by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times The annual MAKS aerospace show kicked off its 2021 installment at Zhukovsky Airport outside Moscow – not with a bang, but with multiple bangs. MAKS – whose name is an acronym for the Russian mouthful Mezhdunarodnyj aviatsionno-kosmiches, literally international aviation and space show – is famous for showing off the latest hits in aerospace and defense technology from major Russian
Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s ‘facilitate, not mediate’ role could be the key to solving the Afghan imbroglio By Pepe Escobar, with permission and first posted at Asia Times Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting of Foreign Ministers on Wednesday in Dushanbe, the Tajik capital, may have been an under-the-radar affair, but it did reveal the contours of the big picture ahead when it comes to Afghanistan. So let’s see what Russia and China
Russia-China-Iran alliance is taking Afghanistan’s bull by the horns By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is on a Central Asian loop all through the week. He’s visiting Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The last two are full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, founded 20 years ago. The SCO heavyweights are of course China and Russia. They are joined by
Deploying diplomatic skills refined from Doha to Moscow, the Taliban in 2021 has little to do with its 2001 incarnation by Pepe Escobar with permission, and first posted at Asia Times A very important meeting took place in Moscow last week, virtually hush-hush. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, received Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s national security adviser. There were no substantial leaks. A bland statement pointed to the obvious:
By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times And it’s all over For the unknown soldier It’s all over For the unknown soldier The Doors, The Unknown Soldier Let’s start with some stunning facts on the ground. The Taliban are on a roll. Earlier this week their P.R. arm was claiming they hold 218 Afghan districts out of 421 – capturing new ones every day. Tens of
By Pepe Escobar, exclusively for the Saker Blog He was like Blake’s tiger, always burning bright and chasing Rimbaud rainbows – just to finish, like Marat, in a bathtub. He was only 27. Jim Morrison died on July 3, 1971 in Paris. Half a century later, The Collected Works of Jim Morrison: Poetry, Journals, Transcripts, and Lyrics lavishly celebrates the soul of the poet. Before he died, Jim had self-published
The West’s ‘rules-based order’ invokes rulers’ authority; Russia-China say it’s time to return to law-based order By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times We do live in extraordinary times. On the day of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi Jinping, in Tiananmen square, amid all the pomp and circumstance, delivered a stark geopolitical message: The Chinese people will never allow foreign
Western exceptionalists may continue to throw a fit 24/7 ad infinitum: that will not change the course of history. By Pepe Escobar with permission and widely distributed The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) centennial takes place this week at the heart of an incandescent geopolitical equation. China, the emerging superpower, is back to the global prominence it enjoyed throughout centuries of recorded history, while the declining Hegemon is paralyzed by the
by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Welcome to the latest NATO show: Sea Breeze starts today and goes all the way to July 23. The co-hosts are the US Sixth Fleet and the Ukrainian Navy. The main protagonist is Standing NATO Maritime Group 2. The show, in NATOspeak, is just an innocent display of “strenghtening deterrence and defense”. NATO spin tells us the exercise is
Iran’s president-elect will ‘Look East’ while seeking to exit ‘strategic patience’ when dealing with the US By Pepe Escobar posted with permission and first posted at AsiaTimes In his first press conference as President-Elect with 62% of the votes, Ebrahim Raeisi, facing a forest of microphones, came out swinging and leaving nothing to the imagination. On the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal, the dossier that completely obsesses the West, Raeisi
Biden hinted US wants Russia ‘back in the fold’ but Putin won’t being leaving China’s embrace any time soon By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at AsiaTimes Let’s start with the written word. In Geneva, the US and Russia issued a joint statement where “we reaffirm the principle that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Assorted Dr. Strangeloves will cringe – but at least the world
By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times The West is the best The West is the best Get here and we’ll do the rest Jim Morrison, The End For those spared the ordeal of sifting through the NATO summit communique, here’s the concise low down: Russia is an “acute threat” and China is a “systemic challenge”. NATO, of course, is just a bunch of innocent kids
Global South will be unimpressed by new B3W infrastructure scheme funded by private Western interests out for short-term profit By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times It requires major suspension of disbelief to consider the G7, the self-described democracy’s most exclusive club, as relevant to the Raging Twenties. Real life dictates that even accounting for the inbuilt structural inequality of the current world system the G7’s
A G7 rebooted as a Sinophobic crusade will have few if any takers due to members’ rising dependence on Chinese goods and markets by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times The upcoming G7 in Cornwall at first might be seen as the quirky encounter of “America is Back” with “Global Britain”. The Big Picture though is way more sensitive. Three Summits in a Row – G7,
By Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times It’s impossible to understand the finer points of what’s happening on the ground in Russia and across Eurasia, business-wise, without following the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). So let’s cut to the chase, and offer a few choice examples of what is discussed on top panels. The Russian Far East – Here’s a discussion on the –
As Sino-Russo-Iranophobia dissolves in sanctions and hysteria, mapmakers carve the post-unilateral order By Pepe Escobar posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times It’s the Nikolai Patrushev-Yang Jiechi show – all over again. These are the two players running an up and coming geopolitical entente, on behalf of their bosses Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Last week, Yang Jiechi – the director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs
The undisputed leader of the tightly vetted pack is soft hardliner Ebrahim Raeisi, the Islamic Republic’s Chief Justice by Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times When Iran’s Interior Ministry released on Tuesday the final list of candidates approved by the 12-member Guardian Council to run for President in the upcoming June 18 election, all hell was breaking loose in Tehran for at least 24 hours.
by Pepe Escobar with permission and first posted at Asia Times Andrei Martyanov is in a class by himself. A third wave baby boomer, born in the early 1960s in Baku, in the Caucasus, then part of the former USSR, he’s arguably the foremost military analyst in the Russian sphere, living and working in the US, writing in English for a global audience, and always excelling in his Reminiscence of
by Pepe Escobar and first posted at Asia Times So Sergey Lavrov and Tony Blinken met for nearly two hours at the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, on the sidelines of the ministerial session of the Arctic Council. Frosty? Not really. Even if the get together may not have been a throwback to a Reagan-Gorbachev funfest in the good old Cold War days. After all, there was a NATO warship
By Pepe Escobar for The Saker Blog and thereafter widely distributed Nakba, May 15, 2021. Future historians will mark the day when Western “liberal democracy” issued a graphic proclamation: We bomb media offices and destroy “freedom of the press” in an open air concentration camp while we forbid peaceful demonstrations under a state of siege in the heart of Europe. And if you revolt, we cancel you. Gaza meets Paris.
