NATO Warships In Black Sea Start War Games. Russia Puts Its Military on Full Alert

Power Play Behind Regime Change in Russia

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41269.htm

We all know this won’t happen anytime soon – if ever. So a nasty Cold War 2.0 atmosphere is bound to prevail – alongside with relentless demonization reaping its benefits. A new Gallup poll shows most Americans now see Russia – ahead of North Korea, China and Iran – as the US’s public enemy number one and the greatest threat to the West.

Let Me Take You on a Missile Cruise

The Empire of Chaos dream of regime change in Russia has always hinged on controlling large swathes of Eurasia. A puppet in Moscow – a carbon copy of the drunken stooge Yeltsin – would free up Russia’s immense natural resources for the West, with those from the contiguous Central Asian “stans” as a bonus. If on the other hand Russia maintains its influence, even indirectly, in Ukraine and on Central Asia’s oil and natural gas wealth, Moscow is capable of projecting itself again as a superpower. So once again this is largely about the domination of Eurasian Pipelineistan; anything else means a direct threat to the unipolar world.

Russian intelligence is very much aware of relentless US pressure geared to breaking parts off of Russia, weakening them, until Russia becomes a chaos wasteland not dissimilar to Iraq or Yemen – with natural resources then flowing freely to the West.

That’s why the pressure has been ratcheted up to nearly nuclear war proportions. Some adults in the EU though are starting to get the picture.

The EU simply does not have the funds to really invest in the Central Asian stans, or to pump billions of (devalued) euros into pipelines through Azerbaijan. Libya, Nigeria and the Middle East (from Iraq to Yemen) are a mess. The EU has no energy security in the Middle East and North Africa, and without Russia will have no energy security at all.

This set of circumstances unveils the specter of Cold War 2.0 turning hot as even more bewildering. Needless to add, Poland, Ukraine, and other hapless Eastern Europeans would be mere pawns if a full-blown civil war does break out in Ukraine – the explicit aim of that American fantasyland, the Kaganate of Nulands, or Nulandistan. In a – admittedly terrifying — war scenario, Russia would seal eastern Ukraine airspace against US air power using an array of sophisticated defensive missiles. Tactical nuclear weapons would be used for the first time. Europe would be basically defenseless as NATO’s Dr. Strangeloves would be tempted to launch a full-scale nuclear war. Still, NATO’s ICBMs, cruise missiles and jet fighters would not pierce the S-400 and S-500 Russian defensive missile systems.

Provoking the Russian bear is a self-defeating proposition. Russia quitting the landmark Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe is really serious business; NATO is beyond alarmed. Not to mention Moscow announcing it has the right to place — and may even have placed — nuclear weapons in Crimea. Meanwhile the Russian military continue to test NATO’s defenses by flying their planes into NATO’s defensive perimeter.

Eurasia swings from one minute to another from reconciliation to provocation. Cui bono? Moscow is a master in keeping Washington and NATO guessing.

Watch That Lady Sing It was Putin that first wanted, years ago, to create a vast trade emporium from Lisbon to Vladivostok, also including China, using high-speed rail to avoid the US-controlled seas. That was the trade-fuelled original plan, rather than a China-Russia alliance against NATO.

What the Empire of Chaos achieved in Ukraine, at least for now, was to divide Eurasia into three competing blocks; Germany-France allied with the US (but with both now having second thoughts); Russia; and China offset by Japan. Once again, that’s Divide and Rule — with the US as perpetual hegemon always capable of adapting and tweaking its proverbial bomb-and-bully foreign policy strategy.

Yet it ain’t over till the fat (geopolitical) lady sings. The Russia-China strategic partnership keeps evolving – check out the upcoming BRICS and SCO summits in Russia this summer. The oil and natural gas wealth of Russia and Central Asia will keep performing their U-turn towards China and Asia. And in a few years the “Exceptionalists Rule the Waves” mantra will cease to be a game-changer.

Regime change? Keep dreaming.

Pepe Escobar