Where The Collapsing World Order Is Headed
Scott Ritter took part in a very lengthy panel discussion hosted by a professor at the University of Teheran a few days ago. The discussion is two hours long, so I haven’t listened to the entirety. The format is basically that the moderator asks a general question and the participants get to do monologues. Ritter does a segment that runs for about ten minutes (~13:53 - 24:15). He’s an articulate and informed speaker whose speaking style can catch and hold your attention so, whether you agree or disagree, your time isn’t wasted.
I listened to this segment twice, and took notes the second time through. The notes will come across more or less as Ritter speaking, but unless quote marks are used they are my notes—as accurate as I could make them. When Ritter speaks of a New World Order, what he’s talking about is a new “security framework” that has been brought into being by the Russian “special military operation” in Ukraine but also including China’s cooperation with Russia in structuring a new financial system that will be more resistant to US sanctions. I think you’ll find this presentation stimulating.
The War in Ukraine and the Collapsing World Order
13:53
There’s lots of denial about the New World Order in the West, while in the rest of the world there is guarded optimism regarding the possibility of making it stick.
Regarding the new European security framework, from a Russian perspective Ukraine isn't the end, but the means to the end of Russia security. Ukraine represents Russian security. Russia gave the US years of diplomatic opportunities to address Russia’s concerns but the West ignored all Russian attempts at diplomacy. That left Russia with only a military option--and Ukraine may not be the only field on which Russia exercises that option.
Finland is about to learn a very hard truth—that you can't simply drop a decades long pact of neutrality with Russia. Finland, in close proximity to St. Petersburg and the Kola peninsula, is attempting to simply back out of its pact with Russia--that will cause serious ramifications. Russia CANNOT allow any Finnish force that could be a threat to those areas. Finland will be destroyed, just like Ukraine, if it allows itself to be used by NATO--"used" is the operative word.
It's a harsh, sad, reality, but it's difficult to see Russia deviating from asserting its security needs.
But it's not just Russia. It's China, too.
At the end of January, 2022 the PRC ambassador to the US gave an interview to NPR in which he said that if the US doesn't tone down what it's currently doing in the Pacific, war with China is "inevitable" over Taiwan. When an ambassador says such things, we must assume that he is reflecting official Chinese policy views.
At that point in time, January of 2022, war was still an abstraction. Nobody thought Russia would go to war. It's a whole new world now.
Taiwan's days are numbered--that's the other lesson coming out of Ukraine. Taiwan has a choice--the easy way (peaceful) or the hard way (war). China has been emboldened by the impotence of the West. The West barks loudly but has no bite. NATO has no military capability. That's why NATO is panicking. How are they going to summon the political will to rebuild their militaries, especially with their economies collapsing? What if Le Pen wins in France? If France walks from NATO then all of NATO walks except Poland and the Baltics. Germany, Italy, Spain? They may remain members, but they won't be "playing the military game".
Read NATO Article 5--an attack against one is an attack against all. The idea that Article 5 necessarily leads to a military response is a fantasy. It only says military action will be "considered." The rest of Europe won't follow Poland.
Sanctions? Russia has shown that the sanctions don't work. Xi sees this. China is the world economy--how can the US sanction China? Russia's actions have emboldened China.
The “military technical option” for Russia and China has become the option of choice because the West doesn't take diplomacy seriously. If the West negotiated in good faith neither Russia nor China would be forced to resort to the destructive path of war. Problem: since the US and Europe simply refuse to negotiate, war becomes the only other option. The US is not a "faithful", a good faith, negotiating partner. The US lies, the US changes its mind with every election, the US is inconsistent, and the US allies are weak, without real influence. The allies are following the US for now, but the US is no longer strong, either militarily or economically.
As a result there will be significant regional realignment to remake the security framework in Europe and in Asia. Both Russia and China will use war to pursue their objectives because the West won't give them any other alternative.
24:15
Ritter is talking about the flaws within the US political system that have led us to this point. One example of this, which highlights that presidents no longer have complete control over the Deep State “Interagency” policy as formulated by Intel, military, and NGO thinktank institutions—sometimes for good, many times for ill—is illustrated by an article by Ray McGovern yesterday. We understand now that despite the troubling geopolitical landscape that had been evident since at least 2018, the DC ruling establishment—including the establishment GOP—thought it would somehow be a good idea to install Zhou as a figurehead president whose foreign policy would be run by a restored coterie of Clintonite Neocons. McGovern illustrates how this led to the US debacle in Syria.
Obama Did Not Call Putin’s Bluff: Will Biden?
(Includes a case study of events in Syria in Autumn 2015, when Obama took Putin seriously and avoided an armed clash.)
Basically, McGovern provides a timeline of events to show that Obama and his SecState Kerry attempted to engage in actual diplomacy with Putin. Putin’s aim was a joint effort against ISIS in Syria as well as a ceasefire with the Syrian government. Obama and Kerry bought into that, directing the US military to share intel with the Russians.
The problem was that the US Interagency Deep State had a different policy—and so they ignored Obama and continued as before. No intel sharing, no stop to US support for ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists. Both Putin and his foreign minister, Lavrov, publicly noted the dynamics involved when attempting to deal with US presidents and SecStates:
Here’s what Lavrov said on September 26:
"My good friend John Kerry … is under fierce criticism from the US military machine. Despite the fact that, as always, [they] made assurances that the US Commander in Chief, President Barack Obama, supported him in his contacts with Russia (he confirmed that during his meeting with President Vladimir Putin), apparently the military does not really listen to the Commander in Chief."
Lavrov went beyond mere rhetoric. He specifically criticized JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford for telling Congress that he opposed sharing intelligence with Russia, "after the agreements concluded on direct orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Barack Obama stipulated that they would share intelligence. … It is difficult to work with such partners. …"
…
October 27, 2016: Putin speaks at the Valdai International Discussion Club
So how did the “growing trust," that Russian President Vladimir Putin once wrote (in the September 11, 2013 NY Times op-ed) marked his “working and personal relationship with President Obama," change into deep distrust and saber-rattling? At Valdai Putin spoke of the “feverish” state of international relations and lamented:
“My personal agreements with the President of the United States have not produced results.” He [Putin] complained about “people in Washington ready to do everything possible to prevent these agreements from being implemented in practice"; and, referring to Syria, Putin decried the lack of a “common front against terrorism after such lengthy negotiations, enormous effort, and difficult compromises.” (Emphasis added)
It’s a fair point—how does one engage in diplomacy with the US when there appears to be a Deep State with its own agenda that doesn’t answer to the POTUS? With whom is a foreign government supposed to negotiate? Or should a foreign government take the Deep State’s obvious hostility at face value and take appropriate measures—military rather than diplomatic? This perception on the Russian side was unquestionably greatly strengthened by the Russian and Ukrainian Hoaxes, which demonstrated that the US political ruling class and Interagency Deep State were united in their willingness to deceive the American people, stage a deceitful coup, in pursuit of military confrontation with Russia through proxy wars. This is how we got to the point at which we find ourselves:
Do you see the steady progression of rhetoric and events over the years? Meanwhile, a note on oligarchs—who rules America?
In the West we call the super rich “philanthropists”.
Clint Ehrlich has a very interesting thread that further illustrates the way in which the NATO threat to admit Ukraine to membership—or, in the alternative, to treat Ukraine as a member for purposes of arms transfers, training, and military cooperation—left Putin and Russia with no non-military option. The same, of course, goes for Finland—as Ritter maintains—now that it says it will seek NATO membership. Ehrlich uses the sinking of the Moskva to illustrate this dynamic:
When Russia began its pre-invasion military build-up around Ukraine's border, there was widespread debate about its motives.
I argued that NATO expansion into Ukraine was a true "red line" for Russia – one that would be enforced with military action.
Unroll available on Thread ReaderCritics of this theory claimed that Ukraine had no imminent prospect of joining NATO, so that couldn't be the impetus for Russia's threatened invasion.
...My counter was that Ukraine's development of indigenous missiles was closing Moscow's window of opportunity to act.
…There were two main homegrown Ukrainian missile systems that concerned Russia:
1. The Hrim-2 ballistic missile, capable of striking Moscow from Ukrainian territory
2. The R-360 Neptune anti-ship cruise missile, capable of striking Russian Navy ships in the Black SeaBefore the war, the efficacy of both of these systems remained a major question mark.
...Today, the Hrim-2 ballistic missile has not yet been fielded.
Ukraine is reportedly continuing to develop it, with covert financial assistance from Saudi Arabia.
However, the R-360 Neptune is reportedly the system that Ukraine used to sink the Mosvka.If that is accurate, then the broader efficacy of Ukraine's homegrown missile programs can no longer be questioned.
...Given the success of Ukrainian military modernization, more credence must be given to the "narrowing window" theory to explain Russia's decision to invade.
If NATO admitted Ukraine *after* its missile-modernization program was complete, Russia would have had few options....
From a purely military perspective, Russia might have been better served by invading Ukraine *earlier*....
With that in mind, the sinking of the Moskva shows that Russian fears of a closing window of opportunity were sound.
Ukraine's missile modernization programs *were* a threat to RU conventional supremacy.
Moscow *was* running out of time to preempt Ukraine's NATO membership.
Note that Putin and other Russian officials have publicly maintained that NATO is, in reality, simply the US and a collection of US vassal states. Russia doesn’t feel threatened by any of the individual NATO states—except the US. And the only reason Russia feels threatened by the US is because the US is 1) expressly hostile to Russia, and 2) possesses a huge force of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. It is the US nuclear umbrella that makes expansion of its system of vassal states toward the Russian heartland such an existential threat to Russia. And all this has happened in the overall context of a US refusal to engage in true diplomacy with Russia—instead substituting a multi-faceted campaign of demonization calculated to put an end to any public debate on US - Russian relations in America.
Where is our public debate on these crucial matters? Who speaks for the American public? Who seeks to keep Americans informed, and who seeks to keep them in the dark?
Excellent article and compilation. Takeaway point: the US (and most Euro nations) has been captured by the Deep State that hates We, The People. How do we get out of this one?
It seems that the only “public debate” nowadays is what pronouns to use and how bad an idea freedom of speech is.
Pretty much no one speaks for the American public, especially not politicians.
And the only ones who seek to keep Americans informed, well, that’s folks like you Mark, and for that you have my deepest thanks. Clarice Feldman said something yesterday that resonated with me, she said that she resents how much hard work is required to find the truth about what’s really going on in the world.
Thanks for making that task a little easier Mark.