On Tuesday May 21st, US energy secretary Rick Perry made headlines after paying a visit to the newly elected administration of Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The visit itself wasn’t the cause of the headlines but rather Perry’s hubristic attack on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline and prophesying that a sanctions bill against western companies building the pipeline will pass into law in the immediate future.
For the first time in over half a century, an American President has actually come out attacking the Military Industrial Complex. Of course, everyone knows of President Dwight D. Eisenhauer’s famous outgoing 1961 speech warning the world (and the incoming President Kennedy) what sort of monster had arisen at the heart of America’s defense institutions.
Speaking at China’s second Belt and Road conference in Beijing featuring 37 heads of state, Russia President Vladimir Putin unveiled the intention to unite Russia’s Northern Sea Route with China’s Maritime Silk Road.
The Trump administration’s response to China’s emergence has been to throw all sorts of spanners in the works, but tariffs won’t bring back manufacturing jobs
Pepe ESCOBAR
Let’s start with the “long” 16th Century – which, as with the 21st, also saw a turbulent process of marketization. At that time, the Jesuits and the Counter-Reformation were trying to rebound across Asia – but within a context where the rivalry between the Iberian superpowers of the age, Spain and Portugal, still lingered.
The global trend in international relations is often difficult to discern. But one can be helped in this task by looking at two events, organized in Washington and Beijing, comparing the different themes, participants, objectives, and broached for discussion. After all, we are talking about the two largest economies in the world, two colossi directing and shaping global culture, behavior and world opinion.
Iran will not necessarily look for escalation: to wriggle through will be to win a major symbolic victory. But if it is pushed to the limit, Iran likely will first respond by pushing back in the region and in Afghanistan against US interests.
The new rules proposed by Xi Jinping and expressed by the BRI’s political economic practices are exactly what the best American patriots fought for, Matthew Ehret argues.
Pepe ESCOBAR, Luang PRABANG
The small wooden boats slowly make their way down the brown waters of the Mekong at sunset. Flowing meditation – just enjoying the silence, watching the river flow. Then, suddenly, in the distance, an apparition – a row of cement Ts.
Like a high-tech divinity, the 21st century irrupts across the immemorial Mekong, which in Laos is appropriately named Mae Nam Khong or the Mother of Waters.
President Putin arrived in Tehran on 1 November for talks with the Ayatollah Khamenei. First, to cement the Nuclear Agreement of 2015 (Vienna), as far as Russia is concerned, thereby sidelining Trump’s attempt at reneging on the agreement. Second, to sign billions worth of tripartite hydrocarbon deals between Russia, Iran and Azerbeijan. And this in ruble. NOT in US dollars, thus, effectively detaching Iran from the dollar hegemony.
