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 observed how “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.
Pepe: Hegemon orders Europe: bet on war and steal Russia’s money
The Swiss “peace” kabuki came and went – and the winner was Vladimir Putin. He didn’t even have to show up.
None of the Big Players did. Or in case they sent their emissaries, there was significant refusal to sign the vacuous final declaration – as in BRICS members Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE and South Africa.
Without BRICS, there’s absolutely nothing the collective West – as in The Hegemon and assorted vassals – can do to alter the proxy war chessboard in Ukraine.
In his carefully calibrated speech to diplomats and the leadership of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Putin delineated an incredibly restrained and strategic approach to solve the Ukraine problem. In the context of the Hegemon’s escalatory green light – actually in practice for several months now – for Kiev to attack deeper into the Russian Federation, Putin’s offer was extremely generous.
That is a direct offer to the Hegemon and the collective West – as the sweaty T-shirt actor in Kiev, apart from illegitimate, is beyond irrelevant.
Predictably, NATO – via that epileptic slab of Norwegian wood – already proclaimed its refusal to negotiate, even as some relatively awake members of the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) started discussing the offer, according to Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin.
Moscow sees the Verkhovna Rada as the only legitimate entity in Ukraine – and the only one with which would be possible to reach an agreement.
Russian UN representative Vasily Nebenzya cut to the chase – diplomatically: if the generous proposal is refused, next time conditions for starting negotiations will be “different”. And “far more unfavorable”, according to Duma Defense Committee head Andrei Kartapolov.
As Nebenzya stressed that in case of a refusal the collective West will bear full responsibility for further bloodshed, Kartapolov elaborated on the Big Picture: Russia’s real target is to create a whole new security system for the Eurasian space.
And that, of course, is anathema to the Hegemon’s elites.
Putin’s security vision for Eurasia harks back to this legendary speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Now, with the steady advance of an irreversible multi-nodal (italics mine) and multi-centric new system of international relations, the Kremlin is pressing for an urgent solution – considering the extremely dangerous escalation of these past few months.
Putin once again had to remind the deaf, dumb and blind of the obvious:
“Calls to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which has the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrate the extreme adventurism of Western politicians. They either do not understand the scale of the threat they themselves create, or they are simply obsessed with the belief in their own immunity and their own exclusivity. Both can turn into a tragedy”.
They remain deaf, dumb and blind.
A proposal that does not solve anything?
A fiery debate is raging in informed circles in Russia about Putin’s proposal. Critics blast it as a capitulation – forced by selected oligarchs and influential business circles, adverse to an “almost war” (the preferred motto) that keeps postponing the inevitable decapitation strike.
Critics argue that the military strategy is totally subordinated to a political strategy. And that would explain the serious problems in the Black Sea and in Transnistria: the political center of power refuses to conquer the number one economic/military target, which is Odessa.
Additionally, Ukraine’s weapon supply chains are not being properly interrupted.
The key critical point is “this is taking too long”. One just needs to look at the example of Mariupol.
In 2014, Mariupol was left in the control of nazi-banderista gangs as part of a financial deal with Rinat Akhmetov, the owner of the Azovstal works. That’s a classic case of oligarchs and financiers prevailing over military objectives.
Putin’s generosity, visible in this latest peace offer, also elicits a parallel with what happened in Dara’a in Syria: Russia also negotiated what looked at first like a peace deal. Yet Dara’a remains a mess, extremely violent, with Syrian and Russian soldiers at risk.
It gets really tricky when the current proposal only asks NATO not to be encroached in Kiev; but at the same time Kiev will be allowed to have an army, based on the (aborted) April 2022 negotiations in Istanbul.
Critics also argue that Putin seems to believe that this proposal will solve the war. Not really. A real de-nazification campaign is an affair of decades – involving everything from full demilitarization to eradicating focuses of extremist ideology. A real cultural revolution.
The current escalation already is in tune with the orders given by the rarefied plutocracy who really runs the show to messengers – and operatives: nazi-banderista gangs will unleash a War of Terror inside Russia for years. From Ukraine territory. Just like Idlib in Syria remains a terror-friendly environment.
The Odessa file
Putin’s strategy may be on to something that escapes his critics. His wish for a return of peace and the re-establishment of sound relations with Kiev and the West has got to be a ruse – as he’s the first to know that’s not gonna happen.
It’s clear that Kiev will not willingly cede territory: these will have to be conquered in the battlefield. Moreover NATO simply cannot sign its cosmic humiliation on the dotted line, accepting that Russia will get what it is demanding since February 2022.
Putin’s first – diplomatic – objective though has already been met. He has clearly demonstrated to the Global Majority he’s open to solve the dilemma in a serene atmosphere, while discombobulated NATO keeps shrieking “War!” every other minute.
The Hegemon wants war? So war it will be – to the last Ukrainian.
And that brings us to the Odessa file.
Putin, crucially, did not say anything about Odessa. This is Kiev’s last chance saloon to keep Odessa. If the peace proposal is rejected for good, Odessa will feature in the next list of non-negotiables.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, once again, nailed it: “Putin is patient. Those with ears will hear, those with brains will understand”.
No one should expect working brains popping up across the West. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has confirmed how NATO is planning massive installations in Poland, Romania and Slovakia to “coordinate transfer of weapons to Ukraine”.
Add to it the epileptic slab of Norwegian wood stating that NATO is “discussing” bringing their nuclear weapons to a state of combat readiness “in the face of the growing threat from Russia and China”.
Once again Old Stolty gives away the game: note this is all about the Hegemon’s paranoia with the top two “existential threats”, the
Russia-China strategic partnership. That is, the leaders of BRICS coordinating the drive towards a multipolar, multi-nodal (italics mine), “harmonic” (Putin’s terminology) world.
Stealing Russian money is legal
Then there’s the blatant theft of Russian financial assets.
At their sorry spectacle in Puglia, in southern Italy, the G7 – in the presence of the illegitimate sweaty T-shirt actor – agreed to shove an extra $50 billion in loans to Ukraine, funded by the interest on Russia’s frozen and for all practical purposes stolen assets.
With impeccably twisted logic, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – whose hairdressing and wardrobe revamp conclusively did not apply to her brains – said that the G7 “will not confiscate frozen assets of the Russian Federation”; “we are talking about the interest that they accumulate over time.”
As financial scams go, this one is a thing of beauty.
Essentially, the main customer (the Hegemon) and its instrument (the EU) are trying to mask the actual theft of those “frozen” Russian sovereign assets as if this was a legal transaction.
The EU will transfer the “frozen” assets – something around $260 billion – to the status of collateral for the American loan. That’s the whole thing – because only the income deriving from the assets would not be enough as collateral to secure the loan.
It gets even dicier. These funds will not leave Washington for Kiev; they will remain in town to the benefit of the industrial-military complex churning out more weapons.
So the EU steals the assets, under a flimsy legalese pretext (Janet Yellen already said it’s OK) and transfers them to the U.S. Washington is immune if everything goes wrong – as it will.
Only a fool would believe that the Americans would give a sizable loan to a de facto country 404 with a sovereign debt rating in the abyss. The dirty job is assigned to the Europeans: it’s up to the EU to change the status of Russia’s stolen/”frozen” assets to collateral.
And wait for the ultimate dicey gambit. The whole scheme concerns Euroclear, in Belgium – where the largest amount of Russian funds is parked. Yet the decision on this money-laundering scam was not taken by Belgium, and not even by the EUrocrats.
This was a Hegemon-imposed G7 decision. Belgium is not even part of the G7. Yet in the end, it will be the EU’s “credibility” as a whole that will go down the drain across the whole Global Majority.
And the deaf, dumb and blind, predictably, are not even aware of it.
So BRICS won't be leading the way on climate change then... (nm)
The climate change is already upon us. One reason they can use the Northern route. Some people perhaps could advocate for the Malthusian option I guess : /. If I had to chose between who will be in charge of mitigating the climate change I'd chose BRICS instead of having neoliberal NetZero and such 'green' BS policies we have here in the west. They failed. Until there is political will in the west to be constructive and get rid of our parasitic genocidal elite it will stay that way.
Talking about NetZero and realising that western uber neocons are in trouble, perhaps the industrial capacity of the west will tend towards zero carbon emissions which may balance out the 'new' emission of the rest of the world. Consider Germany and the rest of the Europe circling the drain, hopefully followed by the main hegemon.
As I said before, the golden billion will just have to put up with global South having decent living.
... has to be seriously unwell. The accumulated idiocy of that outpouring is literally stunning. It leaves one with the draining question: how many bloody decades does it take jerks like that to get even the easy bits right...?
I don't blame them for it, necessarily. Sanctioned and attacked by the west from every direction, they probably need to make these alliances and trade arrangements to avoid going under. But the climate doesn't care about geopolitics. Yes it's already here - largely due to emissions from the industrialised western economies (lately outsourced to China and others), but what happens now decides whether we're 'only' faced with mass death and refugee movements the likes of which have never been seen, or outright go extinct taking much of the biosphere with us. Pushing for a new arctic trade route in this context is insane, whoever does it, and just another sign of the sickness of the dominant culture, constantly pushing for maximum exploitation of people and planet no matter which regional entity is leading the charge at any particular moment.
Agreed net zero has failed - or rather done what it was designed to do, ie: push the fiction that market-based solutions could solve problems caused by the market. But I don't think BRICS will do any better, and fully expect the push for coal, fracked nat gas, 'renewables' (sic) and other calamities to come increasingly from those countries in the not-too-distant future with the decline of oil accelerating. How else are they going to power all those icebreakers and massive container ships steaming around the globe? At least they might be honest about it, I suppose...
Kudos for your polite response. Nevertheless, some of your points, I think, need to be unpacked, so that we can try and understand at least here on this board, what is at hand and take it from there.
For example:
But the climate doesn't care about geopolitics.
No argument there : ).
Yes it's already here - largely due to emissions from the industrialised western economies (lately outsourced to China and others), but what happens now decides whether we're 'only' faced with mass death and refugee movements the likes of which have never been seen, or outright go extinct taking much of the biosphere with us.
Referencing your comment about mass death and refugee movements + biosphere extinction, it is certainly on the cards. I always said so, from way back. Meanwhile, it would help if the adults in the room take charge. You don't really expect our uber neocons to lead the way, surely. So, let's assume that BRICS take charge. Do you think that they will lead us into mass death etc. sooner that 1% greedy capitalist nutters in the west? Of course not. Their science is as good as ours, if not better. They *know*. And they also know that they need to get rid of the shackles created by west first before they can act decisively. Hence the Northern route. I've not done the numbers, but suspect it is easily under the threshold of carbon emissions created by US military. We can argue etc.
How else are they going to power all those icebreakers and massive container ships steaming around the globe? At least they might be honest about it, I suppose...
... and just another sign of the sickness of the dominant culture, constantly pushing for maximum exploitation of people and planet no matter which regional entity is leading the charge at any particular moment. What
As per above this para. No. Very much disagree. It is not the subject that can be dismissed as .. 'but they are equally as bad'. Also, what is this about dominant culture .. another 'they are as bad as each other'? The sickness is in the globalist uber neocon capitalism in the west. Not South.
But I don't think BRICS will do any better, and fully expect the push for coal, fracked nat gas, 'renewables' (sic) and other calamities to come increasingly from those countries in the not-too-distant future with the decline of oil accelerating.
I like the way you packed all the crimes already committed by the west in one place and having it ready for the new entity hehe. Why will they not do better? How do you know? Perhaps it is a cynic talking to an optimist or is it vice-versa? As good as.
I think these peasants in the South just might have a solution based on hydrogen waiting in the sidelines. It will take time. Since we are all powerless politically here in the west there just may be a ray of sunshine that can get through these heavy clouds. It's over anyway, it's just question of how to manage this catastrophe in the waiting.
PS. Excuse disconnected bits, it's a long argument/diatribe and my editor is on hols : )
No worries, thought I should do better than a cheap one-liner
re: which faction 'takes charge' - no I don't expect a good outcome from continued 'leadership' of the west, and as we've discussed before I think there are potentially loads of benefits from the emergence of a multipolar world order. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like the climate will be one of those beneficiaries, as the tactic appears to be to beat the west at its own game - 'development', industrialisation, global trade, megacities etc etc. The NSR may have a smaller carbon footprint than the US military, however the point is that it's additional industrial activity powered by fossil fuels, which means yet more ghg's in the atmosphere compounding the warming effect for hundreds or thousands of years to come.
Also, the unipolar order has only really existed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 80s/90s - multiple competing power blocks has generally been the norm throughout history, and the difference on how this plays out wrt resource extraction, environmental damage & human exploitation has been minimal. As a resistance movement you might be able to play one off against the other and retain your position, but otherwise the system as a whole continues to march onwards.
I have in mind the 'peer polity' analysis of civilisation which Joseph Tainter articulated. Basically, in state/market societies locked into continual growth, there is a form a prisoner's dilemma where each polity must do everything it can to expand its power, resource use, complexity etc or else be overrun by its competitors. Back to my favourite source on these matters: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jason-godesky-thirty-theses/#toc19 So what we're seeing now is the (re-)emergence of a rival polity to the power block of the US+western European countries. As one power wanes, so another begins to take over - a very old story.
The wild card might be that the globe-spanning civilisation has passed the peak resource consumptions of most key minerals/materials, and that in an age of simplification/contraction/collapse there is more of an incentive to co-operate when it becomes clear that continued growth is no longer possible. I still harbour a belief in the essential decency of humankind, so I'm optimistic on that front. However, we have the inertia of 6,000+ years of state-level societies and the toxic behaviours they've drilled into us to deal with first, so it's going to be a rocky ride.
No worries, thought I should do better than a cheap one-liner.
Ta. Some sanity, at least : )
Unfortunately it doesn't seem like the climate will be one of those beneficiaries, as the tactic appears to be to beat the west at its own game - 'development', industrialisation, global trade, megacities etc etc.
Let's be clear, the west has lost and is clearly in the doldrums as we speak, economically, as well as ideologically, to my mind. Like I mentioned, the South is re-surging and there just may be a case that as west is deindustrialising, the South is industrialising. Oops. Apologies to colonial empires, but there is a certain logic to this. Thankfully. One can count the carbon units and see where it takes one. I don't think you have the case until you count the numbers. Do it.
Also, the unipolar order has only really existed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 80s/90s - multiple competing power blocks has generally been the norm throughout history, and the difference on how this plays out wrt resource extraction, environmental damage & human exploitation has been minimal. As a resistance movement you might be able to play one off against the other and retain your position, but otherwise the system as a whole continues to march onwards.
Far fetched imo. Circumstances have changed so very much since 80/90s, this scenario has changed beyond recognition. A new paradigm revolves around the Belt and Road, empowering the South, the old NAM (Non-aligned-movement) as declared in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955. It might seem inconsequential to a westerner, but there you have it.
I have in mind the 'peer polity' analysis of civilisation which Joseph Tainter articulated. Basically, in state/market societies locked into continual growth, there is a form a prisoner's dilemma where each polity must do everything it can to expand its power, resource use, complexity etc or else be overrun by its competitors. Back to my favourite source on these matters: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/jason-godesky-thirty-theses/#toc19 So what we're seeing now is the (re-)emergence of a rival polity to the power block of the US+western European countries. As one power wanes, so another begins to take over - a very old story.
Same old. The new boss is same as the the old boss. I don't buy it. Take into account the Bandung declaration, consider the new circumstances. I doubt you can say with your hand to heart that 1% western uber neocon genocidal capitalist is equal to BRICS. Up to you, of course I still harbour a belief in the essential decency of humankind, so I'm optimistic on that front.
'Let's be clear, the west has lost and is clearly in the doldrums as we speak' - possibly, or it's in the process of losing. There's still the debt mechanism held over the 3rd world countries, the presence of US military bases all over the place and the dominance of currency via the petrodollar, but yes all that stuff is being eroded away. Which is good news! However, if you look at it from the perspective of 'development' as an ongoing process, then arguably the west has won, and is still winning. The goal of colonialism was always to kick the natives off their land, turn them into slaves or wage labourers, get them working in the mines, plantations or in the cities and set up an export economy so wealth could be channelled towards the imperial centres. This trend has continued under decolonisation, in part because the colonial powers sabotaged the countries on their way out and used debt as a weapon to control them and keep the resources flowing to the same places. Maybe a true reversal of this process could emerge as a long term strategy for BRICS countries, but for the moment it seems to be full steam ahead doing everything the colonial powers taught them to do. The only difference (not inconsequential) might be that the nodes where resources get funnelled to are somewhat closer to home.
re: industrialisation and carbon emissions, well yes the global south has largely taken over in those sectors, albeit mainly through the process of outsourcing and still producing goods for shipping to the affluent west. I generally agree with the 'climate justice' type arguments that say the countries that industrialised first and have the highest historic emissions should be the ones who cut back the hardest, and that it's unjust for the burden to fall on countries that haven't gone so far down that pathway. But in terms of carbon there's no case to make - because of CO2's persistence in the atmosphere, ghg emissions are basically cumulative, so it doesn't matter where they come from, every additional molecule adds further to the heating effect. Same with the effects of 'development' - doesn't matter whether the cities, factories and combine harvesters get built by capitalists, socialists or anarcho-syndicalists, the effects on humans and non-humans alike are the same.
'Same old. The new boss is same as the the old boss. I don't buy it. Take into account the Bandung declaration, consider the new circumstances. I doubt you can say with your hand to heart that 1% western uber neocon genocidal capitalist is equal to BRICS.'
Had a wiki refresher on Bandung and the Non Aligned Movement, didn't realise it had been around since the 50s. I don't think it invalidates what I've been saying. No, they're not the same as the top gangsters on the world stage, and the crimes they've committed are limited accordingly (though Suharto was party to it, and there were disagreements over Yugoslavia and the soviet invasion of Afghanistan). But all the same elements of the dominant civilisational paradigm are there - rural depopulation/enclosure, industrialisation, growth of cities, increased reliance on complex tech, dependence on international supply chains and the business interests that control them etc, so I don't see any reason that they would behave differently as the 'new boss' once they cement their position in the control seat of global affairs.
You make good points, especially the colonialism in your main para, which Bandung conference was designed to counter. They (NAM) were lucky to have had USSR in the wings, so to speak.
Your next argument re 'climate justice' makes some sense, as in every carbon particle counts. Meanwhile, in the real world, we know that the western elite shan't be happy they are not in charge and has no intention in slowing down their polluting actions. Hence, my argument is that BRICS will be better at de-accelerating the carbon pollution, way more quickly than the western uber neocons or gics in charge. I rest my case
thx, always pleased to hear what I say makes sense ;) cheers (nm)
Of course you make sense. I wouldn't be talking to you otherwise : ). Meanwhile, to myself it provides me with a sounding board to counter your arguments and develop something I have only vague notions of, since it is not something that is available as a take-away from the dialogue/s available on the web. It's an ongoing Q&A, so to speak. These are complicated issues and it takes time .. the time being my enemy, as it happens.
on June 21, 2024, 1:10 pm
or is it vice-versa? As good as. 
