Asia's Consolidation

[Toramana]

I want thoughts on this topic from some brave minds here, e.g, Bengal_tiger, ComradePashtun, Khushal (if he could divorce his Islamist bias for a moment, etc). It seems to me that Asia is on the path of better economic integration and consolidation. With Chinese infrastructure development project, expected Afghan stability, Iran's re-integration into global economy, etc. things seem to be moving ahead.

Iran is going to rise very fast if the nuclear talks were successful. From India to Turkey the region is expected to see more economic dynamism.

[tilla_jogian]

Ghaddari ki bhi hadh hoti hai, tujhe kisi kutay ne kata hai jho apne mulak ka naam nai likh sakhta? Yeh sara consolidation apne pyare watan per depend karta hai.

[khushal]

THE GLOBALIZATION OF NATO

Author: Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Clarity Press (2012)
Pages: 411 with complete index

Now Available: Order directly from Global Research

The world is enveloped in a blanket of perpetual conflict. Invasions, occupation, illicit sanctions, and regime change have become currencies and orders of the day. One organization – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) – is repeatedly, and very controversially, involved in some form or another in many of these conflicts led by the US and its allies. NATO spawned from the Cold War. Its existence was justified by Washington and Western Bloc politicians as a guarantor against any Soviet and Eastern Bloc invasion of Western Europe, but all along the Alliance served to cement Washington’s influence in Europe and continue what was actually America’s post-World War II occupation of the European continent. In 1991 the raison d’être of the Soviet threat ended with the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War. Nevertheless NATO remains and continues to alarmingly expand eastward, antagonizing Russia and its ex-Soviet allies. China and Iran are also increasingly monitoring NATO’s moves as it comes into more frequent contact with them.

Yugoslavia was a turning point for the Atlantic Alliance and its mandate. The organization moved from the guise of a defensive posture into an offensive pose under the pretexts of humanitarianism. Starting from Yugoslavia, NATO began its journey towards becoming a global military force. From its wars in the Balkans, it began to broaden its international area of operations outside of the Euro-Atlantic zone into the Caucasus, Central Asia, East Africa, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Indian Ocean. It has virtually turned the Mediterranean Sea into a NATO lake with the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative, while it seeks to do the same to the Black Sea and gain a strategic foothold in the Caspian Sea region. The Gulf Security Initiative between NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council seeks to also dominate the Persian Gulf and to hem in Iran. Israel has become a de facto member of the military organization. At the same time, NATO vessels sail the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. These warships are deployed off the coasts of Somalia, Djibouti, and Yemen as part of NATO’s objectives to create a naval cordon of the seas controlling important strategic waterways and maritime transit routes.

The Atlantic Alliance’s ultimate aim is to fix and fasten the American Empire. NATO has clearly played an important role in complementing the US strategy for dominating Eurasia. This includes the encirclement of Russia, China, Iran, and their allies with a military ring subservient to Washington. The global missile shield project, the militarization of Japan, the insurgencies in Libya and Syria, the threats against Iran, and the formation of a NATO-like military alliance in the Asia-Pacific region are components of this colossal geopolitical project. NATO’s globalization, however, is bringing together a new series of Eurasian counter-alliances with global linkages that stretch as far as Latin America. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) have been formed by Russia, China, and their allies as shields against the US and NATO and as a means to challenge them. As the globalization of NATO unfolds the risks of nuclear war become more and more serious with the Atlantic Alliance headed towards a collision course with Russia, China, and Iran that could ignite World War III.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-globalization-of-nato-2/5307198

[khushal]

Eurasia As We (And the U.S.) Knew It is Dead

By Pepe Escobar
Global Research, April 19, 2015
Asia Times
Region: Asia, Europe
Theme: Global Economy, Oil and Energy
140 158 4 556
eurasia
Move over, Cold War 2.0. The real story, now and for the foreseeable future, in its myriad declinations, and of course, ruling out too many bumps in the road, is a new, integrated Eurasia forging ahead.

China’s immensely ambitious New Silk Road project will keep intersecting with the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EEC). And that will be the day when the EU wakes up and finds a booming trade/commerce axis stretching from St. Petersburg to Shanghai. It’s always pertinent to remember that Vladimir Putin sold a similar, and even more encompassing, vision in Germany a few years ago – stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

It will take time – and troubled times. But Eurasia’s radical face lift is inexorable. This implies an exceptionalist dream – the U.S. as Eurasia hegemon, something that still looked feasible at the turn of the millennium – fast dissolving right before anyone’s eyes.

Russia pivots East, China pivots West

A few sound minds in the U.S. remain essential as they fully deconstruct the negatives, pointing to the dangers of Cold War 2.0. The Carnegie Moscow Center’s Dmitri Trenin, meanwhile, is more concerned with the positives, proposing a road map for Eurasian convergence.

The Russia-China strategic partnership – from energy trade to defense and infrastructure development – will only solidify, as Russia pivots East and China pivots West. Geopolitically, this does not mean a Moscow subordinated to Beijing, but a rising symbiotic relationship, painstakingly developed in multiple stages.

The BRICs – that dirty word in Washington – already have way more global appeal, and as much influence as the outdated G-7. The BRIC New Development Bank, ready to start before the end of 2015, is a key alternative to G7-controlled mechanisms and the IMF.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is bound to include India and Pakistan at their upcoming summer summit in Russia, and Iran’s inclusion, post-sanctions as an official member, would be virtually a done deal by 2016. The SCO is finally blossoming as the key development, political/economic cooperation and security forum across Asia.

Putin’s “greater Europe” from Lisbon to Vladivostok – which would mean the EU + EEC – may be on hold while China turbo-charges the its New Silk Road in both its overland and maritime routes. Meanwhile, the Kremlin will concentrate on a parallel strategy – to use East Asian capital and technology to develop Siberia and the Russian Far East. The yuan is bound to become a reserve currency across Eurasia in the very near future, as the ruble and the yuan are about to rule for good in bilateral trade.

The German factor

“Greater Europe” from Lisbon to Vladivostok inevitably depends on a solution to the German puzzle. German industrialists clearly see the marvels of Russia providing Germany – much more than the EU as a whole – with a privileged geopolitical and strategic channel to Asia-Pacific. However, the same does not apply as yet to German politicos. Chancellor Angela Merkel, whatever her rhetoric, keeps toeing the Washington line.

The Russian Pipelineistan strategy was already in place – via Nord Stream and South Stream – when interminable EU U-turns led Moscow to cancel South Stream and launch Turk Stream (which will, in the end, increase energy costs for the EU). The EU, in exchange, would have virtually free access to Russia’s wealth of resources, and internal market. The Ukraine disaster means the end of all these elaborate plans.

Germany is already the defacto EU conductor for this economic express train. As an export powerhouse, its only way to go is not West or South, but East. Thus, the portentous spectacle of an orchestra of salivating industrialists when Xi Jinping went to Germany in the spring of 2104. Xi proposed no less than a high-speed rail line linking the New Silk Road from Shanghai to Duisburg and Berlin.

A key point which shouldn’t be lost on Germans: a vital branch of the New Silk Road is the Trans-Siberian high-speed rail remix. So one of the yellow BRIC roads to Beijing and Shanghai boasts Moscow as a strategic pit stop.

That Empire of Chaos …

Beijing’s Go West strategy overland is blissfully free of hyperpower meddling – from the Trans-Siberian remix to the rail/road routes across the Central Asian “stans” all the way to Iran and Turkey. Moreover, Russia sees it as a symbiosis, considering a win-win as Central Asian stans jump simultaneously aboard the EEU and what Beijing dubs the Silk Road Economic Belt.

On other fronts, meanwhile, Beijing is very careful to not antagonize the U.S., the reigning hyperpower. See for instance this quite frank but also quite diplomatic interview to the Financial Times by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang.

One key aspect of the Russia-China strategic partnership is that both identify Washington’s massively incoherent foreign policy as a prime breeder of chaos – exactly as I argue in my book Empire of Chaos.

In what applies specifically to China and Russia, it’s essentially chaos as in divide and rule. Beijing sees Washington trying to destabilize China’s periphery (Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang), and actively interfering in the South China Sea disputes. Moscow sees Washington obsessed with the infinite expansion of NATO and taking no prisoners in preventing Russia’s efforts at Eurasian integration.

Thus, the certified death of Russia’s previous geopolitical strategy. No more trying to feel included in an elite Western club such as the G-8. No more strategic partnership with NATO.

Always expert at planning well in advance, Beijing also sees how Washington’s relentless demonization of not only Putin, but Russia as a whole (as in submit or else), constitute a trial run on what might be applied against China in the near future.

Meet the imponderables

All bets are off on how the fateful U.S.-China-Russia triangle will evolve. Arguably, it may take the following pattern: The Americans talk loud and carry an array of sticks; the Russians are not shy to talk back while silently preparing strategically for a long, difficult haul; the Chinese follow a modified “Little Helmsman” Deng Xiaoping doctrine – talk very diplomatically while no longer keeping a low profile.

Beijing’s already savvy to what Moscow has been whispering: Exceptionalist Washington – in decline or not – will never treat Beijing as an equal or respect Chinese national interests.

In the great Imponderables chapter, bets are still accepted on whether Moscow will use this serious, triple threat crisis – sanctions, oil price war, ruble devaluation – to radically apply structural game changers and launch a new strategy of economic development. Putin’s recent Q&A, although crammed with intriguing answers, still isn’t clear on this.

Other great imponderable is whether Xi, armed with soft power, charisma and lots of cash, will be able to steer, simultaneously, the tweaking of the economic model and a Go West avalanche that does not end up alienating China’s multiple potential partners in building the New Silk roads.

A final, super-imponderable is whether (or when, if ever) Brussels will decide to undertake a mutually agreed symbiosis with Russia. This, vs. its current posture of total antagonism that extends beyond geopolitical issues. Germany, under Merkel, seems to have made the choice to remain submitted to NATO, and thus, a strategic midget.

So what we have here is the makings of a Greater Asia from Shanghai to St. Petersburg – including, crucially, Tehran – instead of a Total Eurasia that extends from Lisbon to Vladivostok. Total Eurasia may be broken, at least for now. But Greater Asia is a go. There will be a tsunami of efforts by the usual suspects, to also break it up.

All this will be fascinating to watch. How will Moscow and Beijing stare down the West – politically, commercially and ideologically – without risking a war? How will they cope with so much pressure? How will they sell their strategy to great swathes of the Global South, across multiple Asian latitudes?

One battle, though, is already won. Bye, bye Zbigniew Brzezinski. Your grand chessboard hegemonic dream is over.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/eurasia-as-we-and-the-u-s-knew-it-is-dead/5443805

[Kushan Prince]

All these economic developments in Afghanistan will be pointless if no peace is found in the region first.

[ComradePashtun]

India to tie up with Iran for Chabahar, its answer to Pakistan's Gwadar port with China

NEW DELHI: India will push ahead this week with plans to build a port in southeast Iran, two sources said, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi keen to develop trade ties with Central Asia and prepared to fend off US pressure not to rush into any deals with Iran.

India and Iran agreed in 2003 to develop a port at Chabahar on the Gulf of Oman, near Iran's border with Pakistan, but the venture has made little progress because of Western sanctions on Iran.

Now, spurred on by Chinese President Xi Jinping's signing of energy and infrastructure agreements with Pakistan worth $46 billion, Modi wants to swiftly sign trade deals with Iran and other Gulf countries.

"Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari will travel on a day-long tour to Iran to sign a memorandum of understanding for development of Chabahar port," a shipping ministry source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The deal will be signed on Wednesday, he said.

Encouraged by the prospect of a deal between world powers and Tehran by June 30 on Iran's nuclear programme, after which sanctions could be eased, India recently sent a delegation to Iran to scout for trade, energy and infrastructure deals.

The United States cautioned India and others last week against strengthening ties with Iran ahead of a final agreement. But Indian officials said New Delhi could not ignore its national interest and noted a report that a US energy delegation was visiting Iran.

"We don't want to miss this opportunity and will move as expeditiously as possible," the shipping ministry source said. India's cabinet approved the plan to develop Chabahar port last year.

Iran has also proposed a free-trade agreement with India, a trade ministry source said. Rupee-denominated trade with Iran, started in 2012 because of complications arising from sanctions, has almost doubled Indian exports to Tehran in the past two years to $4 billion.
Now Indian exporters want to build on that, using a free-trade zone being developed near Chabahar to export more to the Commonwealth of Independent States, made up of former Soviet Republics, said Mumbai-based Khalid Khan, regional head of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations.

"It will be Modi's gift to Iran and Indian exporters," he said of the port project.


Bypassing Pakistan: India wants to build the port as it would cut transport costs and freight time to Central Asia and the Gulf by about a third. The port is also central to India's efforts to circumvent Pakistan and open up a route to landlocked Afghanistan where it has developed close security ties and economic interests.

India has already spent about $100 million to construct a 220-km (140-mile) road in western Afghanistan to link up with Chabahar port.

Last week Modi assured Afghan President Ashraf Ghani of India's commitment to building the port.

Chabahar is just along the coast from Gwadar port in Pakistan that is being developed with China's help, said Robin Mills, head of consulting at Dubai-based Manaar Energy. "So there is a strategic element for the Indian side".

Iran could rapidly develop as a destination for global investors if Western sanctions are lifted and Modi wants to fast-track the port project before Tehran has time to rethink. At the weekend, Iranian media reported that Iran had turned down an Indian request seeking multi-billion-dollar development rights for the Farzad B gas field.

"I think India should try to push ahead and take advantage wherever they can before Iran changes its mind," Mills said.

[Toramana]

http://www.asia-pacificresearch.com/us-grand-strategy-for-war-against-china-laid-out/5447214

US “Grand Strategy” for War Against China Laid Out

he advanced stage of discussions in US foreign policy circles over the pursuit of an ever-more aggressive policy toward China has been revealed by the recent release of a chilling report under the auspices of the influential Council on Foreign Relations.

Entitled “Revising US Grand Strategy Toward China,” the report is nothing less than an agenda for war. It is authored by Robert D. Blackwill and Ashley J. Tellis, both of whom have close connections to the US State Department and various American foreign policy think tanks.

The report cites a publication produced during World War II defining “grand strategy” as one that “so integrates the policies and armaments of a nation that the resort to war is either rendered unnecessary or is undertaken with the maximum chance of victory.” This is not merely a concept of war but “an inherent element of statecraft at all times.”

The report’s central theme is that US global dominance is threatened by the rise of China and this process must be reversed by economic, diplomatic and military means.

Significantly, at the beginning of the report, its authors cite the Pentagon’s Defence Planning Guidance document of 1992, produced in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which insisted that US strategy had to “refocus on precluding the emergence of any potential future global competitor.”

While asserting that China has a “grand strategy” for regional and ultimately global domination, the authors make clear they regard the threat to the US position as arising from China’s economic growth within the present international order.

This analysis recalls that advanced at the beginning of 1907 by the senior British Foreign Office official Eyre Crowe about the impact on Britain of the rise of Germany. Crowe concluded that, whatever the intentions of its leaders, Germany’s economic expansion, in and of itself, constituted a threat to the British Empire. Seven years later, the two major powers were at war.

China is not an imperialist power as Germany was, but its very economic rise is undermining the US position.

According to the report: “Because the American effort to ‘integrate’ China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to US primacy in Asia—and could eventually result in a consequential challenge to American power globally—Washington needs a grand strategy toward China that centres on balancing the rise of Chinese power rather than continuing to assist its ascendancy.”

A repeat of the Cold War policy based on “containment” is not possible because that was grounded on the autarkic policies of the Soviet Union, whereas China’s economic growth is bound up with economic globalisation and China’s integration into world markets.

In its own way, this assertion is a direct confirmation of the Marxist analysis that the origins of war lie in the very modus operandi of the capitalist system itself. China has operated within the framework of the global market, established not least by the United States, but this integration has itself undermined US primacy.

In the report’s words: “US support for China’s entry into the global trading system has thus created the awkward situation in which Washington has contributed towards hastening Beijing’s economic growth and, by extension, accelerated its rise as a geopolitical rival.”

Accordingly, in advancing the core elements of an American “grand strategy,” the authors place considerable importance on economic issues. As part of a plan to “vitalize” the economy, the US should:

“construct a new set of trading relationships in Asia that exclude China, fashion effective tools to deal with China’s pervasive use of geo-economic tools in Asia and beyond, and, in partnership with US allies and like-minded partners, create a new technology-control mechanism vis-a-vis China.”

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), which currently excludes China and for which Obama is now seeking fast-track authority from the US Congress to negotiate, is regarded as essential. Failure to deliver it would “seriously weaken” the US grand strategy.

The report’s focus on the underlying economic issues by no means implies any downgrading of military means. On the contrary, the authors spell out detailed measures, both in terms of US policy and those it must secure from its allies in the region.

The relationship with Japan is regarded as occupying first place. The report’s proposals include an expansion of the US-Japan security relationship to encompass all of Asia, the upgrading of the Japanese military, aligning Japan with concepts such as Air-Sea battle—a massive attack on military facilities in mainland China—and intensifying Japanese cooperation with ballistic missile defence (BMD). Anti-missile systems are seen as vital for a first-strike strategy, which aims to render inoperable any retaliation.

With regard to South Korea, the report calls for increased BMD capacity, as well as a comprehensive strategy, developed with Japan, to bring about “regime change” in North Korea.

Australia is described as the “southern anchor” of US relationships in the Pacific. The report calls for the use of the Stirling naval base in Western Australia to support “US naval force structure in the region.” The US and Australia should deploy surveillance and unmanned aerial vehicles on Australia’s Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean and “the two countries should work together to more rapidly identify potential Australian contributions to ballistic missile defence.”

And the list goes on. Indian nuclear weapons must be seen as an “asset” in the current balance of power, and US-India military co-operation should increase. Indonesia’s role in joint military exercises must be expanded, naval exercises with Vietnam stepped up and the Philippines must develop a full range of defence capabilities.

On the political front, the report calls for the reinforcement of trusted strategic relationships and partnerships throughout the Indo-Pacific region that include traditional US alliances but go beyond them. It advocates strengthening Asian states’ “ability to cope with China independently” and building new forms of intra-Asian co-operation—clearly directed to counter China—that do not always involve the US but are systematically supported by it.

After detailing these anti-China measures on the economic, military and political fronts, the report states that the US must energise “high-level diplomacy” with China to “mitigate the inherently profound tensions” and to “reassure US allies and friends in Asia and beyond that its objective is to avoid a confrontation with China.”

The source of this blatant contradiction lies in a no less significant component of the US war drive—the offensive on the ideological front. The purpose of the “high-level diplomacy” and even possible joint ventures with China on some issues, is to manufacture the propaganda lie that the cause of war is the fault of America’s enemy—in this case Chinese assertiveness and aggression. That lie has been central to the launching of US military activity ever since it became an imperialist power at the end of the 19th century.

In reality, the report itself specifically rules out any accommodation with China. In their conclusion, the authors state:

“[T]here is no real prospect of building fundamental trust, ‘peaceful coexistence,’ ‘mutual understanding,’ a strategic partnership, or a ‘new type of major country relations’ between the United States and China.”

The release of this report and its clear elaboration of the US war drive underscore the necessity for the development of a socialist strategy against war by the international working class. This will be at the centre of tomorrow’s May Day Online International Rally called by the International Committee of the Fourth International.

[Toramana]

US Strategic Goal in Asia? Disrupt China's Peaceful Development - Media

The United States and Japan have recently revised the guidelines forming the basis of defense alliance between the two countries, which could "deal a severe blow" to the balance of power in the Asia Pacific region, according to the Global Post.
The US reiterated its commitment to enhance Japan's security and deter any threat its key ally in Asia could face. Washington pledged to protect Japan's territory, including the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands, currently controlled by China.


"The Diaoyu islands belong to China," the newspaper asserted, adding that the fate of the contested territory is a private matter between Beijing and Tokyo and no increase in US-Japan defense cooperation can change that. But China might think that the US pushes Japan to adopt a more assertive stance on the islands, the newspaper noted.
The US-Japan defense cooperation is primarily aimed at countering China's peaceful rise but will ultimately fail to achieve this goal, the Global Post said. Moreover, the United States wishes to send the region into turmoil, cause tensions in Northeast Asia, provoke confrontation between Beijing and Tokyo, the media outlet noted.

For its part, China wants the region to live in peace and stability, the Global Times emphasized, adding that this corresponds with Beijing's strategic interests of rapid development. Tokyo also wants the region to be stable but "remains undecided on what it needs more – stability or lack thereof," the newspaper said.
"However, one of strategic goals both Japan and the US pursue is to disrupt China's peaceful development," according to the Global Times.


Read more: http://sputniknews.com/asia/20150505...#ixzz3ZIuAbxC2

[Toramana]

India to develop Iran port despite US pressure

n a bold defiance of the US warnings, India is poised to sign an agreement with Iran for the development of the strategic Chabahar Port in southeast Iran.

"[India’s Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin] Gadkari is scheduled to visit Iran on May 5. During his visit India and Iran may sign a memorandum of understanding for development of Chabahar Port," Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

Iran and India agreed in 2003 to develop Chabahar Port, which lies near Iran’s border with Pakistan. Last year, India's cabinet approved the development plan.

The announcement comes nearly a week after the US warned India and others against boosting ties with Iran ahead of a final nuclear deal expected between Tehran and six world powers.



However, Indian officials have said New Delhi should focus on its national interests.

“We don't want to miss this opportunity and will move as expeditiously as possible,” an Indian official said.

Chabahar Port would cut transport costs and freight time for India to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf by about a third.

The port would largely help India to get around Pakistan and open up a route to landlocked Afghanistan where it has developed close economic interests.

India has already spent about $100 million to build a 220-km (140-mile) road in western Afghanistan to link up with Chabahar Port.

Khalid Khan, regional head of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, said Chabahar Port will help India export more to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Experts from Iran and the P5+1 group of countries – the US, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and China – are currently in New York to try to work out a draft agreement over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. According to reports, the negotiations are planned to resume in the Austrian capital, Vienna, on May 12.

Iran and the P5+1 group of countries reached mutual understanding on the parameters of a comprehensive agreement over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in the Swiss city of Lausanne on April 2.

Iran and the six-party group have agreed to finalize a comprehensive deal on the nuclear program by the end of June.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/05/05/409575/Iran-India-Chabahar-port-