11-09-2014, 12:07 AM
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12-09-2014, 06:54 PM
Putin promises new weapons to fend Western threats
Associated Press By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
September 10, 2014 3:06 PM
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Putin Promises New Weapons To Fend Western Threats
Putin Promises New Weapons To Fend Western Threats
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MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will counter military moves by the U.S. and NATO with an array of new nuclear and conventional weapons, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday as the military successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine.
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At the same time, he emphasized that Russia will not enter a new arms race and will tightly control its military budget to avoid overburdening the economy.
Putin accused the West of using the crisis in Ukraine to reinvigorate NATO, warning that Moscow will ponder a response to the alliance's decision to create a rapid-reaction "spearhead" force to protect Eastern Europe.
The statement appeared to signal that the Russian leader is determined to pursue a tough course in the face of more Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis that has sent Russia-West relations plummeting to their lowest point since the Cold War.
Addressing a Kremlin meeting on weapons modernization, Putin ominously warned the West against getting "hysterical" about Moscow's re-arming efforts, in view of U.S. missile defense plans and other decisions he said have challenged Russia's security.
"We have warned many times that we would have to take corresponding countermeasures to ensure our security," Putin said, adding that he would now take personal charge of the government commission overseeing military industries. "I would like to underline that we only take retaliatory steps."
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin visits the Lifegiving …
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the Lifegiving Trinity Church in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, …
Putin claimed that some in the West would like to pull Russia into a new arms race, but "we will not enter such race, it's absolutely excluded."
He argued that Russia needs to upgrade its arsenals to replace Soviet-designed weapons approaching the end of their designated lifetime.
Putin's comments came as the European Union was mulling a new wave of sanctions against Russia intended to persuade it to honor its part of a cease-fire agreement signed last week. A decision is expected later this week.
Putin said Russia's weapons modernization program for 2016-2025 should focus on building a new array of offensive weapons to provide a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent;" re-arming strategic and long-range aviation; creating an aerospace defense system and developing high-precision conventional weapons.
He would not elaborate on prospective weapons, but he and other officials have repeatedly boasted about new Russian nuclear missiles' capability to penetrate any prospective missile shield.
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on …
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on weapons modernization plans in the Kremlin in M …
The Kremlin has bolstered defense spending in the past few years under an ambitious weapons modernization program that runs through 2020 and costs the equivalent of $540 billion.
Russia inherited most of its arsenal from the Soviet Union and has struggled to develop new weapons systems after the post-Soviet industrial meltdown. With hundreds of subcontractors going out of production, Russian arms manufacturers often had to make components themselves, swelling costs and affecting production quality.
The difficulties faced by the Russian arms industry have been highlighted by the long and painful development of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, which has suffered repeated launch failures.
Its designers finally seem to have cured the glitches, and the navy boasted of a successful launch of the Bulava from a nuclear submarine on Wednesday. Two more launches are set for the fall.
Putin's emphasis on high-precision conventional weapons reflected government concerns about the U.S. and other NATO countries enjoying a significant edge in that area.
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in …
Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in the Lifegiving Trinity Church in Moscow, Russia, …
The comparative weakness of Russia's conventional arsenals have prompted Russia to rely increasingly on a nuclear deterrent, with the nation's military doctrine envisaging the possibility that Russia may use nuclear weapons first in response to a conventional aggression.
Talking about potential threats, the Russian president specifically pointed at the U.S. missile defense program and Washington's plans to develop new conventional weapons that could strike targets anywhere in the world in as little as an hour with deadly precision.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of weapons industries, told reporters after the meeting that Russia will respond to the U.S. challenge by developing its strategic nuclear forces and aerospace defenses. Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said the military will focus on developing defensive systems to counter the so-called Prompt Global Strike programs developed by the United States, but could also develop a Russian analogue of that, according to the Interfax news agency.
Putin said Russian defense industries must rid themselves of a dependence on imports and quickly become capable of producing key components at home.
Faced with a pro-Russian insurgency in the east backed by Moscow, Ukraine has already cut arms exports to Russia. They include missile components, helicopter engines and turbines for naval ships that Russian arms makers may find hard to replace. Western nations also have cut exports of military components to Russia.
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in …
Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in the Lifegiving Trinity Church in Moscow, Russia, …
Ukraine and the West have repeatedly accused Moscow of fueling the insurgency in mostly Russian-speaking east of the country with arms, expertise and even its own troops, accusations Russia denies. In late August, NATO estimated that more than 1,000 Russian troops were operating on Ukrainian soil, helping to turn the tide of the war in the rebels' favor.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Wednesday that a cease-fire deal signed last week in Belarus envisaged the "restoration and preservation of Ukrainian sovereignty" over the regions engulfed by the mutiny.
"Ukraine has made no concessions with regards to its territorial integrity," Poroshenko said during a televised Cabinet meeting.
He sought to cast the deal as a victory, saying that since the agreement, 70 percent of the Russian troops in Ukraine have been withdrawn.
He also said 700 Ukrainian prisoners had been freed from rebel captivity and expressed hope that another 500 would be freed by the end of the week.
___
Associated Press writers Laura Mills in Kiev, Ukraine, Peter Leonard in Donetsk, Ukraine contributed to this report.
Associated Press By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV
September 10, 2014 3:06 PM
Wochit
Putin Promises New Weapons To Fend Western Threats
Putin Promises New Weapons To Fend Western Threats
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Wochit Wochit
1 Putin Promises New Weapons To Fend Western Threats 0:48
Putin Promises New Weapons To Fend Western Threats
2 Obama Won’t Use ISIS As Leverage Over Iran’s Nukes 1:13
Obama Won’t Use ISIS As Leverage Over Iran’s Nukes
3 Facebook’s Messenger App Has More Spyware Than Products Designed Specifically For Surveillance 0:39
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4 Border Patrol Spent $680,000 Per Dwelling To House Agents 0:51
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5 Palin Family Allegedly Involved In A Brawl 0:41
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6 AP: More Than 5,000 Dead In C. African Republic 1:10
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7 Syrian Forces Win Battle With Rebels In Hama 0:32
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8 U.S. Wins Arab Support For Syria/Iraq Military Campaign 1:09
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MOSCOW (AP) — Russia will counter military moves by the U.S. and NATO with an array of new nuclear and conventional weapons, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday as the military successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile from a nuclear submarine.
Related Stories
AP Analysis: Putin pins his hopes to Ukraine truce Associated Press
Russia reviews military doctrine, reflecting chill with NATO Reuters
Obama leads condemnation as West rounds on Russia AFP
Ukraine seeks to join NATO; defiant Putin compares Kiev to Nazis Reuters
Russia, Ukraine working on cease-fire plan Associated Press
At the same time, he emphasized that Russia will not enter a new arms race and will tightly control its military budget to avoid overburdening the economy.
Putin accused the West of using the crisis in Ukraine to reinvigorate NATO, warning that Moscow will ponder a response to the alliance's decision to create a rapid-reaction "spearhead" force to protect Eastern Europe.
The statement appeared to signal that the Russian leader is determined to pursue a tough course in the face of more Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis that has sent Russia-West relations plummeting to their lowest point since the Cold War.
Addressing a Kremlin meeting on weapons modernization, Putin ominously warned the West against getting "hysterical" about Moscow's re-arming efforts, in view of U.S. missile defense plans and other decisions he said have challenged Russia's security.
"We have warned many times that we would have to take corresponding countermeasures to ensure our security," Putin said, adding that he would now take personal charge of the government commission overseeing military industries. "I would like to underline that we only take retaliatory steps."
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin visits the Lifegiving …
Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the Lifegiving Trinity Church in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, …
Putin claimed that some in the West would like to pull Russia into a new arms race, but "we will not enter such race, it's absolutely excluded."
He argued that Russia needs to upgrade its arsenals to replace Soviet-designed weapons approaching the end of their designated lifetime.
Putin's comments came as the European Union was mulling a new wave of sanctions against Russia intended to persuade it to honor its part of a cease-fire agreement signed last week. A decision is expected later this week.
Putin said Russia's weapons modernization program for 2016-2025 should focus on building a new array of offensive weapons to provide a "guaranteed nuclear deterrent;" re-arming strategic and long-range aviation; creating an aerospace defense system and developing high-precision conventional weapons.
He would not elaborate on prospective weapons, but he and other officials have repeatedly boasted about new Russian nuclear missiles' capability to penetrate any prospective missile shield.
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on …
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on weapons modernization plans in the Kremlin in M …
The Kremlin has bolstered defense spending in the past few years under an ambitious weapons modernization program that runs through 2020 and costs the equivalent of $540 billion.
Russia inherited most of its arsenal from the Soviet Union and has struggled to develop new weapons systems after the post-Soviet industrial meltdown. With hundreds of subcontractors going out of production, Russian arms manufacturers often had to make components themselves, swelling costs and affecting production quality.
The difficulties faced by the Russian arms industry have been highlighted by the long and painful development of the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, which has suffered repeated launch failures.
Its designers finally seem to have cured the glitches, and the navy boasted of a successful launch of the Bulava from a nuclear submarine on Wednesday. Two more launches are set for the fall.
Putin's emphasis on high-precision conventional weapons reflected government concerns about the U.S. and other NATO countries enjoying a significant edge in that area.
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in …
Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in the Lifegiving Trinity Church in Moscow, Russia, …
The comparative weakness of Russia's conventional arsenals have prompted Russia to rely increasingly on a nuclear deterrent, with the nation's military doctrine envisaging the possibility that Russia may use nuclear weapons first in response to a conventional aggression.
Talking about potential threats, the Russian president specifically pointed at the U.S. missile defense program and Washington's plans to develop new conventional weapons that could strike targets anywhere in the world in as little as an hour with deadly precision.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who is in charge of weapons industries, told reporters after the meeting that Russia will respond to the U.S. challenge by developing its strategic nuclear forces and aerospace defenses. Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said the military will focus on developing defensive systems to counter the so-called Prompt Global Strike programs developed by the United States, but could also develop a Russian analogue of that, according to the Interfax news agency.
Putin said Russian defense industries must rid themselves of a dependence on imports and quickly become capable of producing key components at home.
Faced with a pro-Russian insurgency in the east backed by Moscow, Ukraine has already cut arms exports to Russia. They include missile components, helicopter engines and turbines for naval ships that Russian arms makers may find hard to replace. Western nations also have cut exports of military components to Russia.
View galleryRussian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in …
Russian President Vladimir Putin lights a candle in the Lifegiving Trinity Church in Moscow, Russia, …
Ukraine and the West have repeatedly accused Moscow of fueling the insurgency in mostly Russian-speaking east of the country with arms, expertise and even its own troops, accusations Russia denies. In late August, NATO estimated that more than 1,000 Russian troops were operating on Ukrainian soil, helping to turn the tide of the war in the rebels' favor.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Wednesday that a cease-fire deal signed last week in Belarus envisaged the "restoration and preservation of Ukrainian sovereignty" over the regions engulfed by the mutiny.
"Ukraine has made no concessions with regards to its territorial integrity," Poroshenko said during a televised Cabinet meeting.
He sought to cast the deal as a victory, saying that since the agreement, 70 percent of the Russian troops in Ukraine have been withdrawn.
He also said 700 Ukrainian prisoners had been freed from rebel captivity and expressed hope that another 500 would be freed by the end of the week.
___
Associated Press writers Laura Mills in Kiev, Ukraine, Peter Leonard in Donetsk, Ukraine contributed to this report.
13-09-2014, 07:05 PM
Russia Deploys SU-30 Fighter Jets in Crimea
Russia Deploys SU-30 Fighter Jets in Crimea
TEHRAN (FNA)- Russia has deployed Su-30 fighter jets at the Belbek air base near Crimea’s Sevastopol, the acting Sevastopol governor announced on Friday.
“New Su-30 aircraft have already been deployed in Belbek,” Sergei Menyailo told RIA Novsoti.
He did not say how many Su-30 fighter jets were deployed, but the agency's sources estimated their number at up to 20 aircraft.
According to the official, the Russian Defense Ministry plans to deploy military aircraft at four airfields in Crimea, including Belbek.
Russia Deploys SU-30 Fighter Jets in Crimea
TEHRAN (FNA)- Russia has deployed Su-30 fighter jets at the Belbek air base near Crimea’s Sevastopol, the acting Sevastopol governor announced on Friday.
“New Su-30 aircraft have already been deployed in Belbek,” Sergei Menyailo told RIA Novsoti.
He did not say how many Su-30 fighter jets were deployed, but the agency's sources estimated their number at up to 20 aircraft.
According to the official, the Russian Defense Ministry plans to deploy military aircraft at four airfields in Crimea, including Belbek.
20-09-2014, 03:31 AM
SOCHI, September 19 (RIA Novosti) – The whole system behind the security of European is currently under threat, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday at the International Investment Forum 2014 currently underway in Sochi.
"In essence, the whole system of European security is now under threat, as well as basic values, further globalization and, in essence, the whole concept of peaceful development," he said at the forum.
European security has been a concern for NATO, who has been increasing its presence near Russia's borders, citing the need to better protect its allies, and suspending entirely its cooperation with Moscow.
Russia-EU relations have progressively worsened over the Ukrainian crisis that escalated to a military operation in mid-April when Kiev-backed forces were sent to suppress independence supporters in eastern Ukraine.
The European Union, alongside the United States, has implemented economic sanctions against Russian enterprises and certain individuals over the crisis, with the latest batch of sanctions coming into force on September 12, forcing Moscow to retaliate with measures, such as a food import ban.
Medvedev is currently participating in the International Investment Forum 2014 in Sochi that is taking place from September 18 to 21. The forum is dedicated to a constructive dialogue among business representatives and government officials, addressing the development of the global economy and showcasing investment projects in Russia.
West Seems to Forget That Russia Has Own National Interests
The Western countries seem to forget that Russia, as a sovereign state, has the right to shape and pursue its national interests, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
"I have a feeling that the West has completely forgotten the fact that Russia has its own national interests," Medvedev noted, speaking at the 2014 International Investment Forum taking place in Sochi.
The United States and the European Union have been imposing sanctions against Russia over its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, which Moscow has repeatedly denied.
The latest round of sanctions was introduced on September 12, targeting Russia's largest banks, oil and defense companies, as well as certain individuals. The companies were denied access to the European capital markets, while a number of individuals were subject to entry bans and asset freezes.
Russia has prepared, but not yet implemented, a package of response measures to the new Western sanctions. The measures may affect machine-building, the petrochemical and automotive sectors, as well as impose restrictions on imports of used cars and textiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that Moscow may introduce these measures only to protect Russia's interests.
Moscow has responded to previous rounds of Western sanctions with a one-year food ban that targets a range of products from the countries that implemented sanctions against Russia.
All Attempts to Put Pressure on Russia by Sanctions Futile
Russia will not tolerate being pressured with economic sanctions, which are unproductive and only lead to the world economy’s greater instability, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“History clearly shows that all attempts to put pressure on Russia with such measures were futile. We will not tolerate political blackmail. We are the world’s biggest country, a nuclear power which is home to 150 million people, a territory with vast natural reserves and a huge market for goods, services and investment,” he said.
Medvedev added that the West “pretended that Russia does not exist on the global map at all.”
The Russian prime minister went further by arguing that anti-Moscow restrictions undermined the normal functioning of the world economy.
“One thing is for sure - the stability of the global financial and trade systems is currently being demolished. But, undoubtedly, this process can yet be stopped,” he claimed.
Medvedev also underscored that any future sanctions against Russia and pretext for their imposition are unpredictable, but so are Moscow’s responses to them. He added that “no one will be able to predict what effect will sanctions against Russia, the world’s sixth economy, have on the global economy in the long-term perspective.”
The prime minister, however, said Russia kept the door open for Western partners, if they are willing to negotiate.
Washington and Brussels have adopted a range of economic sanctions against Russia over its alleged role in the Ukrainian conflict. The restrictions are targeted primarily Russia’s banking, oil and defense sectors. Moscow has repeatedly labeled the West’s measures as counterproductive and illegal and may appeal against some of them in the World Trade Organization.
Global Financial, Trade Stability Being Undermined
The stability of global financial and trade systems is currently being undermined, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“One thing is for sure - the stability of the global financial and trade systems is currently being demolished. But, undoubtedly, this process can yet be stopped,” he said.
No One Can Forecast How Anti-Russian Sanctions Will Affect Global Economy
It is impossible to forecast how sanctions against Russian will affect global economy, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“We cannot predict what sanctions will be imposed on us and for what reason, and the West cannot predict how we will reply to such unfriendly move. More importantly, no one will be able to predict what effect will sanctions against Russia, the world’s sixth economy, will have on the global economy in the long-term perspective,” he said.
The prime minister added that Russia kept the door open for Western partners, if they are willing to negotiate.
Describing Russia as Closed Economy Inaccurate
Describing Russia as a closed economy is inaccurate, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday, adding that the country was not planning to revise its basic macroeconomic principles.
"I would like to particularly stress that the system of our priorities remains unchanged. I think that any talk about a shift in our development model towards creating a closed economy, [an economy] of mobilization is inaccurate. We are not going to change our course and will preserve the main principles of our macroeconomic policy," Medvedev said.
The prime minister explained that Russia had to resort to protectionist economic measures in certain industries, but hopes to turn this to the country's advantage.
"The sanctions should and must be used to give [the sectors of Russian economy] new opportunities for growth. To an extent, this would be a "forced protectionism" on our behalf, about which we would not have even thought of under different circumstances. But we won't miss a chance like that," Medvedev said.
He listed food, pharmaceutics, aircraft and ship building, rocket and motor industries as those whose capacities could be utilized to a greater extent.
Economic sanctions, imposed be the West against Moscow over its stance on the conflict in Ukraine, were particularly aimed at the Russian oil and banking sectors, as well as at the defense industry. In response, Moscow issued a ban on the import of a range of food products produced by the United States, the European Union and a number of other nations.
Russia’s Growing Cooperation With Asian States Not ‘Revenge on Europe’
Russia's decision to focus on cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries is not "a revenge on Europe," but a well-thought-of response to current trends in the global economy, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
"Our new strategy in Asia is not a senseless "revenge on Europe," as Western political experts sometimes describe it. It's a natural stage of development and a well-thought-of response to the changes in the [global] economic development," Medvedev said at the 2014 International Investment Forum taking place in Sochi.
Last week, as a continuation to the previous rounds of sanctions, the European Union and the United States introduced new measures against Russia that target a number of key Russian banks as well as oil and defense companies.
In view of Western sanctions, Russia has started shifting its energy supplies to the Asia-Pacific region.
On September 3, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Russia could double its oil and gas sales to Asia-Pacific countries in the coming years.
Russian oil supplies to the region currently stand at about 50 million metric tons, while gas supplies amount to around 14 billion cubic meters. According to Novak, the oil supplies could double and the gas supplies could reach 200-300 billion cubic meters.
On September 1, the construction of the 3,000-kilometer (1,860-mile) Power of Siberia pipeline was launched in Yakutia. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the new gas pipeline will significantly strengthen Russia's economic cooperation with the governments of the Asia-Pacific region, particularly with China.
In May, Russia's gas giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a 30-year agreement on the annual export of around 38 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to China.
Russia Should Not Miss Chance to Apply Protectionist Measures
By introducing sanctions, the West gave Russia a chance to introduce protectionist measures, and Moscow should not miss it, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“The sanctions should and must be used to give [Russian businesses] new opportunities for growth. To an extent, this would be a ‘forced protectionism’ on our behalf, about which would not have even thought of under different circumstances. But we won’t miss a chance like that,” Medvedev said.
Decree to Scrap Ukraine’s Trade Preferences Ready and Signed
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday he had already signed a decree to impose customs duties on goods from Ukraine, but it will come into force only if Kiev violates its agreement over European association.
“I would like to inform that today I signed a decree to introduce import customs duties for Ukrainian goods… The matter concerns food, consumer goods and other products,” he said. “But these duties will be introduced only if Ukraine starts to enforce economic provisions [of its EU Association Agreement] before the scheduled date [of January 1, 2016].”
Russian strategic nuclear bombers carried out air defense zone incursions near Alaska and across Northern Europe this week in the latest nuclear saber rattling by Moscow.
Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday.
“The group of Russian aircraft flew a loop south, returning westward toward Russia,” Davis told the Free Beacon.
A day later two more Bear bombers were intercepted by Canadian CF-18 jets in the western area of the Canadian air defense identification zone near the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, he said.
The Russian bombers did not enter U.S. airspace but flew within 63 miles of the Alaskan coast and 46 miles of the Canadian coastline, Davis said.
In both instances, the Russian bombers did not enter sovereign airspace, he added, noting the Russian aircraft flew within about 55 nautical miles of the Alaskan coastline, and within about 40 nautical miles of the Canadian coastline.
One defense official said the Russian bomber activity appeared timed to the visit to the United States and Canada by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The Ukrainian leader was in Ottawa for meetings with Canadian leaders on Wednesday. He met with President Obama on Thursday.
Ukraine is locked in a battle with Moscow over the Russian military annexation of Crimea and continuing backing of pro-Russian Ukrainian militias in eastern Ukraine.
Over Europe on Tuesday, two Bear H bombers conducted practice strategic bombing runs on Tuesday and were met by interceptor jets from Norway, Denmark, Britain, and Netherlands, defense officials told the Free Beacon.
“NATO jets … were scrambled to visually identify unknown aircraft approaching allied airspace,” said a NATO military officer who confirmed details of the incident.
“The approaching aircraft were identified as two Tu-95 Russian Bear H bombers,” he said. “The Russian flights originated in the Barents Sea and went through international airspace down to the North Sea off the Dutch coast.”
The Russian aircraft flew in international airspace “close to NATO territory” but did not violate allied airspace, the officer said.
The NATO jets were scrambled as a response to the approach of unidentified aircraft, the officer said.
The type of NATO jets involved in the intercepts was not provided. The Telegraph reported that British Royal Air Force Typhoon jets took part.
“This is a standard procedure because these flights also pose a potential risk to civil aviation given that the Russian military often do not file flight plans, or use their on-board transponders,” he added. “This means civilian air traffic control cannot identify these aircraft nor ensure there is no interference with civilian air traffic.”
The officer said similar intercepts have taken place in the past. “NATO jets routinely identify, intercept, and escort Russian military planes that fly unannounced in international airspace but close to allied borders,” he said, noting the missions are “entirely defensive.”
“The event that occurred on 16 September shows NATO aircraft from several allies cooperating and coordinated by national and allied air command and control centers in a mission that reflects NATO’s readiness and determination to ensure collective security,” he said.
In a related development, Sweden’s military on Friday confirmed that two Russian Su-24 fighter-bombers violated the country’s airspace on Wednesday. A Gripen jet fighter was scrambled to intercept the jets.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt called the Russian jet incident “the most serious aerial incursion by the Russians during my years as foreign minister,” Sweden’s news outlet The Local reported Friday.
Russia’s strategic aviation forces have sharply increased flights in recent months in Asia, near Alaska, Canada, and the United States and Europe.
The flights were carried out amid growing tensions with Russia over its military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and continuing covert military destabilization of eastern Ukraine.
The NATO alliance announced earlier this month that it is creating a rapid response military force in Eastern Europe to counter the growing threat of Russian intervention.
“Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine have fundamentally challenged our vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace,” NATO said in a concluding statement Sept. 5.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former Alaskan Air Command commander with experience in Russian strategic flight incursions, said the increased bomber activity appears related to nuclear activities.
“They are having a very aggressive nuclear readiness exercise now as a show of force,” McInerney said. “Whereas the U.S. has been on a path of nuclear zero which they think is ridiculous.”
McInerney added: “The Russians sense weakness in American leadership and they are trying to intimidate us and show us that our nuclear deterrent forces are vulnerable to Russian nuclear forces.”
Other recent Bear bomber incidents included a practice cruise missile attack by two bombers off the coast of Canada earlier this month. That incident appeared timed to the NATO summit meeting in Wales.
The U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command in August stated that Russian strategic nuclear bombers sharply increased incursions into U.S. air defense zone.
More than 16 bomber flights were tracked and intercepted by U.S. and Canadian jets during a 10-day period that month.
The new aggressive military posture appears to be an element of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policy of seeking to return Russia to its Soviet empire status.
Russia, under Putin, is engaged in a large-scale nuclear buildup that includes new missiles, submarines, and a new bomber.
On Sept. 10, the Russian navy conducted a test firing of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile.
State-run Interfax-AVN news service reported earlier this week that nuclear cruise missile firing Russian Tu-95 Bear Bombers and Tu-22 Backfire C bombers completed missions that involved “snap readiness checks” in the Pacific.
Russian military forces also are bolstering forces in the arctic as part of Moscow’s efforts to secure resources in the region.
Two military bases are being built at Wrangel Island, on the arctic Chukchi Sea north of the Russian Far East, and on Cape Schmidt, also on the Chukchi Sea, the Moscow Times reported Sept. 8.
The report said the bases were part of Moscow’s efforts to restore the Soviet military presence in the resource-rich arctic.
Russia also is deploying new attack submarines to the region.
"In essence, the whole system of European security is now under threat, as well as basic values, further globalization and, in essence, the whole concept of peaceful development," he said at the forum.
European security has been a concern for NATO, who has been increasing its presence near Russia's borders, citing the need to better protect its allies, and suspending entirely its cooperation with Moscow.
Russia-EU relations have progressively worsened over the Ukrainian crisis that escalated to a military operation in mid-April when Kiev-backed forces were sent to suppress independence supporters in eastern Ukraine.
The European Union, alongside the United States, has implemented economic sanctions against Russian enterprises and certain individuals over the crisis, with the latest batch of sanctions coming into force on September 12, forcing Moscow to retaliate with measures, such as a food import ban.
Medvedev is currently participating in the International Investment Forum 2014 in Sochi that is taking place from September 18 to 21. The forum is dedicated to a constructive dialogue among business representatives and government officials, addressing the development of the global economy and showcasing investment projects in Russia.
West Seems to Forget That Russia Has Own National Interests
The Western countries seem to forget that Russia, as a sovereign state, has the right to shape and pursue its national interests, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
"I have a feeling that the West has completely forgotten the fact that Russia has its own national interests," Medvedev noted, speaking at the 2014 International Investment Forum taking place in Sochi.
The United States and the European Union have been imposing sanctions against Russia over its alleged involvement in the Ukrainian crisis, which Moscow has repeatedly denied.
The latest round of sanctions was introduced on September 12, targeting Russia's largest banks, oil and defense companies, as well as certain individuals. The companies were denied access to the European capital markets, while a number of individuals were subject to entry bans and asset freezes.
Russia has prepared, but not yet implemented, a package of response measures to the new Western sanctions. The measures may affect machine-building, the petrochemical and automotive sectors, as well as impose restrictions on imports of used cars and textiles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stressed that Moscow may introduce these measures only to protect Russia's interests.
Moscow has responded to previous rounds of Western sanctions with a one-year food ban that targets a range of products from the countries that implemented sanctions against Russia.
All Attempts to Put Pressure on Russia by Sanctions Futile
Russia will not tolerate being pressured with economic sanctions, which are unproductive and only lead to the world economy’s greater instability, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“History clearly shows that all attempts to put pressure on Russia with such measures were futile. We will not tolerate political blackmail. We are the world’s biggest country, a nuclear power which is home to 150 million people, a territory with vast natural reserves and a huge market for goods, services and investment,” he said.
Medvedev added that the West “pretended that Russia does not exist on the global map at all.”
The Russian prime minister went further by arguing that anti-Moscow restrictions undermined the normal functioning of the world economy.
“One thing is for sure - the stability of the global financial and trade systems is currently being demolished. But, undoubtedly, this process can yet be stopped,” he claimed.
Medvedev also underscored that any future sanctions against Russia and pretext for their imposition are unpredictable, but so are Moscow’s responses to them. He added that “no one will be able to predict what effect will sanctions against Russia, the world’s sixth economy, have on the global economy in the long-term perspective.”
The prime minister, however, said Russia kept the door open for Western partners, if they are willing to negotiate.
Washington and Brussels have adopted a range of economic sanctions against Russia over its alleged role in the Ukrainian conflict. The restrictions are targeted primarily Russia’s banking, oil and defense sectors. Moscow has repeatedly labeled the West’s measures as counterproductive and illegal and may appeal against some of them in the World Trade Organization.
Global Financial, Trade Stability Being Undermined
The stability of global financial and trade systems is currently being undermined, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“One thing is for sure - the stability of the global financial and trade systems is currently being demolished. But, undoubtedly, this process can yet be stopped,” he said.
No One Can Forecast How Anti-Russian Sanctions Will Affect Global Economy
It is impossible to forecast how sanctions against Russian will affect global economy, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“We cannot predict what sanctions will be imposed on us and for what reason, and the West cannot predict how we will reply to such unfriendly move. More importantly, no one will be able to predict what effect will sanctions against Russia, the world’s sixth economy, will have on the global economy in the long-term perspective,” he said.
The prime minister added that Russia kept the door open for Western partners, if they are willing to negotiate.
Describing Russia as Closed Economy Inaccurate
Describing Russia as a closed economy is inaccurate, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday, adding that the country was not planning to revise its basic macroeconomic principles.
"I would like to particularly stress that the system of our priorities remains unchanged. I think that any talk about a shift in our development model towards creating a closed economy, [an economy] of mobilization is inaccurate. We are not going to change our course and will preserve the main principles of our macroeconomic policy," Medvedev said.
The prime minister explained that Russia had to resort to protectionist economic measures in certain industries, but hopes to turn this to the country's advantage.
"The sanctions should and must be used to give [the sectors of Russian economy] new opportunities for growth. To an extent, this would be a "forced protectionism" on our behalf, about which we would not have even thought of under different circumstances. But we won't miss a chance like that," Medvedev said.
He listed food, pharmaceutics, aircraft and ship building, rocket and motor industries as those whose capacities could be utilized to a greater extent.
Economic sanctions, imposed be the West against Moscow over its stance on the conflict in Ukraine, were particularly aimed at the Russian oil and banking sectors, as well as at the defense industry. In response, Moscow issued a ban on the import of a range of food products produced by the United States, the European Union and a number of other nations.
Russia’s Growing Cooperation With Asian States Not ‘Revenge on Europe’
Russia's decision to focus on cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries is not "a revenge on Europe," but a well-thought-of response to current trends in the global economy, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
"Our new strategy in Asia is not a senseless "revenge on Europe," as Western political experts sometimes describe it. It's a natural stage of development and a well-thought-of response to the changes in the [global] economic development," Medvedev said at the 2014 International Investment Forum taking place in Sochi.
Last week, as a continuation to the previous rounds of sanctions, the European Union and the United States introduced new measures against Russia that target a number of key Russian banks as well as oil and defense companies.
In view of Western sanctions, Russia has started shifting its energy supplies to the Asia-Pacific region.
On September 3, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said Russia could double its oil and gas sales to Asia-Pacific countries in the coming years.
Russian oil supplies to the region currently stand at about 50 million metric tons, while gas supplies amount to around 14 billion cubic meters. According to Novak, the oil supplies could double and the gas supplies could reach 200-300 billion cubic meters.
On September 1, the construction of the 3,000-kilometer (1,860-mile) Power of Siberia pipeline was launched in Yakutia. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the new gas pipeline will significantly strengthen Russia's economic cooperation with the governments of the Asia-Pacific region, particularly with China.
In May, Russia's gas giant Gazprom and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a 30-year agreement on the annual export of around 38 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to China.
Russia Should Not Miss Chance to Apply Protectionist Measures
By introducing sanctions, the West gave Russia a chance to introduce protectionist measures, and Moscow should not miss it, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.
“The sanctions should and must be used to give [Russian businesses] new opportunities for growth. To an extent, this would be a ‘forced protectionism’ on our behalf, about which would not have even thought of under different circumstances. But we won’t miss a chance like that,” Medvedev said.
Decree to Scrap Ukraine’s Trade Preferences Ready and Signed
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday he had already signed a decree to impose customs duties on goods from Ukraine, but it will come into force only if Kiev violates its agreement over European association.
“I would like to inform that today I signed a decree to introduce import customs duties for Ukrainian goods… The matter concerns food, consumer goods and other products,” he said. “But these duties will be introduced only if Ukraine starts to enforce economic provisions [of its EU Association Agreement] before the scheduled date [of January 1, 2016].”
Russian strategic nuclear bombers carried out air defense zone incursions near Alaska and across Northern Europe this week in the latest nuclear saber rattling by Moscow.
Six Russian aircraft, including two Bear H nuclear bombers, two MiG-31 fighter jets and two IL-78 refueling tankers were intercepted by F-22 fighters on Wednesday west and north of Alaska in air defense identification zones, said Navy Capt. Jeff A. Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command. Two other Bears were intercepted by Canadian jets on Thursday.
“The group of Russian aircraft flew a loop south, returning westward toward Russia,” Davis told the Free Beacon.
A day later two more Bear bombers were intercepted by Canadian CF-18 jets in the western area of the Canadian air defense identification zone near the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska, he said.
The Russian bombers did not enter U.S. airspace but flew within 63 miles of the Alaskan coast and 46 miles of the Canadian coastline, Davis said.
In both instances, the Russian bombers did not enter sovereign airspace, he added, noting the Russian aircraft flew within about 55 nautical miles of the Alaskan coastline, and within about 40 nautical miles of the Canadian coastline.
One defense official said the Russian bomber activity appeared timed to the visit to the United States and Canada by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The Ukrainian leader was in Ottawa for meetings with Canadian leaders on Wednesday. He met with President Obama on Thursday.
Ukraine is locked in a battle with Moscow over the Russian military annexation of Crimea and continuing backing of pro-Russian Ukrainian militias in eastern Ukraine.
Over Europe on Tuesday, two Bear H bombers conducted practice strategic bombing runs on Tuesday and were met by interceptor jets from Norway, Denmark, Britain, and Netherlands, defense officials told the Free Beacon.
“NATO jets … were scrambled to visually identify unknown aircraft approaching allied airspace,” said a NATO military officer who confirmed details of the incident.
“The approaching aircraft were identified as two Tu-95 Russian Bear H bombers,” he said. “The Russian flights originated in the Barents Sea and went through international airspace down to the North Sea off the Dutch coast.”
The Russian aircraft flew in international airspace “close to NATO territory” but did not violate allied airspace, the officer said.
The NATO jets were scrambled as a response to the approach of unidentified aircraft, the officer said.
The type of NATO jets involved in the intercepts was not provided. The Telegraph reported that British Royal Air Force Typhoon jets took part.
“This is a standard procedure because these flights also pose a potential risk to civil aviation given that the Russian military often do not file flight plans, or use their on-board transponders,” he added. “This means civilian air traffic control cannot identify these aircraft nor ensure there is no interference with civilian air traffic.”
The officer said similar intercepts have taken place in the past. “NATO jets routinely identify, intercept, and escort Russian military planes that fly unannounced in international airspace but close to allied borders,” he said, noting the missions are “entirely defensive.”
“The event that occurred on 16 September shows NATO aircraft from several allies cooperating and coordinated by national and allied air command and control centers in a mission that reflects NATO’s readiness and determination to ensure collective security,” he said.
In a related development, Sweden’s military on Friday confirmed that two Russian Su-24 fighter-bombers violated the country’s airspace on Wednesday. A Gripen jet fighter was scrambled to intercept the jets.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt called the Russian jet incident “the most serious aerial incursion by the Russians during my years as foreign minister,” Sweden’s news outlet The Local reported Friday.
Russia’s strategic aviation forces have sharply increased flights in recent months in Asia, near Alaska, Canada, and the United States and Europe.
The flights were carried out amid growing tensions with Russia over its military annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea and continuing covert military destabilization of eastern Ukraine.
The NATO alliance announced earlier this month that it is creating a rapid response military force in Eastern Europe to counter the growing threat of Russian intervention.
“Russia’s aggressive actions against Ukraine have fundamentally challenged our vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace,” NATO said in a concluding statement Sept. 5.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former Alaskan Air Command commander with experience in Russian strategic flight incursions, said the increased bomber activity appears related to nuclear activities.
“They are having a very aggressive nuclear readiness exercise now as a show of force,” McInerney said. “Whereas the U.S. has been on a path of nuclear zero which they think is ridiculous.”
McInerney added: “The Russians sense weakness in American leadership and they are trying to intimidate us and show us that our nuclear deterrent forces are vulnerable to Russian nuclear forces.”
Other recent Bear bomber incidents included a practice cruise missile attack by two bombers off the coast of Canada earlier this month. That incident appeared timed to the NATO summit meeting in Wales.
The U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command in August stated that Russian strategic nuclear bombers sharply increased incursions into U.S. air defense zone.
More than 16 bomber flights were tracked and intercepted by U.S. and Canadian jets during a 10-day period that month.
The new aggressive military posture appears to be an element of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s policy of seeking to return Russia to its Soviet empire status.
Russia, under Putin, is engaged in a large-scale nuclear buildup that includes new missiles, submarines, and a new bomber.
On Sept. 10, the Russian navy conducted a test firing of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile.
State-run Interfax-AVN news service reported earlier this week that nuclear cruise missile firing Russian Tu-95 Bear Bombers and Tu-22 Backfire C bombers completed missions that involved “snap readiness checks” in the Pacific.
Russian military forces also are bolstering forces in the arctic as part of Moscow’s efforts to secure resources in the region.
Two military bases are being built at Wrangel Island, on the arctic Chukchi Sea north of the Russian Far East, and on Cape Schmidt, also on the Chukchi Sea, the Moscow Times reported Sept. 8.
The report said the bases were part of Moscow’s efforts to restore the Soviet military presence in the resource-rich arctic.
Russia also is deploying new attack submarines to the region.
21-09-2014, 07:12 PM
A Chinese fleet of warships has docked into the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
The fleet, comprising a warship and a destroyer, docked on Saturday for the first time ever.
The Chinese fleet docked into the Iranian territorial waters with the purpose of increasing interaction between the Islamic Republic and China. It was returning from a mission in the Gulf of Aden.
On March 4, 2013, the 24th fleet of Iran’s Navy, comprising Sabalan destroyer and Kharg helicopter carrier, docked at China’s port city of Zhangjiagang after sailing 13,000 kilometers in 40 days.
The Iranian Navy said in a statement on September 17 that Iran’s naval forces rescued a Chinese container ship from an attack by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
It added that five boats, each containing five armed pirates, attacked the Chinese ship, Xin Lian Yun Gang, in an attempt to hijack the vessel, but the Iranian Navy’s 31st fleet of war vessels foiled the move.
The Chinese vessel was reportedly on its way from Singapore to the port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia when it came under attack. It continued its voyage after being rescued from the pirates.
In April 2012, Iran’s naval forces also rescued a Chinese cargo vessel seized by Somali pirates in international waters off the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Jask and detained the hijackers.
SF/HSN
The fleet, comprising a warship and a destroyer, docked on Saturday for the first time ever.
The Chinese fleet docked into the Iranian territorial waters with the purpose of increasing interaction between the Islamic Republic and China. It was returning from a mission in the Gulf of Aden.
On March 4, 2013, the 24th fleet of Iran’s Navy, comprising Sabalan destroyer and Kharg helicopter carrier, docked at China’s port city of Zhangjiagang after sailing 13,000 kilometers in 40 days.
The Iranian Navy said in a statement on September 17 that Iran’s naval forces rescued a Chinese container ship from an attack by pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
It added that five boats, each containing five armed pirates, attacked the Chinese ship, Xin Lian Yun Gang, in an attempt to hijack the vessel, but the Iranian Navy’s 31st fleet of war vessels foiled the move.
The Chinese vessel was reportedly on its way from Singapore to the port of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia when it came under attack. It continued its voyage after being rescued from the pirates.
In April 2012, Iran’s naval forces also rescued a Chinese cargo vessel seized by Somali pirates in international waters off the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Jask and detained the hijackers.
SF/HSN
29-09-2014, 03:03 AM
The world needs a coalition of sound forces advocating stability – a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty.
U.S. actions in Ukraine should be classified not only as hostile with regard to Russia, but also as pursuing a process of global destabilization. The U.S. is essentially provoking an international conflict to salvage its geopolitical, financial, and economic authority.
The response must be systemic and comprehensive, aimed at exposing and ending U.S. political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining U.S. military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency.
The world needs a coalition of sound forces advocating stability —in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty.
CURBING THE ARBITRARINESS OF RESERVE CURRENCY ISSUERS
This coalition could be comprised of large independent states (BRICS); the developing world (most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America), which have been discriminated against in the current global financial and economic system; CIS countries interested in balanced development without conflicts; and those European nations not prepared to obey the disparaging U.S. diktat. The coalition should take measures to eliminate the fundamental causes of the global crisis, including:
the uncontrolled issuance of global reserve currencies, which allows issuers to abuse their dominant position, thus increasing disproportions and destructive tendencies in the global financial and economic system;
the inability of existing mechanisms regulating banking and financial institutions to ward off excessive risks and financial bubbles;
an exhausted potential for growth within the prevailing technology-based economic system and lack of conditions for creating a new one, including insufficient investment for the broad use of basic technological solutions.
Conditions must be created to allow national fiscal authorities to lend money for building an economy based on new technologies and carrying out economic modernization, and to encourage innovation and business activities in areas of potential growth. The issuers of reserve currencies must guarantee their stability by capping the national debt and payment and trade balance deficits. Also, they will have to use transparent mechanisms for issuing currencies and ensure free exchange for all assets trading in their countries.
Another important requirement: issuers of global reserve currencies should meet is compliance with fair rules of competition and non-discriminatory access to financial markets. Other countries observing similar restrictions should be able to use their national currencies as an instrument of foreign trade and currency and financial exchanges, and allow their use as reserve currencies by partner countries. It would be advisable to group national currencies seeking the status of global or regional reserves into several categories depending on the issuers’ compliance with certain standards.
In addition to introducing rules for issuers of global reserve currencies, measures should be taken to strengthen control over capital flows to prevent speculative attacks that destabilize international and national currency and financial systems. Members of the coalition will need to forbid transactions with offshore jurisdictions and make refinancing inaccessible to banks and corporations created with offshore residents. The currencies of countries that fail to follow these rules should not be used in international settlements.
A major overhaul of international financial institutions is necessary to ensure control over the issuers of global reserve currencies. Participating countries must be represented fairly, on objective criteria, such as their share in global production, trade, and finances; their natural resources; and population. The same criteria should be applied to an emerging basket of currencies for new SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) that can be used as a yardstick for determining the value of national currencies, including reserve currencies. Initially, the basket could contain the currencies of those coalition members that agree to observe these rules.
Such ambitious reforms will require proper legal and institutional support. To this end, the coalition’s decisions should be given the status of international commitments; and UN institutions, relevant international organizations, and all countries interested in reforms should be broadly involved.
In order to encourage application of socially important achievements of a new technological mode globally, countries will have to devise an international strategic planning system of socio-economic development. It should provide long-term forecasts for scientific and technological development; define prospects for the global economy, regional associations and leading countries; look for ways to overcome disproportions, including development gaps between industrialized and emerging economies; and set development priorities and indicative targets for international organizations.
The U.S. and other G7 countries will most likely reject the above proposals for reforming the international currency and financial system without discussion out of fear that they could undermine their monopoly, which allows them to issue world currencies uncontrollably. While reaping enormous benefits from this system, leading Western countries limit access to their own assets, technologies, and labor by imposing more and more restrictions.
If the G7 refuses to “make room” in the governing agencies of international financial organizations for the anti-war coalition, the latter should master enough synergy to create alternative global regulators.
The BRICS could serve as a prototype and take the following measures to maintain economic security:
create a universal payment system for BRICS countries and issue a common payment card that would incorporate China’s UnionPay, Brazil’s ELO, India’s RuPay, and Russian payment systems;
build an interbank information exchange system similar to SWIFT and which is independent from the United States and the European Union;
establish its own rating agencies.
RUSSIA AS UNWILLING LEADER
Russia will have a leading role in building a coalition against the U.S. since it is most vulnerable and will not succeed in the ongoing confrontation without such an alliance. If Russia fails to show initiative, the anti-Russian bloc currently being created by the U.S. will absorb or neutralize Russia’s potential allies. The war against Russia the U.S. is inciting in Europe may benefit China, because the weakening of the U.S., the European Union, and Russia will make it easier for Beijing to achieve global leadership. Also, Brazil could give in to U.S. pressure and India may focus on solving its own domestic problems.
Russia has as much experience of leadership in world politics as the U.S. It has the necessary moral and cultural authority and sufficient military-technical capabilities. But Russian public opinion needs to overcome its inferiority complex, regain a sense of historical pride for the centuries of efforts to create a civilization that brought together numerous nations and cultures and which many times saved Europe and humanity from self-extermination. It needs to bring back an understanding of the historical role the Russian world played in creating a universal culture from Kievan Rus’, the spiritual heir to the Byzantine Empire, to the Russian Federation, the successor state of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. Eurasian integration processes should be presented as a global project to restore and develop the common space of nations from Lisbon to Vladivostok, and from St. Petersburg to Colombo, which for centuries lived and worked together.
A SOCIAL-CONSERVATIVE SYNTHESIS
A new world order could be based on a concept of social-conservative synthesis as an ideology that combines the values of world religions with the achievements of the welfare state and the scientific paradigm of sustainable development. This concept should be used as a positive program for building an anti-war coalition and establishing universally understandable principles for streamlining and harmonizing social, cultural, and economic relations worldwide.
International relations can be harmonized only on the basis of fundamental values shared by all major cultures and civilizations. These values include non-discrimination (equality) and mutual acceptance, a concept declared by all confessions without dividing people into “us” and “them.” These values can be expressed in notions of justice and responsibility, and in the legal forms of human rights and freedoms.
The fundamental value of an individual and equality of all people irrespective of their religious, ethnic, class, or other background must be recognized by all confessions. This stems, at least in monotheistic religions, from the perception of the unity of God and the fact that every faith offers its own path to salvation. This outlook can eliminate violent religious and ethnic conflicts and permit every individual to make a free choice. But there must be legal mechanisms in place to enable confessions to participate in public life and resolve social conflicts.
This approach will help neutralize one of the most destructive means of chaotic global warfare employed by the U.S.—the use of religious strife to incite religious and ethnic conflicts that develop into civil and regional wars.
The role of religion in molding international politics will provide the moral and ideological basis for preventing ethnic conflicts and resolving ethnic contradictions using national social policy instruments. Various religions can also be engaged in charting social policy, thus providing a moral framework for government decisions, restraining the attitude of permissiveness and laxity that dominates the minds of the ruling elites in developed countries, and bringing back an understanding of the authorities’ social responsibility to society. As the shaken values of the welfare state gain strong ideological support, political parties will have to acknowledge the importance of moral restrictions that protect the basic principles of human life.
The concept of social-conservative synthesis will lay the ideological groundwork for reforming international currency, financial, and economic relations on the principles of fairness, mutual respect for national sovereignty, and mutually advantageous exchanges. This will require certain restrictions on the freedom of market forces that constantly discriminate against most people and countries by limiting their access to wealth.
Liberal globalization has undermined the ability of countries to influence the distribution of national income and wealth. Transnational corporations uncontrollably move resources that were previously controlled by national governments. The latter have to trim back social security in order to keep their economies attractive to investors. State social investments, the recipients of which no longer have a national identity, have lost their potency. As the U.S.-centered oligarchy gets hold of an increasingly greater part of income generated by the global economy, the quality of life is dwindling in open economies and the gap in access to public wealth is widening. In order to overcome these destructive tendencies, it will be necessary to change the entire architecture of financial and economic relations and restrict the free movement of capital. This should be done in order to prevent transnationals from evading social responsibility, on the one hand, and to even out social policy costs shared by national states, on the other.
The former means eliminating offshore jurisdictions, which help evade tax obligations, and recognizing the nation states’ right to regulate transborder movement of capital. The latter would mean establishing minimal social criteria to ensure accelerated improvement of social security in relatively poor countries. This can be done by creating international mechanisms for balancing out living standards, which, in turn, will require proper funding.
Acting along the concept of a social-conservative synthesis, the anti-war coalition could move to reform the global social security system. A fee of 0.01 percent of currency exchange operations could provide funding for international mechanisms designed to even out living standards. This fee (of up to $15 trillion a year) could be charged under an international agreement and national tax legislation, and transferred to the authorized international organizations which include the Red Cross (prevention of and response to humanitarian catastrophes caused by natural disasters, wars, epidemics, etc.); the World Health Organization (prevention of epidemics, reduction of infantile mortality, vaccination, etc.); ILO (global monitoring of compliance with safety regulations and labor legislation, including wages not less than the subsistence level and a ban on the use of child and compulsory labor; labor migration); the World Bank (construction of social infrastructure facilities – water supply networks, roads, waste water disposal systems, etc.); UNIDO (transfer of technologies to developing countries); and UNESCO (support of international cooperation in science, education and culture, cultural heritage protection). Spending should be made according to the budgets approved by the UN General Assembly.
Another task to tackle is the creation of a global environmental protection system financed by polluters. This can be done by signing an international agreement establishing across-the-board fines for pollution and earmark them for environmental protection under national legislation and under the supervision of an authorized international organization. Part of this money should be committed to global environmental activities and monitoring. An alternative mechanism can be based on trade in pollution quotas under the Kyoto Protocol.
An important aspect is the creation of a global system for eliminating illiteracy and ensuring public access to information and modern education throughout the world. This will require standardizing minimum requirements for comprehensive primary and secondary education and subsidizing underdeveloped countries with revenue generated by the tax mentioned above. There must be a universally accessible system of higher education services provided by leading universities in major industrialized countries. The latter could assign admission quotas for foreign students selected through international contests and paid for from the same source. Simultaneously, the participating universities could set up a global system of free distance learning for all individuals with secondary education. UNESCO and the World Bank could commit themselves to creating and supporting the necessary information infrastructure, while drawing funds from the same source.
ANTI-CRISIS HARMONIZATION OF THE WORLD ORDER
The growing gap between rich and poor countries is threatening the development and the very existence of humanity. The gap is created and sustained by national institutions in the U.S. and allied countries that arrogate certain international economic exchange functions proceeding from their own interests. They have monopolized the right to issue the world’s currency and use the revenue for their own benefit, giving their banks and corporations unlimited access to loans. They have monopolized the right to establish technical standards, thus maintaining technological supremacy of their industry. They have imposed upon the world their own international trade rules that require all other countries to open up their markets and limit substantially their own ability to influence the competitiveness of their national economies. Finally, they have forced the majority of countries to open up their capital markets, thus ensuring the domination of their own financial tycoons, who keep multiplying their wealth by exercising a currency monopoly.
It is impossible to ensure a sustainable and successful socio-economic development without eliminating the monopoly on international economic exchange used for private or national interests. Global and national restrictions can be imposed to support sustainable development, harmonizing global public affairs, and eliminating discrimination in international economic relations.
In order to ward off a global financial catastrophe, urgent measures need to be taken to create both a new, safe, and efficient currency and a financial system based on the mutually advantageous exchange of national currencies. This new system would exclude the appropriation of global seniority in private or national interests.
To level out socio-economic development opportunities, emerging economies need free access to new technologies, conditioned on their promise not to use them for military purposes. Countries that agree to such restrictions and open up information about their defense budgets will be exempted from international export control constraints and receive assistance in acquiring new developmental technologies.
An international mechanism to prevent multinational companies from abusing their monopoly power on the market could ensure fair competition. The WTO could exercise anti-trust control under a special agreement binding for all member states. This would allow economic entities to demand elimination of monopoly power abuses by transnational corporations and seek compensation for losses from such abuses by imposing sanctions against the entities at fault. Apart from overstated or understated prices, quality falsifications, and other typical examples of unfair competition, the payment of wages below the ILO-defined minimum regional subsistence level should also be regarded as an abuse. In addition, there should be reasonable price regulation for the products and services of global and regional natural monopolies.
Because of unequal economic exchanges, countries should be allowed to retain the right to regulate their national economies in order to equalize socio-economic development levels. In addition to WTO mechanisms protecting domestic markets from unfair foreign competition, such equalizing measures could also be achieved by encouraging scientific and technological progress and providing state support to innovation and investment activities; establishing a state monopoly on the use of natural resources; introducing currency controls to limit capital flight and prevent speculative attacks on national currencies; retaining government control over strategic industries; and using other mechanisms to boost competitiveness.
Fair competition in the IT sector is essential. Access to the global information networks must be guaranteed to all people throughout the world as both information consumers and suppliers. This market can be kept open by using stringent antitrust restrictions that will not allow any one country or group of countries to become dominant.
To ensure that all parties to the global economic exchange observe international and national rules, there must be penalties for violators under an international agreement that would enforce court rulings regardless of their national jurisdiction. However, one should be able to appeal a ruling in an international court whose judgment will be binding on all states.
Binding rules and penalties for non-compliance (alongside penalties for breaking national laws) would give international agreements priority over national legislation. Countries that break this principle should be restricted from participating in international economic activities by excluding their national currencies from international settlements, imposing economic sanctions against residents, and limiting those operations on international markets.
In order to enforce all of these fundamental changes in international relations, a strong coalition will have to be created, capable of overcoming the resistance of the U.S. and G7 countries, which reap enormous benefits from their dominance on global markets and in international organizations. This coalition should be ready to use sanctions against the U.S. and other countries that refuse to recognize the priority of international obligations over national regulations. Rejecting the U.S. dollar in international settlements would be the most effective way to coerce the U.S. into being cooperative.
The anti-war coalition should offer a peaceful alternative to the arms race as a means of encouraging a new round of technological development. This alternative would lie in broad international cooperation geared towards solving global problems that require concentration of resources for creating cutting-edge technologies. For example, there is no ready-made solution to protect the planet from threats stemming from deep space. Developing such solutions will require technological breakthroughs that can be achieved by combining the efforts of leading countries and by sharing costs.
The paradigm of sustainable development rejects war as such. Instead of confrontation and rivalry, it is based on cooperation and collaboration as a means of concentrating resources in promising areas of scientific and technological research. Unlike the arms race provoked by geopolitics, it can provide a better scientific and organizational basis for managing a new technological mode. The latter will drive the development of healthcare, education, and culture, which can hardly be spurred by defense expenditures. These non-productive sectors and science will account for as much as a half of GDP in major industrialized countries in upcoming years. Therefore, a forward-looking solution would include shifting the focus of government attention from defense spending to humanitarian programs, primarily in medicine and bioscience. Since the state pays more than half of health, education, and science expenditures, such a shift would facilitate systematic management of socio-economic development and curb destructive trends.
* * *
A new election cycle will begin in the U.S. in 2017 that is likely to be underscored by anti-Russian rhetoric as the ideological basis for the world war Washington is trying to unleash in a bid to retain its power. By that time, the crisis in the American financial system may have resulted in budget spending cuts, devaluation of the dollar, and declining living standards.
Domestic problems and foreign policy crises will cause the U.S. government to ramp up its aggressive tactics, while at the same time weakening its positions. If Russia mobilizes its intellectual, economic, and military potential, it will have a chance to get through conflicts in 2015-2018 in view of the fact that the U.S. and its allies will still not be prepared for direct aggression.
Russia will face the most dangerous period in the early 2020s when industrialized countries and China are expected to begin their technological modernization and the U.S. and other Western countries will emerge from financial depression and make a technological leap forward. But Russia may dramatically fall behind technologically and economically in 2021-2025, which will impair its defense capabilities and spur internal social and ethnic conflicts in much the same way as what happened in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. These conflicts will be fomented both from outside and inside, using social inequality, development gaps between regions, and economic problems. In order to avoid the worst possible scenario leading to the disintegration of the country, Russia will need to adopt a systemic domestic and foreign policy for strengthening national security, ensuring economic independence, improving international competitiveness, boosting economic development, mobilizing society, and upgrading the defense industry.
By 2017, when the U.S. starts threatening Russia openly and on all fronts, the Russian army should have modern and effective weapons, Russian society should be consolidated and confident of its strength, intellectuals should be in control of the new technological mode, the economy should be growing, and Russian diplomacy should succeed in building a broad-based anti-war coalition capable of pooling efforts in order to stop American aggression.
Sergei Glaziev is an Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
U.S. actions in Ukraine should be classified not only as hostile with regard to Russia, but also as pursuing a process of global destabilization. The U.S. is essentially provoking an international conflict to salvage its geopolitical, financial, and economic authority.
The response must be systemic and comprehensive, aimed at exposing and ending U.S. political domination, and, most importantly, at undermining U.S. military-political power based on the printing of dollars as a global currency.
The world needs a coalition of sound forces advocating stability —in essence, a global anti-war coalition with a positive plan for rearranging the international financial and economic architecture on the principles of mutual benefit, fairness, and respect for national sovereignty.
CURBING THE ARBITRARINESS OF RESERVE CURRENCY ISSUERS
This coalition could be comprised of large independent states (BRICS); the developing world (most of Asia, Africa, and Latin America), which have been discriminated against in the current global financial and economic system; CIS countries interested in balanced development without conflicts; and those European nations not prepared to obey the disparaging U.S. diktat. The coalition should take measures to eliminate the fundamental causes of the global crisis, including:
the uncontrolled issuance of global reserve currencies, which allows issuers to abuse their dominant position, thus increasing disproportions and destructive tendencies in the global financial and economic system;
the inability of existing mechanisms regulating banking and financial institutions to ward off excessive risks and financial bubbles;
an exhausted potential for growth within the prevailing technology-based economic system and lack of conditions for creating a new one, including insufficient investment for the broad use of basic technological solutions.
Conditions must be created to allow national fiscal authorities to lend money for building an economy based on new technologies and carrying out economic modernization, and to encourage innovation and business activities in areas of potential growth. The issuers of reserve currencies must guarantee their stability by capping the national debt and payment and trade balance deficits. Also, they will have to use transparent mechanisms for issuing currencies and ensure free exchange for all assets trading in their countries.
Another important requirement: issuers of global reserve currencies should meet is compliance with fair rules of competition and non-discriminatory access to financial markets. Other countries observing similar restrictions should be able to use their national currencies as an instrument of foreign trade and currency and financial exchanges, and allow their use as reserve currencies by partner countries. It would be advisable to group national currencies seeking the status of global or regional reserves into several categories depending on the issuers’ compliance with certain standards.
In addition to introducing rules for issuers of global reserve currencies, measures should be taken to strengthen control over capital flows to prevent speculative attacks that destabilize international and national currency and financial systems. Members of the coalition will need to forbid transactions with offshore jurisdictions and make refinancing inaccessible to banks and corporations created with offshore residents. The currencies of countries that fail to follow these rules should not be used in international settlements.
A major overhaul of international financial institutions is necessary to ensure control over the issuers of global reserve currencies. Participating countries must be represented fairly, on objective criteria, such as their share in global production, trade, and finances; their natural resources; and population. The same criteria should be applied to an emerging basket of currencies for new SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) that can be used as a yardstick for determining the value of national currencies, including reserve currencies. Initially, the basket could contain the currencies of those coalition members that agree to observe these rules.
Such ambitious reforms will require proper legal and institutional support. To this end, the coalition’s decisions should be given the status of international commitments; and UN institutions, relevant international organizations, and all countries interested in reforms should be broadly involved.
In order to encourage application of socially important achievements of a new technological mode globally, countries will have to devise an international strategic planning system of socio-economic development. It should provide long-term forecasts for scientific and technological development; define prospects for the global economy, regional associations and leading countries; look for ways to overcome disproportions, including development gaps between industrialized and emerging economies; and set development priorities and indicative targets for international organizations.
The U.S. and other G7 countries will most likely reject the above proposals for reforming the international currency and financial system without discussion out of fear that they could undermine their monopoly, which allows them to issue world currencies uncontrollably. While reaping enormous benefits from this system, leading Western countries limit access to their own assets, technologies, and labor by imposing more and more restrictions.
If the G7 refuses to “make room” in the governing agencies of international financial organizations for the anti-war coalition, the latter should master enough synergy to create alternative global regulators.
The BRICS could serve as a prototype and take the following measures to maintain economic security:
create a universal payment system for BRICS countries and issue a common payment card that would incorporate China’s UnionPay, Brazil’s ELO, India’s RuPay, and Russian payment systems;
build an interbank information exchange system similar to SWIFT and which is independent from the United States and the European Union;
establish its own rating agencies.
RUSSIA AS UNWILLING LEADER
Russia will have a leading role in building a coalition against the U.S. since it is most vulnerable and will not succeed in the ongoing confrontation without such an alliance. If Russia fails to show initiative, the anti-Russian bloc currently being created by the U.S. will absorb or neutralize Russia’s potential allies. The war against Russia the U.S. is inciting in Europe may benefit China, because the weakening of the U.S., the European Union, and Russia will make it easier for Beijing to achieve global leadership. Also, Brazil could give in to U.S. pressure and India may focus on solving its own domestic problems.
Russia has as much experience of leadership in world politics as the U.S. It has the necessary moral and cultural authority and sufficient military-technical capabilities. But Russian public opinion needs to overcome its inferiority complex, regain a sense of historical pride for the centuries of efforts to create a civilization that brought together numerous nations and cultures and which many times saved Europe and humanity from self-extermination. It needs to bring back an understanding of the historical role the Russian world played in creating a universal culture from Kievan Rus’, the spiritual heir to the Byzantine Empire, to the Russian Federation, the successor state of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire. Eurasian integration processes should be presented as a global project to restore and develop the common space of nations from Lisbon to Vladivostok, and from St. Petersburg to Colombo, which for centuries lived and worked together.
A SOCIAL-CONSERVATIVE SYNTHESIS
A new world order could be based on a concept of social-conservative synthesis as an ideology that combines the values of world religions with the achievements of the welfare state and the scientific paradigm of sustainable development. This concept should be used as a positive program for building an anti-war coalition and establishing universally understandable principles for streamlining and harmonizing social, cultural, and economic relations worldwide.
International relations can be harmonized only on the basis of fundamental values shared by all major cultures and civilizations. These values include non-discrimination (equality) and mutual acceptance, a concept declared by all confessions without dividing people into “us” and “them.” These values can be expressed in notions of justice and responsibility, and in the legal forms of human rights and freedoms.
The fundamental value of an individual and equality of all people irrespective of their religious, ethnic, class, or other background must be recognized by all confessions. This stems, at least in monotheistic religions, from the perception of the unity of God and the fact that every faith offers its own path to salvation. This outlook can eliminate violent religious and ethnic conflicts and permit every individual to make a free choice. But there must be legal mechanisms in place to enable confessions to participate in public life and resolve social conflicts.
This approach will help neutralize one of the most destructive means of chaotic global warfare employed by the U.S.—the use of religious strife to incite religious and ethnic conflicts that develop into civil and regional wars.
The role of religion in molding international politics will provide the moral and ideological basis for preventing ethnic conflicts and resolving ethnic contradictions using national social policy instruments. Various religions can also be engaged in charting social policy, thus providing a moral framework for government decisions, restraining the attitude of permissiveness and laxity that dominates the minds of the ruling elites in developed countries, and bringing back an understanding of the authorities’ social responsibility to society. As the shaken values of the welfare state gain strong ideological support, political parties will have to acknowledge the importance of moral restrictions that protect the basic principles of human life.
The concept of social-conservative synthesis will lay the ideological groundwork for reforming international currency, financial, and economic relations on the principles of fairness, mutual respect for national sovereignty, and mutually advantageous exchanges. This will require certain restrictions on the freedom of market forces that constantly discriminate against most people and countries by limiting their access to wealth.
Liberal globalization has undermined the ability of countries to influence the distribution of national income and wealth. Transnational corporations uncontrollably move resources that were previously controlled by national governments. The latter have to trim back social security in order to keep their economies attractive to investors. State social investments, the recipients of which no longer have a national identity, have lost their potency. As the U.S.-centered oligarchy gets hold of an increasingly greater part of income generated by the global economy, the quality of life is dwindling in open economies and the gap in access to public wealth is widening. In order to overcome these destructive tendencies, it will be necessary to change the entire architecture of financial and economic relations and restrict the free movement of capital. This should be done in order to prevent transnationals from evading social responsibility, on the one hand, and to even out social policy costs shared by national states, on the other.
The former means eliminating offshore jurisdictions, which help evade tax obligations, and recognizing the nation states’ right to regulate transborder movement of capital. The latter would mean establishing minimal social criteria to ensure accelerated improvement of social security in relatively poor countries. This can be done by creating international mechanisms for balancing out living standards, which, in turn, will require proper funding.
Acting along the concept of a social-conservative synthesis, the anti-war coalition could move to reform the global social security system. A fee of 0.01 percent of currency exchange operations could provide funding for international mechanisms designed to even out living standards. This fee (of up to $15 trillion a year) could be charged under an international agreement and national tax legislation, and transferred to the authorized international organizations which include the Red Cross (prevention of and response to humanitarian catastrophes caused by natural disasters, wars, epidemics, etc.); the World Health Organization (prevention of epidemics, reduction of infantile mortality, vaccination, etc.); ILO (global monitoring of compliance with safety regulations and labor legislation, including wages not less than the subsistence level and a ban on the use of child and compulsory labor; labor migration); the World Bank (construction of social infrastructure facilities – water supply networks, roads, waste water disposal systems, etc.); UNIDO (transfer of technologies to developing countries); and UNESCO (support of international cooperation in science, education and culture, cultural heritage protection). Spending should be made according to the budgets approved by the UN General Assembly.
Another task to tackle is the creation of a global environmental protection system financed by polluters. This can be done by signing an international agreement establishing across-the-board fines for pollution and earmark them for environmental protection under national legislation and under the supervision of an authorized international organization. Part of this money should be committed to global environmental activities and monitoring. An alternative mechanism can be based on trade in pollution quotas under the Kyoto Protocol.
An important aspect is the creation of a global system for eliminating illiteracy and ensuring public access to information and modern education throughout the world. This will require standardizing minimum requirements for comprehensive primary and secondary education and subsidizing underdeveloped countries with revenue generated by the tax mentioned above. There must be a universally accessible system of higher education services provided by leading universities in major industrialized countries. The latter could assign admission quotas for foreign students selected through international contests and paid for from the same source. Simultaneously, the participating universities could set up a global system of free distance learning for all individuals with secondary education. UNESCO and the World Bank could commit themselves to creating and supporting the necessary information infrastructure, while drawing funds from the same source.
ANTI-CRISIS HARMONIZATION OF THE WORLD ORDER
The growing gap between rich and poor countries is threatening the development and the very existence of humanity. The gap is created and sustained by national institutions in the U.S. and allied countries that arrogate certain international economic exchange functions proceeding from their own interests. They have monopolized the right to issue the world’s currency and use the revenue for their own benefit, giving their banks and corporations unlimited access to loans. They have monopolized the right to establish technical standards, thus maintaining technological supremacy of their industry. They have imposed upon the world their own international trade rules that require all other countries to open up their markets and limit substantially their own ability to influence the competitiveness of their national economies. Finally, they have forced the majority of countries to open up their capital markets, thus ensuring the domination of their own financial tycoons, who keep multiplying their wealth by exercising a currency monopoly.
It is impossible to ensure a sustainable and successful socio-economic development without eliminating the monopoly on international economic exchange used for private or national interests. Global and national restrictions can be imposed to support sustainable development, harmonizing global public affairs, and eliminating discrimination in international economic relations.
In order to ward off a global financial catastrophe, urgent measures need to be taken to create both a new, safe, and efficient currency and a financial system based on the mutually advantageous exchange of national currencies. This new system would exclude the appropriation of global seniority in private or national interests.
To level out socio-economic development opportunities, emerging economies need free access to new technologies, conditioned on their promise not to use them for military purposes. Countries that agree to such restrictions and open up information about their defense budgets will be exempted from international export control constraints and receive assistance in acquiring new developmental technologies.
An international mechanism to prevent multinational companies from abusing their monopoly power on the market could ensure fair competition. The WTO could exercise anti-trust control under a special agreement binding for all member states. This would allow economic entities to demand elimination of monopoly power abuses by transnational corporations and seek compensation for losses from such abuses by imposing sanctions against the entities at fault. Apart from overstated or understated prices, quality falsifications, and other typical examples of unfair competition, the payment of wages below the ILO-defined minimum regional subsistence level should also be regarded as an abuse. In addition, there should be reasonable price regulation for the products and services of global and regional natural monopolies.
Because of unequal economic exchanges, countries should be allowed to retain the right to regulate their national economies in order to equalize socio-economic development levels. In addition to WTO mechanisms protecting domestic markets from unfair foreign competition, such equalizing measures could also be achieved by encouraging scientific and technological progress and providing state support to innovation and investment activities; establishing a state monopoly on the use of natural resources; introducing currency controls to limit capital flight and prevent speculative attacks on national currencies; retaining government control over strategic industries; and using other mechanisms to boost competitiveness.
Fair competition in the IT sector is essential. Access to the global information networks must be guaranteed to all people throughout the world as both information consumers and suppliers. This market can be kept open by using stringent antitrust restrictions that will not allow any one country or group of countries to become dominant.
To ensure that all parties to the global economic exchange observe international and national rules, there must be penalties for violators under an international agreement that would enforce court rulings regardless of their national jurisdiction. However, one should be able to appeal a ruling in an international court whose judgment will be binding on all states.
Binding rules and penalties for non-compliance (alongside penalties for breaking national laws) would give international agreements priority over national legislation. Countries that break this principle should be restricted from participating in international economic activities by excluding their national currencies from international settlements, imposing economic sanctions against residents, and limiting those operations on international markets.
In order to enforce all of these fundamental changes in international relations, a strong coalition will have to be created, capable of overcoming the resistance of the U.S. and G7 countries, which reap enormous benefits from their dominance on global markets and in international organizations. This coalition should be ready to use sanctions against the U.S. and other countries that refuse to recognize the priority of international obligations over national regulations. Rejecting the U.S. dollar in international settlements would be the most effective way to coerce the U.S. into being cooperative.
The anti-war coalition should offer a peaceful alternative to the arms race as a means of encouraging a new round of technological development. This alternative would lie in broad international cooperation geared towards solving global problems that require concentration of resources for creating cutting-edge technologies. For example, there is no ready-made solution to protect the planet from threats stemming from deep space. Developing such solutions will require technological breakthroughs that can be achieved by combining the efforts of leading countries and by sharing costs.
The paradigm of sustainable development rejects war as such. Instead of confrontation and rivalry, it is based on cooperation and collaboration as a means of concentrating resources in promising areas of scientific and technological research. Unlike the arms race provoked by geopolitics, it can provide a better scientific and organizational basis for managing a new technological mode. The latter will drive the development of healthcare, education, and culture, which can hardly be spurred by defense expenditures. These non-productive sectors and science will account for as much as a half of GDP in major industrialized countries in upcoming years. Therefore, a forward-looking solution would include shifting the focus of government attention from defense spending to humanitarian programs, primarily in medicine and bioscience. Since the state pays more than half of health, education, and science expenditures, such a shift would facilitate systematic management of socio-economic development and curb destructive trends.
* * *
A new election cycle will begin in the U.S. in 2017 that is likely to be underscored by anti-Russian rhetoric as the ideological basis for the world war Washington is trying to unleash in a bid to retain its power. By that time, the crisis in the American financial system may have resulted in budget spending cuts, devaluation of the dollar, and declining living standards.
Domestic problems and foreign policy crises will cause the U.S. government to ramp up its aggressive tactics, while at the same time weakening its positions. If Russia mobilizes its intellectual, economic, and military potential, it will have a chance to get through conflicts in 2015-2018 in view of the fact that the U.S. and its allies will still not be prepared for direct aggression.
Russia will face the most dangerous period in the early 2020s when industrialized countries and China are expected to begin their technological modernization and the U.S. and other Western countries will emerge from financial depression and make a technological leap forward. But Russia may dramatically fall behind technologically and economically in 2021-2025, which will impair its defense capabilities and spur internal social and ethnic conflicts in much the same way as what happened in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. These conflicts will be fomented both from outside and inside, using social inequality, development gaps between regions, and economic problems. In order to avoid the worst possible scenario leading to the disintegration of the country, Russia will need to adopt a systemic domestic and foreign policy for strengthening national security, ensuring economic independence, improving international competitiveness, boosting economic development, mobilizing society, and upgrading the defense industry.
By 2017, when the U.S. starts threatening Russia openly and on all fronts, the Russian army should have modern and effective weapons, Russian society should be consolidated and confident of its strength, intellectuals should be in control of the new technological mode, the economy should be growing, and Russian diplomacy should succeed in building a broad-based anti-war coalition capable of pooling efforts in order to stop American aggression.
Sergei Glaziev is an Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
01-10-2014, 02:48 AM
MOSCOW, September 25 (RIA Novosti) - US military is expanding its training exercises and coordinating the activities of its allies pitting Europe against Russia, Daniel Zubov from Rossiya Segodnya's Center for International Journalism and Research said Thursday.
"While continuing to denounce alleged Russian military involvement in Ukraine, the American military marched east this September, participating in training, drills, and exercises spanning from Latvia to Turkey. It coordinated with its military allies in between - including in Ukraine - consolidating a front which extends 2,600 kilometers," Zubov stated.
"Collaboration between the Ukrainian and American militaries was the central point of President Poroshenko's visit to Washington, DC," Zubov said referring to the Ukrainian leaders's visit to Washington on September 18, where he met with the US President Barack Obama in a bid to seek economic and military aid.
"His request for military assistance found support in Congress, where the Foreign Relations Committee quickly passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, but his request for an immediate transfer of powerful weapons, was declined by President Obama," Zubov noted.
US President Barack Obama authorized US Secretary of State John Kerry to allocate $25 million to the Ukrainian government Wednesday, according to a memorandum released by the White House. Nevertheless, US military aid to the government of Ukraine does not include "lethal assistance," US National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden told RIA Novosti Thursday.
"The United States has also begun a process led by the US European Command and Department of Defense civilian and military experts to work with Ukraine to improve its capacity to provide for its own defense and set the stage for longer-term defense cooperation," the fact sheet released by the White House on September 18 reads.
This process encompasses several steps along American army's new eastern front.
"Beginning in Riga, 47 participants from 15 countries are meeting from September 15 -26 for two operations, Steadfast Pyramid and Steadfast Pinnacle, where they will prepare for "exercising command and control during the planning, preparation and conduct of current and future operations." These exercises are at the "forefront" of NATO's response to the situation in Ukraine," Zubov says noting that "about 900 kilometers due south, 1,300 NATO troops are conducting drills at the Yavoriv Training Center near Lviv in Ukraine as part of the US-led Rapid Trident.
According to Zubov, on September 8-10, the Ukrainian Navy has been conducting military exercises in the Black Sea with "Romania, Turkey, Spain, Canada, and the United States in operation Sea Breeze." Ukrainian military has also joined NATO in Operation Saber Guardian at the Novo Selo Training Range in Bulgaria.
"Before the year is out, Ukraine will be included in two more NATO exercises due to its Observer status in the NATO South-East Europe Brigade," Zubov notes.
"If Poroshenko, Longo [Major General Richard C. Longo, US Army Europe Deputy Commander], and the NATO brass have their way, a "bigger and more complex" and "sophisticated" military presence in Ukraine will further militarize the 2,600 kilometer European front against Russia, returning to the darkest and coldest days of the last century," Zubov stressed.
European security has been a concern for NATO, who has been increasing its presence near Russia's borders, citing the need to better protect its allies, and suspending entirely its cooperation with Moscow.
The relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated over the Ukrainian crisis that escalated to a military operation in mid-April, once Kiev sent troops to eastern Ukraine to suppress independence supporters.
"While continuing to denounce alleged Russian military involvement in Ukraine, the American military marched east this September, participating in training, drills, and exercises spanning from Latvia to Turkey. It coordinated with its military allies in between - including in Ukraine - consolidating a front which extends 2,600 kilometers," Zubov stated.
"Collaboration between the Ukrainian and American militaries was the central point of President Poroshenko's visit to Washington, DC," Zubov said referring to the Ukrainian leaders's visit to Washington on September 18, where he met with the US President Barack Obama in a bid to seek economic and military aid.
"His request for military assistance found support in Congress, where the Foreign Relations Committee quickly passed the Ukraine Freedom Support Act of 2014, but his request for an immediate transfer of powerful weapons, was declined by President Obama," Zubov noted.
US President Barack Obama authorized US Secretary of State John Kerry to allocate $25 million to the Ukrainian government Wednesday, according to a memorandum released by the White House. Nevertheless, US military aid to the government of Ukraine does not include "lethal assistance," US National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden told RIA Novosti Thursday.
"The United States has also begun a process led by the US European Command and Department of Defense civilian and military experts to work with Ukraine to improve its capacity to provide for its own defense and set the stage for longer-term defense cooperation," the fact sheet released by the White House on September 18 reads.
This process encompasses several steps along American army's new eastern front.
"Beginning in Riga, 47 participants from 15 countries are meeting from September 15 -26 for two operations, Steadfast Pyramid and Steadfast Pinnacle, where they will prepare for "exercising command and control during the planning, preparation and conduct of current and future operations." These exercises are at the "forefront" of NATO's response to the situation in Ukraine," Zubov says noting that "about 900 kilometers due south, 1,300 NATO troops are conducting drills at the Yavoriv Training Center near Lviv in Ukraine as part of the US-led Rapid Trident.
According to Zubov, on September 8-10, the Ukrainian Navy has been conducting military exercises in the Black Sea with "Romania, Turkey, Spain, Canada, and the United States in operation Sea Breeze." Ukrainian military has also joined NATO in Operation Saber Guardian at the Novo Selo Training Range in Bulgaria.
"Before the year is out, Ukraine will be included in two more NATO exercises due to its Observer status in the NATO South-East Europe Brigade," Zubov notes.
"If Poroshenko, Longo [Major General Richard C. Longo, US Army Europe Deputy Commander], and the NATO brass have their way, a "bigger and more complex" and "sophisticated" military presence in Ukraine will further militarize the 2,600 kilometer European front against Russia, returning to the darkest and coldest days of the last century," Zubov stressed.
European security has been a concern for NATO, who has been increasing its presence near Russia's borders, citing the need to better protect its allies, and suspending entirely its cooperation with Moscow.
The relations between Russia and the West have deteriorated over the Ukrainian crisis that escalated to a military operation in mid-April, once Kiev sent troops to eastern Ukraine to suppress independence supporters.
02-10-2014, 11:53 PM
04-10-2014, 12:38 AM
How Bad Could It Get? US Government Order Of 160,000 HazMat Suits Gives A Clue
Tyler Durden's pictureSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 10/02/2014 02:17 -0400
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Now that Ebola is officially in the US on an uncontrolled basis, the two questions on everyone's lips are i) who will get sick next and ii) how bad could it get?
We don't know the answer to question #1 just yet, but when it comes to the second one, a press release three weeks ago from Lakeland Industries, a manufacturer and seller of a "comprehensive line of safety garments and accessories for the industrial protective clothing market" may provide some insight into just how bad the US State Department thinks it may get. Because when the US government buys 160,000 hazmat suits specifically designed against Ebola, just ahead of the worst Ebola epidemic in history making US landfall, one wonders: what do they know the we don't?
From Lakeland Industries:
Lakeland Industries, Inc. (LAKE), a leading global manufacturer of industrial protective clothing for industry, municipalities, healthcare and to first responders on the federal, state and local levels, today announced the global availability of its protective apparel for use in handling the Ebola virus. In response to the increasing demand for specialty protective suits to be worm by healthcare workers and others being exposed to Ebola, Lakeland is increasing its manufacturing capacity for these garments and includes proprietary processes for specialized seam sealing, a far superior technology for protecting against viral hazards than non-sealed products.
"Lakeland stands ready to join the fight against the spread of Ebola," said Christopher J. Ryan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lakeland Industries. "We understand the difficulty of getting appropriate products through a procurement system that in times of crisis favors availability over specification, and we hope our added capacity will help alleviate that problem. With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health.
Of course, purchases by the US government are bought and paid for by taxpayers. For everyone else there's $1200 mail-order delivery:
That said... 160,000 HazMats for a disease that is supposedly not airborne? Mm
Tyler Durden's pictureSubmitted by Tyler Durden on 10/02/2014 02:17 -0400
inShare
31
Now that Ebola is officially in the US on an uncontrolled basis, the two questions on everyone's lips are i) who will get sick next and ii) how bad could it get?
We don't know the answer to question #1 just yet, but when it comes to the second one, a press release three weeks ago from Lakeland Industries, a manufacturer and seller of a "comprehensive line of safety garments and accessories for the industrial protective clothing market" may provide some insight into just how bad the US State Department thinks it may get. Because when the US government buys 160,000 hazmat suits specifically designed against Ebola, just ahead of the worst Ebola epidemic in history making US landfall, one wonders: what do they know the we don't?
From Lakeland Industries:
Lakeland Industries, Inc. (LAKE), a leading global manufacturer of industrial protective clothing for industry, municipalities, healthcare and to first responders on the federal, state and local levels, today announced the global availability of its protective apparel for use in handling the Ebola virus. In response to the increasing demand for specialty protective suits to be worm by healthcare workers and others being exposed to Ebola, Lakeland is increasing its manufacturing capacity for these garments and includes proprietary processes for specialized seam sealing, a far superior technology for protecting against viral hazards than non-sealed products.
"Lakeland stands ready to join the fight against the spread of Ebola," said Christopher J. Ryan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lakeland Industries. "We understand the difficulty of getting appropriate products through a procurement system that in times of crisis favors availability over specification, and we hope our added capacity will help alleviate that problem. With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits, we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health.
Of course, purchases by the US government are bought and paid for by taxpayers. For everyone else there's $1200 mail-order delivery:
That said... 160,000 HazMats for a disease that is supposedly not airborne? Mm
05-10-2014, 04:07 AM
Four NATO ships due in Black Sea ahead of maritime exercise
4 SEPTEMBER 2014, 02:15 (GMT+05:00)
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Photo: Four NATO ships due in Black Sea ahead of maritime exercise / Other News
our NATO warships are due in the Black Sea in the next several days ahead of an international maritime exercise to include Ukraine, according to press reports and information from the U.S. Navy, USNI News reported.
Guided missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG-71) was scheduled to transit the Bosphorus Strait today - U.S. 6th Fleet annouced - as well as the French frigate Commandant Birot (F796).
"Ross' presence in the Black Sea serves to demonstrate the United States' commitment to strengthening the collective security of NATO allies and partners in the region," according to a release from U.S. 6th Fleet.
"The ship is scheduled to work alongside NATO allies and partners in the region during its time in the Black Sea, enhancing interoperability and improving regional security."
The Canadian Navy's Halifax-class frigate HMCS Toronto (FFH-333) and the Spanish guided missile frigate Almirante Juan de Borbón (F-102) are due in the Black Sea in by Sept. 7, according to a Wednesday report by the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
Guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (CG-72) departed the Black Sea on Aug. 26.
The ships are scheduled to support the latest iteration of exercise Sea Breeze, which will kick off on Sept. 8 and run until Sept. 10, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters on Wednesday.
The exercise will focus on basic naval skills including maritime interdiction operations, force protection, navigation and humanitarian and disaster relief (HADR) missions, a defense official told USNI News.
A separate land-based exercise - Rapid Trident - has been scheduled in the next weeks in Ukraine at at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center located in Yavoriv, Warren said on Wednesday.
A multi-national exercise focused on mine-counter measure training, Exercise Breeze, concluded in July.
French signals intelligence ship Dupuy de Lôme (A759), is reported in the Black Sea, as part of an ongoing presence mission following the Russian seizure of the Crimea region of Ukraine in March.
All warship from countries without a coast on the Black Sea operate under the 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits.
Montreux rules call for foreign warships to depart the Black Sea after 21 days.
With a steady rotation of assets, the number of NATO ships in the Black Sea has been up to nine - the highest level in several decades.
4 SEPTEMBER 2014, 02:15 (GMT+05:00)
7
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5
Photo: Four NATO ships due in Black Sea ahead of maritime exercise / Other News
our NATO warships are due in the Black Sea in the next several days ahead of an international maritime exercise to include Ukraine, according to press reports and information from the U.S. Navy, USNI News reported.
Guided missile destroyer USS Ross (DDG-71) was scheduled to transit the Bosphorus Strait today - U.S. 6th Fleet annouced - as well as the French frigate Commandant Birot (F796).
"Ross' presence in the Black Sea serves to demonstrate the United States' commitment to strengthening the collective security of NATO allies and partners in the region," according to a release from U.S. 6th Fleet.
"The ship is scheduled to work alongside NATO allies and partners in the region during its time in the Black Sea, enhancing interoperability and improving regional security."
The Canadian Navy's Halifax-class frigate HMCS Toronto (FFH-333) and the Spanish guided missile frigate Almirante Juan de Borbón (F-102) are due in the Black Sea in by Sept. 7, according to a Wednesday report by the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
Guided missile cruiser USS Vella Gulf (CG-72) departed the Black Sea on Aug. 26.
The ships are scheduled to support the latest iteration of exercise Sea Breeze, which will kick off on Sept. 8 and run until Sept. 10, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren told reporters on Wednesday.
The exercise will focus on basic naval skills including maritime interdiction operations, force protection, navigation and humanitarian and disaster relief (HADR) missions, a defense official told USNI News.
A separate land-based exercise - Rapid Trident - has been scheduled in the next weeks in Ukraine at at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center located in Yavoriv, Warren said on Wednesday.
A multi-national exercise focused on mine-counter measure training, Exercise Breeze, concluded in July.
French signals intelligence ship Dupuy de Lôme (A759), is reported in the Black Sea, as part of an ongoing presence mission following the Russian seizure of the Crimea region of Ukraine in March.
All warship from countries without a coast on the Black Sea operate under the 1936 Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits.
Montreux rules call for foreign warships to depart the Black Sea after 21 days.
With a steady rotation of assets, the number of NATO ships in the Black Sea has been up to nine - the highest level in several decades.
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