of an article at OilPrice.com. At first glance this was an energy deal between Russia and one of the largest emerging economies in the world. But … energy deals of this size and scope inevitably involve geopolitics:

Russia last week announced a major new energy cooperation deal with India that threatens the very core of the U.S.’s fightback strategy against Beijing’s and Moscow’s expansionism in the Middle East and beyond. The main hydrocarbons deal will be for Russia, via oil giant Rosneft, to supply almost 15 million barrels of crude to Indian Oil, by the end of 2022. Given the massive geopolitical ramifications of any sizeable oil deal, it was entirely legitimate for Igor Sechin, Rosneft chief executive officer and close friend of Russian President, Vladimir Putin, to say of the deal that:

“The signing of a new oil supply contract confirms the strategic nature of the long-term partnership between Rosneft and Indian Oil.”

Also between Russia and India. As in Europe with the Nordstream2 pipeline, US strategic interests have been undercut throughout the South Asian and Middle East regions. Well played, Zhou!

But who can blame the Indians? It’s not as if the Zhou regime has shown itself to be a reliable partner, with its feckless behavior in Afghanistan. I also doubt that the Indians are impressed with the Woke US military’s new priorities. That’s not the kind of partner India needs, caught between Pakistan and an increasingly aggressive China.

Thus, it came as no surprise that, after the Rosneft and Indian Oil had their say, Russia’s Putin and India’s Narendra Modi got together to firm up some concrete strategic plans:

Bad [though] these deals are from the U.S.’s perspective of seeing Russia being able to leverage them into military opportunities in India, matters became a whole lot worse as the meetings between Putin and Modi went on. As it now stands, a joint statement from Russia and India said: “[We have] reiterated their intention to strengthen defence cooperation, including in the joint development of production of military equipment.” Specifically, according to further official statements from one or both sides, Indian will produce at least 600,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles – the weapon of choice for terrorists and militias across the Middle East and elsewhere – and, even more disturbing for the U.S., India’s Foreign Secretary, Harsh Vardhan Shringla, said that a 2018 contract for the [Russian] S-400 air defence missile systems is now being implemented.

The scope and scale of this coup by Putin in India is as dramatic as it is unexpected, and runs contrary to the U.S.’s expectations of how well its contra-China/Russia strategy in the Middle East had been going. The U.S. fightback against China’s aggressive expansion of influence in the Middle East was founded principally upon the ‘relationship normalisation’ deals that have been made with the UAE, Bahrain, and Israel, and on India’s role as a counterbalance to China in Asia and as a major global buyer of oil and gas, as analysed in depth in my new book on the global oil markets.

I have to take issue with that second paragraph. First, the article fails to point out that the reason the US/India relationship had been going so well was due to President Trump’s assiduous outreach to India’s Modi. Yes, India needs help vis a vis China, but they need reliable help. Trump seemed to offer the stable reliability that Modi was looking for as well as a partnership with the US military, but then …

To say that this was ‘unexpected’ is a bit naive. How could a failure of this magnitude be termed ‘unexpected’ when it’s a product of the corrupt Zhou regime, with its corrupt Hillary protege Jake Sullivan running national security policy? Carrying Hillary’s briefcase for several years isn’t much in the way of qualifications when it comes to dealing with Putin and Putin’s world class foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, who has been in place since 2004.

Obviously both Russia and India need a counter balance to China, so this deal works well for both countries—even if Russia was India’s second choice. Trump had sought to place the US as a leader in such a strategic arrangement by reaching out to Russia, but our geostrategic geniuses in the DC establishment had a better plan: Let’s Go Brandon.

There will be lots more losing to come.