by liberal japonicus
Another article that flirts with the tl:dr boundary, but it was pretty interesting to me. Sadly, I'm not getting to Bishkek this year, but the SCO mentioned took place when I was there 2 years ago, and it certainly seems plausible. I give you the first graf:
Let’s start with the geopolitical Big Bang you know nothing about, the one that occurred just two weeks ago. Here are its results: From now on, any possible future attack on Iran threatened by the Pentagon (in conjunction with NATO) would essentially be an assault on the planning of an interlocking set of organizations—the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), the new Chinese-founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the BRICS’ New Development Bank (NDB)—whose acronyms you’re also unlikely to recognize. Still, they represent an emerging new order in Eurasia.
Thoughts?
I guess we’ll see. It says “Tehran, Beijing, Moscow, Islamabad, and New Delhi have been actively establishing interlocking security guarantees.” Islamabad and New Delhi? Really?
Interesting nonetheless. If there really is going to be some kind of Pan-Eurasian super economic zone, sounds good to me. The inclusion of Brazil in South Africa in that seems kind of odd though.
Also, what kind of “threat” it might represent to the US/EU remains to be seen – certainly we’re capable of being antagonistic because we like to be the BSD of the world. The makeup of post-Putin Russia may complicate factors.
Overall, I find it hard to believe that this cooperation will be long lasting. Maybe the economics will force it that way – there’s too much money to be made! – but for some reason Russia, China, India and Iran (plus the others) seem far to different from culture, development, and religious perspectives to get along. EU/US/NATO have difficulties and they are far more tied together, I would say.
I just can’t decide if we’re going to be at war with Eastasia or Eurasia. Maybe both.
“we’re capable of being antagonistic because we like to be the BSD of the world. ”
Please leave Unix out of this discussion. There’s enough holy wars as it is.
As we have become incapable of having friends eventually we will just be at war with everyone.
We don’t even have to physically attack Iran to find ourselves isolated politically from the rest of the world. All we have to do is have Congress reject the deal that has just been worked out. Then everybody else who is a party to it (not just China and Russia, but the British, the French, and the EU) gets disgusted and drops sanctions anyway.
After all, they spend the same time and effort we did to reach that agreement. And the fact that we haven’t (yet) physically attacked Iran will not keep them from telling us (possible even literally) to get stuffed.