Lobby which plays with America

If you look through everyday titles of White House press-releases, it may seem that great reforming is on in the USA: initiatives follow one another, and acute problems are being attacked from unexpected directions. America’s advantage is that everything is spoken openly there. One can hardly notice in such a fuss that there are not so many positive changes in reality, and acute problems remain unsolved for decades. One of the most serious of then is unregulated and disorganized financial and banking sphere which has led world economy to crisis and doesn’t want to be changed.

You'll find the whole text here: http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/lobby-which-plays-america-part-1

EU: between Russia and the USA

Today Europe is facing a hard time trying to find a balance between Russia and the USA. It is clear that Europe has lost its top priority place on American foreign policy agenda and Russia can not replace the USA's image of a big reliable boss.
Russia, in its turn, has lost its illusions about the possibility of full integration in to the European structures and reoriented its interests eastward.
Besides, both actors are divided by energy issue which prevents Europe from seeing Russia as totally friendly and positive neighbor with no hidden jokers in his pockets.
The article I link here is a bit old but it didn't lose its relevance and importance.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/european-union-deciding-between-russia-and-usa-part-i?page=1

Africa: clash of the American and Chinese geopolitical interests

Yemen is considered to be the cradle of the Arab world. In the north Yemen borders Saudi Arabia, narrow part of the western border falls on the Red Sea area, the southern border faces the Gulf of Aden while the Oman is in the east. Political system of Yemen allows the country to maneuver among the endless mosaic of tribes that are characterized by the different degree of the territorial independence. Tribal differences are also connected to the division of the country population onto Sunni — who make up the majority with the insignificant superiority in numbers — and the Shia who make up about 45% of population.In the recent year Shiaz have undergone numerous attacks from the governmental troops.
In November 2009 the conflict was first internationalized. Air Forces of Saudi Arabia bombed the Shiites’ positions at Jebel Duchan. Saudis were afraid of the Shiites’ strengthening — in Saudi Arabia itself they make up the oppressed minority.
The USA are playing their own political game in the region. They are interested mostly in one question: who will control Bab-el-Mandeb strait?
Bab-el-Mandeb strait between Yemen, Djibouti and Eritrea is a key to the “oil path” between Africa and the Middle East — it connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Indian Ocean. Every day 3.5 million barrels of oil “float” through it to the USA, Europe and Asia. Besides that, oil fields in the Masila and Shabwa basins are also located in Yemen, which neighbors the Saudi Arabia. Geopolitical significance of Yemen and Somali turn these countries into the sphere of the U.S. strategic interests.
Americans have outstripped China that has also stated the need to create a military base in the western part of the Indian Ocean. For now, only Iran is open for China in that region as long as the rest of the countries have already been pulled inside of the NATO orbit. Control over the Aden port in Yemen brings huge benefits to the Americans and opens the infinite possibilities for maneuver in front of them.
China, on its part, is trying to improve its influence in Sri Lanka and Burma in order to form the new transport paths in the Persian Gulf, Africa and Middle East area. Recently, British press media reported that the USA promised to delete Burma out of the “axis of evil”-countries list if it stops “playing on the Chinese side”.
Thus, it is unlikely that the political games in the regions will cease in the nearest future. On the contrary, American desire to control everything possible might lead to another outbreak of instability in this already instable part of the world.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/africa-clash-american-and-chinese-geopolitical-interests

Afghanistan: an apple of discord or a field for co-operation?

Twenty years ago Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan, and eight year ago NATO forces were deployed there. The state has passed through two occupations against the background of the never-ending civil war, has become the main supplier of heroin to the global market, the symbol of international terrorism, famine and devastation. Soviet administration, planning the expedition, didn’t expect Pashtun guerillamen, equipped with old British rifles – the trophy of Anglo-Afghan wars – to occasion well-trained and armed troops of the USSR a lot of troubles. However in the 80s Afghanistan was foreordained to become the last range territory for the Cold war: with the help of the USA the opposition succeeded in outfighting the great neighbor and gaining independence.

Contemporary advocates of democratic Afghanistan don’t face such challenges. Today's guerillamen are equipped with self-made machine guns, which are made of locally available material in the north of Pakistan, with Russia preserving friendly neutrality. Ample resources are directed to the humanitarian aid, the conduction of free elections and maintenance of security. How come no positive shift has taken place in the past eight years? The famine has not been overcome, the war is still in progress, the drug production is increasing.

The greatest disillusionment of the NATO operation is caused by political and social situation in modern Afghanistan. It is still the poorest country in the world. The large part of the population shifts with less than one dollar a day while the international community spends millions on tackling this problem. Cultivation of opium poppy and production of heroin amount to more that 60 percent of GNP of modern Afghanistan.

That’s about the situation in modern Afghanistan, which is officially controlled by NATO. The country has changed a lot in the course of eight years but the question is if it has become less dangerous for the global community, for Europe and Russia? To what extent the presence of the USA is profitable for Afghanistan?

The USA succeeded in gaining predominance in Central Asia region with the complete approval of the global community. Nineteen new military bases, which are located in the territory of Iraq, Afghanistan and former Soviet republics – Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, were opened after 2001. It gives an opportunity to control from the East and from the West one of the main declared hostiles of the USA – Iran, as well as China, Pakistan and Russia.

American cynicism is not typical for the Europeans. If the promotion of democracy, tackling social problems and the war on terror are just propagandistic clichés for the USA administration, the European treat this terms seriously. They are ready to wage the war on international terror, threatening both the USA and the West European countries, on Islamism radicalization, which can have negative influence on spirit among immigrants, or at least they are ready to struggle for universal democratic ideals. After eight years of occupation there is clash of views of Europe and the USA on the possible policy in Afghanistan. This clash can lead to the split in the coalition.

Public polls in Russia and some European countries show the negative influence of anti-terrorist operation conducted by the USA on the global situation and the necessity of making new decisions on Afghanistan in co-operation with Europe and Russia. Can we expect it in the short-run? I doubt so as Afghanistan issue is again off the top priorities of today's political agendas due to never-ending economic troubles suffered by many countries due to Afghanistan and other useless expenses.

http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/afghanistan-apple-discord-or-field-co-operation

Uranium exchange agreement and a project of new sanctions against Iran

In the middle of May in Teheran a new summit of G-15 took place, the organization including 19 developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. During the talks foreign affairs ministers and leaders of Iran, Brazil, and Turkey have achieved a very important agreement concerning Iranian nuclear program. A following exchange alternative has been discussed: Iran is to receive fuel for Teheran research reactor in return for a half of Iranian supplies of low-enriched uranium. Despite that the USA has proposed the UN Security Council a project of resolution imposing new sanctions against the Islamic republic.

According to the statement signed on May 17, 2010by the USA, France, Russia, and the IAEA Iran is to deliver 1200 kilos of low-enriched uranium to Turkey. This uranium is to be kept by Turkey; however, it is to remain the property of Iran and may be supervised both by representatives of Iran and IAEA. After the low-enriched uranium is delivered to Turkey, it is to be exchanged for 120 kilos of nuclear fuel necessary for Teheran research reactor within one year.

After the document was signed, Turkey, Russia and China claimed that there was no more need in imposing sanctions against Iran. The Western community, however, reacted different. The USA are still drafting a resolution aiming at “further efforts in order to bring pressure on Iran”.
If new sanctions are to be adopted and come into force, it would lead to further confrontation and failure of the compromise found by Brazil, Turkey, and Iran. Thus, a new coil of this vicious circle will begin, putting off an efficient solution of Iranian question to uncertain future.

It is clear that the USA are afraid that Turkey and Brazil will get too much political credit, having once shown themselves the succeessful negotiators. But isn't it the time to put ambitions aside in order to heal this long-itching wound?
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/uranium-exchange-agreement-and-project-new-sanctions-against-iran

Old wrinkles on the new face of American diplomacy

A curios case, having taken place at the meeting of the heads of foreign policy institutes, held on March, 6 2009, today is usually called symbolic. At that time the American delegation make a present for the Russian party, made in a form of red push-button, which reminded the audience about the “nuclear weapon” push-button and the Cold war confrontation. However, according to the author’s idea, the souvenir should have symbolized the beginning of the new age of US-Russian relations, for this it was planned to engrave the Russian equivalent to the word “reset” (“perezagruzka”). However there was a mistake in translation, and the Russian delegation was offered to “overload” the bilateral relations instead of “reloading” them. Against the background of the events, having taken place the last year, the linguistic error of the American administration seems to be prophetic – the relations of the two countries are really overloaded by the number of fundamental contradictions.
The questions on which the Russian and US politicians unsuccessfully try to reach compromise hardly could be called easily solved - they are too many and too complicated. Minor achievements on minor issues do not mean that overall "reloading" of US-Russia relations is gathering speed. Big unsolved problems like renewing European security system, Russia's accession to WTO, stagnant Russia-NATO dialogue are pulling our bilaterla relations to underworld.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/old-wrinkles-new-face-american-diplomacy

The world that changed after 1945

In his book book "Lend Lease: Weapon for Victory" E. Stettinius conceived the following grounds of the after-war world and the peaceful U. S policy in it: "When we were not the United Nations and everyone was by himself, all we had were the misfortunes and defeats. Having become the United Nations, we’ve intercepted the enemy’s initiative and now we are winning. It doesn’t matter, how many months of struggle are ahead — until we’re together the day is undoubtedly ours.

What will we be capable of since we reach this victory — that depends from whether we’d be able to conclude peace the same way we’ve fought against the aggression, remaining to be the United Nations. For the last 30 months, since 11th of March, 1941 we’ve received plenty of evidences that our unity can work the miracles. We’ve avoided the catastrophe, which could’ve postponed the liberation for centuries and we’ve gained a great opportunity to achieve the better future for the humanity. We’d only be able to use this opportunity if we stay united.

One might ask why the matter of the possibility of our future cooperation is being raised at all. If we won thanks to our unity, it would be a terrible mockery if we’d suffer a defeat during the peace time, having failed to keep our unity! Then all our losses, all the sacrifices made by those who lived and fought for the victory, would be really in vain.

But if we’ve learned how to fight back-to-back, we still might learn how to cooperate after the war. Of course we’ll face difficulties, contradictions and conflicts of interests. But there’s really nothing new or incredibly awful in it. Such matters can be solved to the mutual benefit. I think that those Americans who doubt that — and that is very odd in my opinion — do not have the faith in our ability to use our power wisely and for the common good in the international relations.

What are we to be afraid of? Rivalry with the Great Britain? We’ll hope that it would be a fair competition — competition in fight for prosperity of our own and all the other countries. After the victory in this war our country can hardly be afraid of any competition. We would have the tremendous material resources and the industrial power at our disposal as the country that didn’t suffer from the enemy attacks, country whose citizens can make business with people all over the world, country that know a lot about the life of other nations thanks to the millions of our compatriots living abroad. The English fear of competition can be understandable as they’ve suffered heavy economic and military losses. However, Englishmen are great businessmen as well and they would find the strength to restore their economy and we are interested in them to succeed at that. Great economic prospects are opening up before everyone who lives in a free and prospering world.

"Are we afraid of the communism in Russia? Why on earth do we have to be afraid of it? Do we have so little faith in our form of leadership and don’t we understand how much good did the free entrepreneurship, regulated for the sake of democracy, brought to our country? We have been working on our experiment for more than 150 years already — and we will keep walking our way, so the Soviets are free to work at their own experiment. We don’t have a single reason to be afraid of Russia. We’d just benefit from the friendship and the mutually profitable cooperation with it".

Are we afraid of the revival of China? Of course, not. China has been the most peaceful of all the great nations for the last 2000 years. New China can be considered to be the moral leader of the United Nations in the sense of understanding of what should we do for the sake of establishing the international cooperation.

After concluding the peace, Americans would have nothing to be afraid of, except, probably, the lack of faith in themselves and their own country. If we’re ready to continue our wartime cooperation even during the peace time, the rest of the world will be glad to cooperate with us for the sake of the common benefit.

All the United Nations have subscribed to the goals, proclaimed in the Atlantic Charter and the Declaration of the United Nations that can be briefly formulated as the freedom of speech, religious freedom, and freedom from poverty and fear. We cannot reach these goals at once — the path that leads to them is long and thorny, but they are still as much worthy and real as the goals of our Declaration of Independence. We cannot reach the strong and lasting peace without reaching them. History of humanity gives us the evidence that peace and prosperity are incompatible with the tyranny, poverty and fear".
The article I link here goes further and offers possible scenarios of USSR development after the victory in the Second World war.
http://www.win.ru/en/Mysteries-of-History/3331.phtml

Pax Americana Multipolaris

Does the USA need a one-polar world? I don’t think so. It is hard to “be in charge of everything”. It is much easier and more advantageous to be “the first among the equal and a far from the centre”. Unlike vertical relations, horizontal ones do not suppress anybody and can not result in anybody’s fall. I believe that Obama’s shining smile is just the right thing: after statements made by George Bush Jr. concerning the issue of “who is in charge” it is important to remind the world about such notion as equality.
I do agree with the author of this article - it is always extremely hard to be superior as they are mostly afraid of, envied or hated. It looks more than a habit of achieving superiority that the USA inherited from the cold war era, isn't it?
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/pax-americana-multipolaris

Is cyber war already on?

It is funny that the Russian word “csar” is frequently used in American political lexis. During the last two decades the necessity appeared to appoint a person who would control sophisticated bureaucratic structures in the US administration and report directly to the president. There are csars for emigration, finance, ecology, etc. Richard Clarke was such a “csar” for counterterrorist activity during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and in the first administration of George Bush Jr. He worked for many years in governmental departments, headed counterterrorist activity in the United States National Security Council. In the top of his career Clarke was a member of the president’s cabinet.

Clarke believes that the USA is quite vulnerable facing the threat of the Internet war. He suggests drastic changing of Internet providers system, so that the government could take control in order to protect the country in case of a serious cyber attack. Among his other duties, Clarke was the special advisor to the president on cyber security in 2001, which adds more weight to his predictions. Clarke is sure that the level of the current concealed cyber war is dangerous indeed, that it can turn into a full scale military conflict any time. When asked about his prognosis of the outcome of the war after one of his lectures, he answered that “America may lose the first cyber war”.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/cyber-war-already-part-1

Sanctions against Iran: did the USA manage to bring over Russia and China?

During the last several months Russia has truly made a step towards the West in the issue of Iranian nuclear problem, having admitted a possibility of introducing of new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. However, Russia did not agree to everything the USA proposed in order to “reload” or conclude a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The statements made by Medvedev and Obama after their last negotiations showed that opinions of the parties still differ seriously.

Yuriy Lamin notes that the present situation does not look very advantageous for the USA as China has finally decided to take part in the negotiations. It makes consensus on sanctions almost impossible.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/sanctions-against-iran-did-usa-manage-bring-over-russia-and-china

A big game around the pipeline Iran-Pakistan-India

Iran possesses large deposits of natural gas, for today confirmed deposits amount to more than 30 trillion cubic meters – the country holds the second place in the world, following the Russian Federation. For recent years production and consumption of natural gas were growing rapidly in Iran, but this country has very limited export capacity. Most of nearest neighbors of Iran, such as Arabic countries of Persian Gulf, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, have their own substantial supplies of hydrocarbon resources. Iran makes attempts to develop the export of liquefied gas, but for that foreign investments and technologies are needed. But due to USA pressing many large western companies have to refuse to cooperate with Iran or suspend cooperation. As a result, two still “free” ways of transporting gas with the help of pipelines are very important for Iran: to Turkey and through it probably to Europe; and to Pakistan, and through it to India or China. Iran already exports gas to Turkey through existing pipeline, but a new pipeline is needed to expand export to Turkey and Europe. However, in this case a new pipeline is to be built in the most mountainous regions of both Iran and Turkey, because the main deposits of gas are situated in the southern part of the country. Therefore, it is suggested that a pipeline through Pakistan may be more advantageous for Iran, taking into consideration the possibility of entering Indian and Chinese markets, which can provide export of Iranian gas for many decades to come. It is planned to take gas for this pipeline from the world’s largest shelf deposit “South Pars” in Persian Gulf; this deposits amounts to 14.2 trillion cubic meters, and production volume, according to some data, can amount up to 150 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

To read more go to http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/big-game-around-pipeline-iran-pakistan-india

Building a pan-Eurasian security community?

As the post-cold war moment of US unilateralism is slowly passing away, the new age of multilateralism is firmly grounded in improved bilateral relations. At present, the clearest example of this trend is the "reset" of US-Russia relations. By contrast with a dangerous escalation of tensions between East and West during the Georgian conflict in August 2008, President Obama is genuinely committed to ending the new "Cold War of minds" and inaugurating an era of careful cooperation and perhaps even a wide-ranging partnership with Moscow. The START treaty signed last month in Prague is a small yet significant element in consolidating the "reset" and strengthening ties with the Kremlin under President Medvedev. US-Russian engagement is also key to successful negotiations on further nuclear arms reduction, non-proliferation and a deal with Tehran on its nuclear ambitions.

Today's Russia is just as unsure about its global role as the post-Lisbon EU and Obama-led USA. Like the rest of the ‘other Europe’, Moscow is disillusioned with Brussels and focuses instead on strengthening bilateral ties with big countries such as Germany, France and Italy. It is also forging deeper links with Turkey and the Ukraine in the hope of extending its ‘sphere of privileged interests’ and providing a counterweight to what the Kremlin views as the idea of a narrow Europe dominated by its western part and ruled by the EU. NATO expansion is still the single most poisonous element of Russia’s relations with the US and Europe, even if security cooperation in a number of areas has been more effective in recent months.

Adrian Pabst argues that it is not clear what strategic importance the Kremlin ascribes to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – not least because Russia is vying with China over geo-political hegemony in central Asia. This, coupled with the recognition that other groupings like BRIC won’t mutate into military alliances, explains why from the outset of his mandate President Medvedev has been pushing for a new pan-Eurasian security framework from Vancouver to Vladivostok...
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/building-pan-eurasian-security-community

START: victory or defeat?

On April 8, 2010 Presidents of the Russian Federation and USA, finally signed Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) in Prague. According to the treaty the parties are committed to limit their operatively deployed nuclear forces to 700 carriers (800 of deployed and non-deployed) and 1550 warheads. What is even more important, the text includes a detailed system of definitions and calculation rules.

Russia and the USA had been attempting to work out the provisions of a new agreement for more than a year. According to the Russian expert Andrey Pavlov the lack of mutual trust between Vladimir Putin and G.W.Bush made achievement of more or less serious agreement in the field of nuclear arms impossible during that administration. Some hope appeared only when the new US president came to power.
http://www.eastwest-review.com/article/start-victory-or-defeat