Countercurrent – June 23, 2024
Gaza Under The Bombs With 24 Killed in Al Shati Camp
By Dr Marwan Asmar
Israel is relentless in its bombings. Today is the turn of Al Shati Camp in the center of Gaza. It is part of the continued Israeli massacres that took away 41 lives combined with the devastating military actions in Al Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Israeli bombardments resulted in the further destruction of one area of the Al Shati Camp where strikes took the lives of 24 people
While the missiles were striking scores of civilians, mostly women and children were heard in a videoclip screaming in a fog of cement and soot as Israeli warplanes bombed three residential buildings.
Men and women were scurrying carrying children that were either killed and/or injured.
Another harrowing experience for the people of Gaza, the Israeli attacks on the camp is trending in opaque videos and images.
There are no Hamas fighters here, Israeli warplanes were targeting a residential square where people were killed in a blink of an eye.
Eyewitnesses said a total of 20 houses were bombed in the area resulting in their total and/or partial destruction.
Dr Marwan Asmar is an Amman-based writer covering Middle East Affairs.
https://countercurrents.org/2024/06/gaza-under-the-bombs-with-24-killed-in-al-shati-camp/
Informed Comment – June 22, 2024
Israel Flattened Civilian Housing Complexes with 2000-lb. Bombs
in absence of Specific Military Target
BY JUAN COLE
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a reportﾠthis week on “Indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks during the conflict in Gaza” during the first three months of the Israeli campaign against Gaza.
The UN is painfully polite, so you may not be able to tell that the terms “indiscriminate” and “disproportionate” are war crimes, of which it is accusing the Israeli government.
The report notes, “According to the Israeli Air Force (IAF), between 7 October 2023 and 19 February 2024 over 29,000 targets in Gaza were attacked.”
Again, although OHCHR is agreeably quoting this official Israeli source, it is not paying a compliment to the air force for its thoroughness:
“The rate at which Palestinians were killed in Gaza during this reporting period was reportedly higher than in any recent conflicts globally.”
Again, not a compliment.
In fact, you have to think of this litany of facts and figures as sort of like the opening statement of a prosecuting attorney, establishing the grounds for a conviction.
They are building up to it: “The war has also witnessed many tragic instances of entire families killed together, from infants to grandparents, many while in their homes (128,904 housing units have been damaged between 7 October 2023 and 1 April 2024) or in other places they had sought safety. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, as of 3 May 2024, more than 3,129 families have been killed or injured together.” The OHCHR subjected reports of Israeli attacks and their aftermath to very sophisticated CSI-style forensics.
They found, “87 per cent of the verified fatalities have occurred in incidents that resulted in 5 or more fatalities, and over 60 per cent were killed in incidents that resulted in 10 or more fatalities.”
What they discovered is that the Israeli attacks weren’t targeted at, say, a single Hamas militant. The Israeli military went big. Six in ten of their strikes produced 10 or dozens of fatalities. That outcome is weird if you were only trying to kill 37,000 militiamen in a population of 2.2 million people. You’re only targeting 1.6 percent of the population, none of which are women or minors. But “the majority of those killed are children and women.”
So what is the significance of entire families being killed or wounded and over a hundred thousand domiciles being damaged?
Here’s what the High Commissioner’s office is getting at: “These statistics suggest that Israel’s choices of methods and means of conducting hostilities in Gaza since 7 October, including the use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas, have failed to ensure that they effectively distinguish between civilians and combatants. The widespread, large-scale and continuing toll of civilian deaths, notably the high proportion of women and children amongst them, and accompanying destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza since 7 October, raise serious concerns about the Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) compliance with IHL, including as to patterns of systematic violation of the principles of necessity, distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack.”
Violating these four principles is in each case a war crime. Remember that the International Court of Justice is deciding whether Israel is guilty of genocide, and the International Criminal Court has asked for warrants against Israel’s prime minister and its minister of defense on grounds that they may have committed war crimes.
The report gives examples of each of the violations it has identified. Last October 9, the Israeli air force appears to have dropped without warning a 2,000-pound BLU-109/MK 84 bomb on the densely populated Jabaliya Refugee settlement, pulverizing two multi-story buildings and damaging many others, and killing at least 60 people, wounding dozens more. A 2000-pound bomb can have a blast radius of a quarter mile. The point is that this was not a precision strike on a handful of guerrillas. It took out two apartment buildings full of families.
The same day, more 2000-pound bombs were dropped on Gaza city: “An area of 5,700 square metres [61,354 square feet] was essentially flattened, with at least seven structures, including Taj3 Tower, completely destroyed and three other structures showing signs of significant damage.”
61,000 square feet is the size of a town shopping center.
In fact, the US Pentagon, which has very good satellite photography, has seen 500 craters consistent with use of 2000-pound bombs. The US military is clearly appalled, since these weapons should not be used on densely populated urban areas, and were not deployed by the US against ISIL in Mosul, for instance. Several Biden administration officials, civilian and military, who have seen these atrocities unfold and recognize them for what they are have resigned in protest.
That is why President Biden paused a shipment of 2000-pound bombs to Israel– he didn’t want them used on Rafah, which had swollen with refugees. Netanyahu, however, just vigorously protested that halt, saying he needs the bombs. What does he plan to do with them? Knock down that last three apartment buildings in Gaza?
The report gives other examples of the Israelis flattening entire residential blocks. It concludes that the Israeli army in Gaza has not distinguished between military targets and civilians, and that it has launched indiscriminate attacks on urban infrastructure with no specific military target in sight.
Israeli commanders violated the principle of proportionality, which holds that “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.” That is, you can’t take out a whole city block and kill hundreds of people to get at three terrorists. But that procedure has been the Israeli war on Gaza in a nutshell.
Using 2000-pound bombs on dense neighborhoods also violates the principle of precaution, which requires military commanders to give some thought beforehand to what would happen to unarmed civilians if they chose a highly destructive 2000-pound bomb to accomplish their mission rather than something more appropriate to targeting a small guerrilla band.
Moreover, there is no evidence that the Israeli military issued any warnings to the civilians it planned to wipe out. These attacks were not like the US Fallujah campaign in Iraq in fall of 2004, where most of the city was allowed to leave before the assault.
So if the Israeli government has committed war crimes, it has to investigate them and punish those responsible. Otherwise, the High Commissioner warns ominously, “Member States must support accountability measures at the international level, including through the International Criminal Court.”
Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant had better enjoy Israel in the summer, because their future ability to travel will be circumscribed when they are convicted of war crimes by the ICC.
https://www.juancole.com/2024/06/flattened-civilian-complexes.html
The Conversation – June 23, 2024
Does Israel really want to Open a Two-Front War by attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon?
By Ian Parmeter, Australian National University 
Among the many sayings attributed to Winston Churchill is, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
This sentiment seems appropriate as Israel potentially appears ready to embark on a war against the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said this week a decision on an all-out war against Hezbollah was “coming soon” and that senior commanders of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had signed off on a plan for the operation.
This threat comes despite the fact Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza is far from over. Israel has still not achieved the two primary objectives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put forth at the start of the conflict:
the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing entity in Gaza
the freeing of the remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas (about 80 believed to still be alive, along with the remains of about 40 believed to be dead).
Why Hezbollah is attacking Israel now
Israel has cogent reasons for wanting to eliminate the threat from Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been launching Iranian-supplied missiles, rockets and drones across the border into northern Israel since the Gaza war began on October 8. Its stated purpose is to support Hamas by distracting the IDF from its Gaza operation.
Hezbollah’s attacks have been relatively circumscribed – confined so far to northern Israel. But they have led to the displacement of some 60,000 residents from the border area. These people are understandably fed up and demanding Netanyahu’s government takes action to force Hezbollah to withdraw from the border.
This anger has been augmented this week by Hezbollah publicising video footage of military and civilian sites in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, which had been taken by a low-flying surveillance drone.
The implication: Hezbollah was scoping the region for new targets. Haifa, a city of nearly 300,000, has not yet been subject to Hezbollah attacks.
The most far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, have openly called for Israel to invade southern Lebanon. Even without this pressure, Netanyahu has ample reason to want to neutralise the Hezbollah threat because residents of northern Israel are strong supporters of his Likud party.
US and Iranian interests in a broader conflict
The United States is obviously concerned about the risk Israel will open a second front in its conflicts. As such, President Joe Biden has sent an envoy, Amos Hochstein, to Israel and Lebanon to try to reduce tensions on both sides.
In Lebanon, he can’t publicly deal directly with the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, because the group is on the US list of global terrorist organisations. Instead, he met the long-serving speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, who as a fellow Shia is able to talk with Nasrallah.
But Hezbollah answers to Iran – its main backer in the region. And it’s doubtful if any Lebanese leader can persuade it to desist from action approved by Iran.
Iran’s interests in the potential for an Israel-Hezbollah war at this time are mixed. It would obviously be glad to see Israel under military pressure on two fronts. But Iranian leaders see Hezbollah as insurance against an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities.
Hezbollah has an estimated 150,000 missiles and rockets, including some that could reach deep into Israel. So far, Iran seems to want Hezbollah to hold back from a major escalation with Israel, which could deplete most of that arsenal.
That said, although Israel’s Iron Dome defensive shield has been remarkably successful in neutralising the rocket threat from Gaza, it might not be as effective against a large-scale barrage of more sophisticated missiles.
Israel needed help from the US, Britain, France and Jordan in countering a direct attack from Iran in April that involved some 150 missiles and 170 drones.
Lessons from previous Israeli interventions in Lebanon
The other factor – especially for wiser heads mindful of history – is the country’s previous interventions in Lebanon have been far from cost-free.
Israel’s problems with Lebanon started when the late King Hussein of Jordan forced the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), then led by Yasser Arafat, to relocate to Lebanon in 1970. He did that because the PLO had been using Jordan as a base for operations against Israel after the 1967 war, provoking Israeli retaliation.
From the early 1970s, the PLO formed a state within a state in Lebanon. It largely acted independently from the perennially weak Lebanese government, which was divided on sectarian grounds, and in 1975, collapsed into a prolonged civil war.
The PLO used southern Lebanon to launch attacks against Israel, leading Israel to launch a limited invasion of its northern neighbour in 1978, driving Palestinian militia groups north of the Litani River.
That invasion was only partially successful. Militants soon moved back towards the border and renewed their attacks on northern Israel. In 1982, then-Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin decided to remove the PLO entirely from Lebanon, launching a major invasion of Lebanon all the way to Beirut. This eventually forced the PLO leadership and the bulk of its fighters to relocate to Tunisia.
Despite this success, the two Israeli invasions had the unintended consequence of radicalising the until-then quiescent Shia population of southern Lebanon.
That enabled Iran, in its early post-revolutionary phase under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to work with Shia clerics in Lebanon to establish Hezbollah (Party of God in Arabic), which became a greater threat to Israel than the PLO had ever been.
Bolstered by Iranian support, Hezbollah has become stronger over the years, becoming a force in Lebanese politics and regularly firing missiles into Israel.
In 2006, Hezbollah was able to block an IDF advance into southern Lebanon aimed at rescuing two Israeli soldiers Hezbollah had captured. The outcome was essentially a draw, and the two soldiers remained in captivity until their bodies were exchanged for Lebanese prisoners in 2008.
Many Arab observers at the time judged that by surviving an asymmetrical conflict, Hezbollah had emerged with a political and military victory.
For a while during and after that conflict, Nasrallah was one of the most popular regional leaders, despite the fact he was loathed by rulers of conservative Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia.
Will history repeat itself?
This is the background to discussions in Israel about launching a war against Hezbollah. And it demonstrates how the quote from Churchill is relevant.
Most military experts would caution against choosing to fight a war on two fronts. Former US President George W. Bush decided to invade Iraq in 2003 when the war in Afghanistan had not concluded. The outcome was hugely costly for the US military and disastrous for both countries.
The 19th century American writer Mark Twain is reported to have said that history does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes. Will Israel’s leaders listen to the echoes of the past?
Ian Parmeter, Research Scholar, Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University
One More Pakistani Journalist Killed: PEC Expresses Shock
Nava J. Thakuria
Geneva: Press Emblem Campaign, the global media safety and rights body, expresses utter shock over the relentless murder of journalists in Pakistan, as the South Asian nation has lost its seventh scribe to assailants this year. Condemning the gunning down of Khalil Afridi Jibran (55), a television journalist of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on 18 June 2024, PEC demands a high-level probe into his murder, and nab the culprits to be punished under the law.
According to local Pak media outlets, the senior journalist was associated with the privately owned Pashto-language news channel Khyber TV, which is influential in Pakistan’s north-western province. Khalil, also a popular civil society activist, was targeted by unidentified gunmen in the night hours as he was returning home after daily work in Landi Kotal town. The former president of Landi Kotal Press Club died on the spot. Family and friends claim that Khalil used to receive threats from miscreants for some months. Local journalists organized a protest demonstration before his burial.
“Khalil Afridi Jibran becomes the 55th journalist to be killed this year around the world. Unfortunately Pakistan continues to lose journalists to perpetrators with impunity and thus emerges as a most dangerous country for media persons in the recent past. “We extend moral support to the family members and colleagues in their fight for justice and urge Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Ali Amin Gandapur to do the needful,” said Blaise Lempen, president of PEC (https://pressemblem.ch/pec-news.shtml).
PEC’s south Asia representative Nava Thakuria revealed that since 1 January this year, prior to Khalil, Pakistan witnessed the killing of journalists; namely, Nasrullah Gadani (from Sindh province), Kamran Dawar (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Mehar Ashfaq Siyal (Punjab), Maulana Mohammad Siddique Mengal (Balochistan), Jam Saghir Ahmad Lar (Punjab) and Tahira Nosheen Rana (Punjab). Its neighbor India witnessed the murder of television journalist Ashutosh Shrivastava, who worked for nationalist channel Sudarshan News and was shot dead in Uttar Pradesh.
https://www.pressenza.com/2024/06/one-more-pakistani-journalist-killed-pec-expresses-shock/
Low-Yield Nuclear Weapons Behind Russian Consideration
of Changes to Its Nuclear Doctrine
by Carl Osgood (EIRNS)
Before he ended his visit to Vietnam on June 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin specified in a meeting with Russian journalists that the issue behind the reconsideration of Russia’s nuclear doctrine is the West’s development of low-yield nuclear devices for combat use. “In particular, ultra-low-power nuclear explosive devices are being developed, and we know that expert circles in the West are entertaining the idea that such weapons could be used, and there is nothing particularly terrible about it,” he said. “It may not be terrible, but we must be aware of this. And we are.”
In covering Putin’s remarks, Sputnik notes that American proponents suggested that their use would not lead to an all-out nuclear retaliation due to their limited impact. “If conflict crosses the nuclear threshold, lower yields would signal a clear interest in limiting its intensity,” claimed Lieutenant Commander Alan Cummings, U.S. Navy Reserve, in an article for the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings in April, in which he argued the case for placing nuclear-armed cruise missiles aboard U.S. Navy attack submarines.
Dmitry Kornev, the founder of th[e MilitaryRussia.ru](MilitaryRussia.ru) portal, told Sputnik that there should be no illusions about limited nuclear strikes. “Nuclear weapons have no threshold. Everywhere in the world it is believed that the use of nuclear weapons is the use of nuclear weapons, no matter what power, no matter what targets,” he said.
Information Clearing House – June 23, 2024
A new multipolar security system based on ‘Pax Rossiya
The BRICS multipolar world order is a welcome alternative to the mayhem of the Western-dominated system. The principles of fairness and cooperation are laudable and necessary to implement.
Editorial
For several years now, Russia, China and other members of the expanding BRICS alliance have been formulating progressive trade and financial relations of the emerging multipolar world order. That order is based on mutual respect and partnership grounded in international law and the UN Charter.
The BRICS concept is rightly the zeitgeist of our time. It is rallying more nations to its fold especially those of the so-called Global South which for decades have been subjected to the unilateralism of Western hegemony.
The trouble is that for a new world order based on equality and fairness to succeed in practice, it needs to be secure from arbitrary military aggression and imperialist tyranny. In other words, a new security architecture is required to underpin the development of a multipolar world.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been advocating for a new indivisible international security system. This week saw the plan for a new security arrangement put into action.
The Russian leader embarked on state visits to North Korea and Vietnam during which he signed new strategic partnership and defense accords.
Ahead of his trip to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Putin outlined the integrated vision thus: “We are also ready for close cooperation to make international relations more democratic and stable… To do this, we will develop alternative mechanisms of trade and mutual settlements that are not controlled by the West, and jointly resist illegitimate unilateral restrictions. And at the same time – to build an architecture of equal and indivisible security in Eurasia.”
The concept of indivisible security is by no means limited to Eurasia. Russia has signaled the same principles apply to Latin America, Africa and indeed every other corner of the world.
During Putin’s meetings with Chairman Kim Jong Un of the DPRK and President Lo Tam of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the strategic partnerships agreed were not merely about military defense and security. They involved comprehensive partnerships for the development of trade, transport, technology, education, science and medicine.
Nevertheless, it was clear that the commitment to strategic partnership was underpinned by new mutual defense accords. This was most explicit in the treaty signed with the DPRK which furnished “mutual assistance in the event of aggression against one of the parties”.
This is a game-changer. It totally upends the geopolitical calculations of the United States and its NATO partners who have been unilaterally expanding military force and provocations in Eurasia and elsewhere.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has ramped up aggression in the Asia-Pacific against China and North Korea with impunity. Under his watch, the US has increasingly moved nuclear forces into the region to intimidate not only Beijing and Pyongyang but also Moscow. The Biden administration has been assiduous in forming hostile military formations in the region with its NATO partners, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea.
Year after year, the United States has built up weapon systems in Taiwan to provoke China and on the Korean Peninsula to threaten North Korea.
This unilateral aggression and “might is right” arrogance underpin the notion of Pax Americana that prevailed for decades after the Second World War. That notion was always a cruel euphemism for American imperialist violence to impose its economic and political interests. The Korean and Vietnam Wars in which millions of civilians were annihilated were the real-world grim translations of Pax Americana and its fraudulent “rules-based order”.
Geopolitical perceptions have dramatically changed in a few short years. The U.S. and its Western partners – a global minority – have come to be seen by most people of the world as rogue states that have trashed international law through illegal wars and unilateral bullying with economic sanctions. The U.S. dollar and Washington’s relentless debt spending are seen as instruments of imperialist looting.
The BRICS multipolar world order is a welcome alternative to the mayhem of the Western-dominated system. The principles of fairness and cooperation are laudable and necessary to implement. But such principles must be reinforced with military defense and security for all. This is far from the one-sided “defense and security” of the United States and its NATO partners, which in reality is an Orwellian cover for aggression.
The defense commitments given by Russia to the DPRK this week can be seen as long overdue. One may wonder how the U.S. and its allies got away with threatening the people of North Korea for so long and denying Pyongyang the sovereign right to self-defense. Admittedly, Russia did previously support UN sanctions on North Korea over its missile program. That’s over.
The U.S.-led proxy war in Ukraine against Russia that erupted in February 2022 was a wake-up call for Moscow and many people around the world.
Patently, the Western hegemonic system will stop at nothing to assert its neocolonialist privileges, even to the point of antagonizing a nuclear world war.
There is only one language that the U.S. and its minions understand – and that is the threat of devastating countervailing force.
Washington and its NATO lackeys think they can put missiles in Ukraine to hit Russia or in South Korea and Japan to hit North Korea – at no cost to their own security. Well, now, they might want to think again. There’s a new sheriff in town, as this week’s developments show.
A new global security system is being incarnate. Russia’s vision of indivisible, mutual security is shared by China and many other nations because it is fully compliant with international law and nations’ sovereignty.
Russia, China and other supporters of a multipolar world are not preemptively threatening anyone. But it takes the guarantee of unassailable nuclear powers, Russia and China, to make a new security system viable by restoring the deterrence towards the rogue states of the United States and NATO accomplices.
The defense accords between Russia, the DPRK and Vietnam are installments of the new security architecture that is needed in Eurasia and globally. The has-been American hegemon has been served notice that from now on its presumption of belligerence with impunity, to destroy nations, and to have a license to murder en masse is null and void.
Welcome to the new multipolar order and Pax Rossiya. All are welcome – except hegemonic rogue states.
Strategic Culture – June 20, 2024
The U.S. containment of the Russia-China strategic
partnership is already unravelling in real time
By Pepe Escobar
The St. Petersburg forum offered a wealth of crucial sessions discussing connectivity corridors. One of the key ones was on the Northern Sea Route (NSR) – or, in Chinese terminology, the Arctic Silk Road: the number one future alternative to the Suez canal.
With an array of main corporate actors in the room – for instance, from Rosneft, Novatek, Norilsk Nickel – as well as governors and ministers, the stage was set for a comprehensive debate.
Top Putin adviser Igor Levitin set the tone: to facilitate seamless container transport, the federal government needs to invest in seaports and icebreakers; a comparison was made – in terms of technological challenge – to the building of the Trans-Siberian railway; and Levitin also stressed the endless expansion possibilities for city hubs such as Murmansk, Archangelsk and Vladivostok.
Add to it that the NSR will connect with another fast-growing trans-Eurasia connectivity corridor: the INSTC (International North South Transportation Corridor), whose main actors are BRICS members Russia, Iran and India.
Alexey Chekunkov, minister for development of the Far East and the Arctic, plugged a trial run of the NSR, which costs the same as railway shipping without the bottlenecks. He praised the NSR as a “service” and coined the ultimate motto: “We need icebreakers!” Russia of course will be the leading player in the whole project, benefitting 2.5 million people who live in the North.
Sultan Sulayem, CEO of Dubai-based cargo logistics and maritime services powerhouse DP World, confirmed that “the current supply chains are not reliable anymore”, as well as being inefficient; the NSR is “faster, more reliable and cheaper”. From Tokyo to London, the route runs for 24k km; via the NSR, it’s only 13k km.
Sulayem is adamant: the NSR is a game-changer and “needs to be implemented now”.
Vladimir Panov, the special representative for the Arctic from Rosatom, confirmed that the Arctic is “a treasure chest”, and the NSR “will unlock it”. Rosatom will have all the necessary infrastructure in place “in five years or so”. He credited the fast pace of developments to the high-level Putin-Xi strategic dialogue – complete with the creation of a Russia-China working group.
Andrey Chibis, the governor of Murmansk, noted that this deep, key port for the NSR – the main container hub in the Arctic – “does not freeze”. He acknowledged the enormity of the logistical challenges – but at the same time that will attract a lot of skilled workers, considering the high quality of life in Murmansk.
A maze of interconnected corridors
The building of the NSR indeed can be interpreted as a 21st century, accelerated version of the building of the Trans-Siberian railway in the late 19th/early 20th century. Under the overarching framework of Eurasia integration, the interconnections with other corridors will be endless – from the INSTC to BRI projects part of the Chinese New Silk Roads, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and ASEAN.
In a session focused on the Greater Eurasia Partnership (GEP) Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Pankin praised this concept of Eurasia “without dividing lines, uniting ancient civilizations, transportation corridors and a unified common space of 5 billion people”.
Inevitable connections were drawn – from GEP to the EAEU and the SCO, with the proliferation of multimodal transport and alternative payment systems. Khan Sohail, the deputy secretary-general of the SCO, remarked how virtually “everyday there are new announcements by China” – a long way “since the SCO was established 21 years ago”, then based exclusively on security. Big developments are expected at the SCO summit next month in Astana.
Sergey Glazyev, the minister of macroeconomics at the Eurasia Economic Commission, part of the EAEU, praised the EAEU-SCO progressive integration and fast-developing transactions in baskets of national currencies, something “that was unchallengeable 10 years ago”.
He admitted that even if GEP has not been formalized yet, facts on the ground are proving that Eurasia can be self-sufficient. GEP may be on the initial stage, but it’s fast advancing the process to “harmonize free trade”.
Another key session in St. Petersburg was exactly on the EAEU-ASEAN connection. The ASEAN 10 already configure the 4th largest trading bloc in the world, moving $3.8 trillion and 7.8% of global trade annually. The EAEU already has a free trade agreement (FTA) with Vietnam and is clinching another with Indonesia.
And then there’s Northeast Asia. Which brings us to the ground-breaking visit by President Putin to the DPRK.
A new concept of Eurasia security
This was quite the epic business trip. Russia and the DPRK signed no less than a new Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Agreement.
On trade, that will allow a renewed flux to Russia of DPRK weapons – artillery shells to ballistics -, magnetic ore, heavy industry and machine tool industry, as well as the back-and-forth of an army of mega-skilled IT specialists.
Kim Jong-un described the agreement as “peaceful” and “defensive”. And much more: it will become “the driving force accelerating the creation of a new multipolar world.”
When it comes to Northeast Asia, the agreement is nothing less than a total paradigm shift.
To start with, these are two independent, sovereign foreign policy actors. They will not blackmailed. They totally oppose sanctions as a hegemonic tool. In consequence, they have just determined there will be no more UN Security Council sanctions on the DPRK enacted by the U.S..
The key clause establishing mutual assistance in case of foreign aggression against either Russia or the DPRK means, in practice, the establishment of a military-political alliance – even as Moscow, cautiously, prefers to phrase that it “does not exclude the possibility of military-technical cooperation”.
The agreement completely shocked Exceptionalistan because it is a swift counterpunch not only against NATO’s global designs but against the Hegemon itself, which for decades has enforced a comprehensive military-political alliance with both Japan and South Korea.
Translation: from now on there is no more military-political Hegemony in Northeast Asia – and in Asia-Pacific as a whole. Beijing will be delighted. Talk about a strategic game-changer. Accomplished without a single bullet being fired.
The repercussions will be immense, because a broader concept of “security” will now apply equally to Europe and Asia.
So welcome, in practice, to Putin the statesman advancing a new integrated, comprehensive concept of Eurasian security (italics mine). No wonder the mentally-impaired collective West is stunned.
Gilbert Doctorow correctly observedﾠhow “Putin considers what NATO is about to do at its Western borders as the very act of aggression that will trigger Russia’s Strategic Partnership with North Korea and present the United States with a live threat to its military bases” in Korea, in Japan and in the wider Asia-Pacific.
And it doesn’t matter at all if the Russian response will be symmetric or asymmetric. The crucial fact is that the U.S. “containment” of the Russia-China strategic partnership is already unravelling in real time.
In auspicious terms, Eurasia-style, what matters now is to focus on connectivity corridors. This is a story that started in previous editions of the St. Petersburg forum: how to connect the DPRK to the Russian Far East, and beyond to Siberia and wider Eurasia. The DPRK’s founding concept of Juche (“self-reliance”, “autonomy”) is about to enter a whole new era – in parallel to the NSR consolidation in the Arctic.
Everyone indeed needs icebreakers – in more ways than one.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2024/06/20/we-need-icebreakers-and-more-strategic-partnerships/
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