by Thierry Meyssan via Voltairenet

For the first time, the world is witnessing a crime against humanity live on television. The United States and Israel, who have long since joined forces, will both be held responsible for the mass massacres in Gaza. Everywhere except Europe, Washington’s allies are withdrawing their ambassadors from Tel Aviv. Tomorrow, they will do the same in Washington. Everything is happening as it did when the USSR broke up, and it will end the same way: the American Empire’s very existence is threatened. The process that has just begun cannot be stopped.

The United States and Israel are perceived as a single entity. They will have to answer for their crimes together.

While our eyes are riveted on the massacres of civilians in Israel and Gaza, we fail to perceive the internal divisions in Israel and the USA, or the considerable change this drama is provoking in the world. For the first time in history, civilians are being massacred live on television.

Everywhere – except in Europe – Jews and Arabs unite to cry out their grief and call for peace.
People everywhere realize that this genocide would not be possible if the United States did not supply bombs to the Israeli army in real time.

States everywhere are recalling their ambassadors to Tel Aviv and wondering whether they should recall those they sent to Washington.

It goes without saying that the United States only reluctantly agreed to this spectacle, but they didn’t just allow it, they made it possible with subsidies and weapons. They are afraid of losing their Power after their defeat in Syria, their defeat in Ukraine and perhaps soon their defeat in Palestine. Indeed, if the Empire’s armies are no longer frightening, who will continue to transact in dollars instead of their own currency? And in that eventuality, how will Washington make others pay for what it spends, how will the U.S. maintain its standard of living?

But what happens at the end of this story? That the Middle East revolts, or that Israel crushes Hamas at the cost of thousands of lives?

We’ll remember that President Joe Biden first warned Israel to abandon its plan to move the Palestinian people to Egypt or, failing that, to eradicate them from the face of the earth, and Tel Aviv didn’t obey him.

The “Jewish supremacists” are behaving today as they did in 1948.

When the United Nations voted to create two federated states in Palestine, one Hebrew and one Arab, the armed forces self-proclaimed the Hebrew state before its borders had been fixed. The “Jewish supremacists” immediately expelled millions of Palestinians from their homes (the “Nakhba”) and assassinated the UN special representative who had come to create a Palestinian state. The seven Arab armies (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and North Yemen) that tried to oppose them were quickly swept aside.

Today, they are no more obedient to their protectors and massacre again, without realizing that this time the world is watching and no one will come to their rescue. At a time when the Shiites accept the principle of a Hebrew state, their madness is jeopardizing the very existence of that state.

We remember how the Soviet Union collapsed. The state was unable to protect its own population during a catastrophic accident. 4,000 Soviets died at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (1986), saving their fellow citizens. The survivors wondered why, 69 years after the October Revolution, they continued to accept an authoritarian regime. Mikhail Gorbachev, First Secretary of the CPSU, wrote that it was only when he saw this disaster that he realized his regime was under threat.

Then came the December riots in Kazakhstan, independence demonstrations in the Baltic states and Armenia. Gorbachev amended the Constitution to remove the Party’s old guard. But his reforms were not enough to stop the fire spreading to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldavia, Ukraine and Belarus. The uprising of the East German Young Communists against the Brezhnev doctrine led to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989). The crumbling of power in Moscow led to the cessation of aid to allies, including Cuba (1990). Finally came the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the break-up of the Union (1991). In just over 5 years, an Empire that everyone thought would last forever has collapsed in on itself.

This inevitable process has just begun for the “American Empire”. The question is not how far Benjamin Netanyahu’s “revisionist Zionists” will go, but how far the US imperialists will support them. At what point will Washington decide it has more to lose by allowing Palestinian civilians to be massacred than by correcting Israel’s leaders?

The same problem faces him in Ukraine. The military counter-offensive by Volodymyr Zelensky’s government has failed. Russia is no longer seeking to destroy Ukrainian weapons, which are immediately replaced by weapons donated by Washington, but to kill those who wield them. The Russian armies are behaving like a gigantic crushing machine, slowly and inexorably killing all Ukrainian soldiers who approach the Russian defense lines. Kiev can no longer mobilize fighters, and its soldiers refuse to obey orders that condemn them to certain death. Its officers have no choice but to shoot the pacifists.

Many US, Ukrainian and Israeli leaders are already talking about replacing the Ukrainian “integral nationalist” coalition with the “Jewish supremacist” coalition, but the wartime period does not lend itself to this. But it will have to be done.

President Joe Biden has to replace his Ukrainian puppet and his barbaric Israeli allies, just as First Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev had to replace his insensitive representative in Khazakhstan, paving the way for widespread challenges to corrupt leaders. Once Zelensky and Netanyahu have been dismissed, everyone will know that it is possible to get the head of a Washington representative, and everyone will know that they must flee before they are sacrificed.

This process is not only inevitable, it’s inexorable. President Joe Biden can only do what he can to slow it down, to make it last, not to stop it.

The peoples and leaders of the West must now take the initiative to get out of this predicament, without waiting to be abandoned, as Cuba did at the cost of the privations of its “special period”. This is a matter of urgency: the last to react will have to foot the bill for everyone else. Many states from the “rest of the world” are already fleeing. They are queuing up to join the BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Even more than Russia, which had to break away from the Baltic States, the United States must prepare for domestic uprisings. When the US is no longer able to impose the dollar on international trade, and its standard of living collapses, the poorer regions will refuse to obey, while the richer ones will become independent, starting with the republics of Texas and California (the only ones legally able to do so, according to the Treaties) [1]. The break-up of the USA is likely to result in civil war.

The disappearance of the USA will lead to the disappearance of NATO and the European Union. Germany, France and the U.K. will find themselves faced with their old rivalries, having failed to respond when the time was right.

Within a few years, Israel and the “American Empire” will disappear. Those who fight against the direction of history will provoke wars and unnecessary deaths in their numbers.

Translation
Roger Lagassé

by Gilbert Doctorow via Gilbert Doctorow

The 19th century American showman P.T. Barnum is best known for his aphorism “There’s a sucker born every minute.” This is precisely the kind of cynical card cheat who epitomizes America’s political establishment today in the view of Russian expert observers and legislators appearing on the widely watched talk show Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. They have in their crosshairs not just what they call “the Collective Biden,” meaning the senile, disoriented fool who has his finger on the red button plus the Deep State that writes his speeches and steers him to and from his speaking engagements. It also takes in scoundrels in the U.S. Senate like Chuck Schumer, my classmate (Harvard ’67) Mike Blumenthal and the ever notorious Lindsey Graham. Their sound bites are very frequently put up on the screen for the audience to better understand what Russia’s erstwhile “partners” abroad are saying.

Those of you who had experience watching RT (Russia Today) have never been exposed to this kind of trenchant analysis and utter contempt for the American political classes. This goes much farther than what you might imagine when Western mainstream media concede that ‘there is little trust between the sides.’

If we dig a bit deeper, the contempt of the Russian political commentators, many of whom hold advanced academic degrees, is built on their conviction that American politicians, like their European Union counterparts today, are poorly educated if not simply ignoramuses. By a curious irony of fate, the Americans appear to Russian sophisticates to be the conniving rubes that Americans once saw in the Soviet leaders of Khrushchev’s time in power.

We all may have had a laugh at the expense of the utterly stupid German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock who said several months ago that “Vladimir Putin must change his course by 360 degrees.” But then in Moscow the biggest laughs have come at the expense of the seemingly well-turned out, Yale-educated Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser to the President, and his never to be lived down quote from a couple of weeks before the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel that “the Middle East is quieter now than it has been in two decades.”

However, these Russian panelists are laughing through their tears. The value of an Ivy League education, once considered the nec plus ultra by ambitious oligarch parents in Moscow, has been shown to be nil. More to the point, they see no alternative to preparedness for the worst atrocities to be unleashed by the United States against Russia’s allies, like Iran, at any moment. That is the unsubtle hint they read into the stationing of a nuclear-armed U.S. submarine in the Red Sea at present. They foresee the outbreak of direct warfare with Washington at any moment. Hence, the Russians are determined to further increase military expenditures and to boost the military industrial complex several times over in the immediate future. To put things in the perspective of Lev Tolstoy in his Epilogue to War and Peace, Vladimir Putin is the instrument of Russian elites as much or more than he is their pathfinder.

I mention all of the foregoing to help readers appreciate how the Russian political elites and the Kremlin look at the suggestions now surfacing in U.S. and Western media that the Russia-Ukraine war has reached an impasse and that it is time for the sides to negotiate a peace.

The Russians take this to mean that the United States has shifted its priorities to the conflict in the Middle East and to preparing for the coming armed confrontation with China. Kiev can now be let go without calling undue attention to America’s unreliability as defense guarantor, because global media are focused on the Hamas-Israel fight.

However, from the standpoint of Russian elites the war in Ukraine has tilted decisively in Moscow’s favor now that Kiev has largely exhausted its human and material reserves for waging war. These elites have no interest whatsoever in a Korea-like solution, in a ‘frozen conflict’ that could be warmed up again at some time in the future when Washington so decides. No, they will not sit down at a negotiating table until and unless Kiev capitulates and accepts what amounts to neutrality and removal of the neo-Nazi directed Zelensky regime. Moscow is ready to fight on ‘as long as it takes’ to achieve its objectives.

by Fan Anqi via Global Times

Antony Blinken Photo:AFP

The swift rejection by Israel of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call for a humanitarian pause in Gaza has been seen as a reflection of the diminishing influence of the US in the Middle East and the failure of its global governance, experts said on Saturday, as anger mounts with the US launching of a military exercise in the Mediterranean Sea, which could further inflame tensions in the region.

Arriving in Tel Aviv for the fourth time in a month and reiterating continued support for Israel, Blinken issued one of the Biden administration’s strongest warnings to Israel in a blunt call to pause military operations in Gaza to allow for the immediate and increased delivery of aid.

However, the call was rebuffed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only a few minutes later, who said Israel would be “going with full steam ahead.”

The embarrassing moment came as Israel announced its troops have encircled Gaza City, and its offensive involving air strikes and ground forces by far killing more than 9,200 people, among whom some 3,800 were children, media reports said.

Despite Israel’s outright refusal of Blinken’s appeals, the US is showing its support by holding a three-day drill in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, deploying two US aircraft carriers in the area for the first time in decades, joined with more than 11,000 personnel, US 6th fleet announced on Friday.

It “sends a clear signal about our commitment to deter aggression and promote stability throughout the region,” said Thomas Ishee, commander of the fleet.

The US finds itself in a predicament where it is excessively accommodating toward Israel, primarily due to the overwhelming influence of the Jewish community on US’ domestic politics. “This has led to a lack of principle in the US’ Middle East policy, resulting in the consequence that Israel is essentially leading the US rather than the other way around,” Tian Wenlin, a professor at School of International Studies of the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Saturday.

Furthermore, Israel’s outright refusal demonstrated the diminishing influence and a collapsing credibility of the US, ranging from its failure to persuade Saudi Arabia to raise oil prices to the situation of now.

Experts further noted that with the limitless support for Israel, the US is burying its Middle East policy as well as its global strategy.

“Washington is caught between the need to support Israel and the desire to gain favor from the Arab world. And now, with its excessive leniency toward Israel, a growing distance is seen between the US and its Arab allies, who are well aware that Israel’s ability to act with impunity is primarily due to American support. In other words, the US has offended the entire Islamic world for the sake of Israel,” Tian said.

From a global perspective, the US is also losing ground on a moral front, given it has long championed itself as having values based foreign policy. Now with the blatant display of a double standard, the US has undermined its own credibility, the expert said.

Furthermore, from a geopolitical perspective, the US’ involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is affecting its global strategy, either in its support for Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, or efforts to contain China in the Asia-Pacific region, observers said.

The US’ fanning of flames in the Middle East that is already on the brink of collapse has fueled the anger and chaos within America, as seen in the Port of Oakland when hundreds of protesters blocked a US military supply ship from leaving on Friday by locking themselves to the vessel, as the ship was bound to aid Israel after being loaded with weapons and military equipment, according to CBS News.

An ever-deepening rift is not only happening between the public and elected officials, but within the government too. CNN called the House’ Israel aid drama “the latest failure of American governance,” as the House struggles with a vote to send $14 billion in emergency aid to Israel, which “leaves America looking like a divided superpower unable even to rush help to a friend that believes it’s fighting an existential war,” reported CNN on Thursday.

Across the world, many more have raised their voice and condemned the killing of civilians in the war. Soon after Blinken announced to add Turkey to his Middle East trip following Israel, Ankara said Saturday it was recalling its ambassador to Israel and breaking off contacts with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in protest at the bloodshed in Gaza.

Honduras’ Foreign Affairs Minister announced on Friday the recall of its ambassador to Israel in light of “the serious humanitarian situation the civilian Palestinian population is suffering in the Gaza Strip.”

Honduras became the latest Latin American country to take diplomatic actions against Israel following Bolivia, Chile and Columbia.

UN experts warned on Thursday that “time is running out” to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, expressing deep frustration with Israel’s refusal to halt plans to decimate the besieged Gaza strip.

“The Mongol-Tatar yoke was cruel – but they didn’t touch our language and our culture – something Western occupiers wanted to do. 

Because when culture & traditions are destroyed – that peoples disappear as an ethnic group” – Putin.

Tomorrow, 4 November, is National Unity Day. Russia is home to 193 ethnic groups who speak 270+ languages and dialects. 

WEST SINGING “DIFFERENT TUNE” (00:07) now that it’s clear NATO’s puppet Kiev regime can’t defeat Russia states Putin, who adds that now’s not time for Russia to “behave aggressively” but instead maintain sovereignty of country and new Russian regions.

Nothing sums up West’s current feelings about Ukraine like Italian PM Meloni’s weary sigh…

By John Helmer, Moscow @bears_with

Russians have never had a higher level of confidence in the Army since the end of World War II, according to a national poll just published by the independent Levada Centre of Moscow.

This also means a record level of confidence in the General Staff to outwit the principal enemy of the country, the United States, and defeat it and its allies on the Ukrainian battlefield. Most Russians now believe this war will take the Russian Army at least another six months, and more likely a year to finish.

This new poll signals that most Russians believe it prudent not to fight the US with the same intensity in two long wars at the same time – in the Ukraine and in the Middle East — because the Army has decided so. This is despite the overwhelming Russian support for the Palestinians in their fight for survival against Israel. No poll is allowed to measure and publish this support, and the emotional reaction the majority of Russians feels towards the operations of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the US military to destroy the population of Gaza.

“We should not, we have no right and we cannot allow ourselves to be carried away by emotions,” President Vladimir Putin announced on October 30.

“We must clearly understand who in reality is behind the tragedy of peoples in the Middle East and in other regions around the world, who has been organising this lethal chaos and who benefits from it. In my opinion, it has already become clear to everyone, as the masterminds brazenly act in the open. These are the current ruling elites in the United States and its satellites who are the main beneficiaries of the global instability that they use to extract their bloody rent. Their strategy is also clear. The United States as a global superpower is becoming weaker and is losing its position, and everyone sees and understands this.”

This is the president running for re-election in five months’ time, speaking directly to Russian voters, reflecting what the polls on his desk tell him they already believe.

The Levada pollsters report there is a small increase in war weariness across the country, with 56% now saying they favour the start of peace talks soon, compared with 48% measured a year ago, in September 2022. This, however, reflects public belief in the success of the Army in defeating the Ukrainian-NATO counteroffensive, and in advancing Russian control of the new Donbass territories and along the front line from Kharkov to Odessa. “In October 2023,” Levada reports, “62% of Russians across the country believe that the special military operation is progressing successfully (12% very successfully, 50% rather successfully), over the past 5 months their number has increased slightly. The opposite point of view is held by 21%.”

The Levada survey reveals also that “Moscow stands out from other localities. Muscovites are less willing to move on to peace talks — only 38% hold this opinion, while in other localities about half of the respondents believe that it is necessary to start peace talks. Among those who approve of Vladimir Putin’s activities as president, there are slightly more supporters of peace negotiations than supporters of the continuation of hostilities — 51% and 42%, respectively. The majority (72%) of those who disapprove of the president’s activities believe that it is necessary to move on to peace negotiations.”

Long war is the assessment of the higher educated, higher class Russian urbanites over forty.

The Levada survey was conducted by face-to-face interview in the homes of a nationwide sample of 1,607. The polling was carried out between October 19 and 25.

Levada’s independence in conducting its polls has drawn the Russian government regulator’s requirement that it publishes the following notice with every report: “This material (information) was produced and distributed by a foreign agent of Levada Centre or concerns the activities of a foreign agent of Levada Centre.”

Levada has not yet published an English translation of the new poll results which were released on October 31. Read the full report in Russian here.

Source: https://www.levada.ru/

[ . . . ]

Levada also reveals an unusual analysis it has carried out to gauge the nature of Russian sentiment for waging war against the country’s enemies. The result is the first clear signal that most Russians trust the Army to defeat the enemy on the battlefield more than they trust Putin to negotiate an agreement on paper with US and NATO officials.

“An experiment was conducted within the framework of this survey. Using a random number generator, the respondents were divided into two equal groups, each of which was asked a question in one of two formulations. The experiment showed that the majority of respondents (70%) would support V[ladimir] Putin’s decision if the president decided to end the military conflict with Ukraine. However, if Putin decided to end the conflict on condition of the return of the annexed territories, only a third (34%) would support his actions.”

Source: https://www.levada.ru/

No Russian analysis has been published to date to extrapolate from this finding, and its presidential election context, to the way Russia’s General Staff, Defense Ministry, Foreign Ministry, and the Kremlin are working on their responses to the war against the Palestinians.

In the special session Putin called on Monday of the major ministries and security chiefs, he began by saying that “the Defense Minister [Sergei Shoigu] is back from his official trip abroad, and he will brief us on its outcomes and report on the progress of the special military operation.” Shoigu had just returned from China. What he said there in public was that Russia was fighting a world war on three fronts. The US-led allies were “covering up the buildup of military force in the Asia-Pacific region with an ostentatious desire for dialogue, imposing alliances and lines of operational interaction on partners…Having provoked an acute crisis in Europe, the West is seeking to spread conflict potential to the Asia-Pacific region, and in several directions.”

The war in Gaza is one of these “directions”, one of the war fronts, Shoigu said in Beijing; and Putin repeated the next day.

Left: Vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, General Zhang Youxia with Shoigu in Beijing on October 29. Right: Putin with Shoigu at extreme right in Moscow, October 30. The lead image is another Kremlin photograph of the same meeting.

“I will repeat again”, Putin said, “the ruling elites of the United States and its satellites are behind the tragedy of the Palestinians, the massacre in the Middle East in general, the conflict in Ukraine, and many other conflicts in the world – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and so on. This has become obvious to everyone. It is they who install their military bases everywhere, who use military force on every pretext and without any pretext, who send weapons to conflict areas. They are also channelling financial resources, including to Ukraine and the Middle East, and fuelling hatred in Ukraine and the Middle East.”

“They are not achieving results on the battlefield, so they want to split us from within, as far as Russia is concerned, to weaken us and sow confusion. They do not want Russia to participate in solving any international or regional problems, including in the Middle East settlement. They are not satisfied at all when someone does not act or speak exactly as they are instructed. They believe only in their own exclusivity, in being allowed to do anything…I would like to say once again that we must realise where the root of evil lies. We must know where the spider that is trying to entangle the entire planet and the whole world in its cobweb is. It wants to ensure our strategic defeat on the battlefield, and it is using people on the territory of contemporary Ukraine who have been brainwashed by it for decades. I would like to stress once again that, while fighting this enemy in the course of the special military operation, we are boosting the positions of all those who are struggling for their independence and sovereignty.”

“We know and see how the Ukrainian leadership applauds the Nazis of the Second World War, who were guilty of the Holocaust victims, who personally took part in these crimes, and today, under the guidance of their Western patrons, are trying to instigate pogroms in Russia. By the way, I am not sure whether all the leading circles in the same states are aware of this. It would not be a bad idea for those who care so much about the citizens of Israel to investigate what their security services are doing in Ukraine, whether they are trying to instigate pogroms in Russia. Scum, that’s all. There is no other way to put it.”

“But those who really stand up for truth and justice, who fight against evil and oppression, against racism and neo-Nazism, which the West encourages, are now fighting at the front – near Donetsk, Avdeyevka, on the Dnieper. I repeat: these are our soldiers and officers. And the choice of a real man, a true warrior, is to take up arms and stand in line with his brothers, to be there where the fate of Russia and, indeed, of the whole world, including the future of the Palestinian people, is being decided.”

This is the first time in public Putin has linked the war goal of denazification of the Ukraine with the “future of the Palestinian people”. Putin is implying what the unpublished Russian polls show the majority of the country thinks – between the fascist regime in Kiev and the Israeli government in Tel Aviv, there is no difference.

This is as explicitly as Putin has gone since October 7 to rebuff the line in several of the state propaganda organs of Moscow that the Arab war is not Russia’s fight, and that Russia should stay out of it.

“There’s something much bigger left unsaid,” a well-informed Moscow source adds, “which puts the people behind the war effort in the last week, and that is what Israel is doing to Gaza. That is what Brits and Americans did to Dresden and Hiroshima. That is what Germans did to Leningrad and Stalingrad. Russians, accused of anti-semitism and sympathy for Hamas by the usual media mouthpieces put two and two together and understand what awaited Russians of Donbass. They see Gaza and understand the race hatred and cruelty of the western axis. The bombing of Gaza reminds Russians what was done to their grandparents and what would be done to them if they do not win this war.”

What remains secret, Moscow sources caution, is the situation assessment of the General Staff now that the IDF is establishing a massive armoured force across northern Gaza; how Hamas plans to fight on from the tunnels; and how long the Palestinian forces can hold out before Hezbollah, the West Bank Palestinians, and the Arab-Iranian units on the Golan front will launch their promised counter-offensive. That is, if (repeat if) they move as they have been publicly threatening to do.

MAP OF ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES, IDF MOVES INTO GAZA

TO ENLARGE AND READ, CLICK ON TABLE.
Source: https://t.me/Slavyangrad/71709?single

“The moral high ground is already held by Russia as Putin has just said,” a Moscow source comments, “while the state propaganda line portrays Russia as against ‘terrorism’, ‘genocide’, and ‘fascism’.” On the battlefield, he says, the situation is “far more grim. The satellite pictures show they [IDF] now have about 400 vehicles in total. They will overrun all of North Gaza while flooding or gassing the tunnels.”

For how long can Hamas defend against this without the opening of the other fronts to force the diversion of the IDF, stretch the US rearm and resupply capacities even further, and lengthen the war? There are pro-Russian military veteran sources who believe not long enough. “The Iranians are showing themselves to be blowhards. Hezbollah is afraid of the US response. Both know they risk losing power and position if the war escalates. Israel has called their bluff. Islamic ‘unity’ is proving to be hollow — a dead end.”

The Moscow source concurs. “When this is over, it will take away any chance of change to status quo for at least a decade. The only defeat it appears will still come in Ukraine but not in Palestine.

The Levada poll reveals that Russian public opinion trusts the Army to do what’s best, and Putin to say what’s right.

The US President noted that times when the world is changing very quickly happen “once in six or eight generations”

The events of the next couple of years in the international arena will determine the shape of the world for at least half a century ahead. This opinion was expressed on Thursday at a meeting with Chilean President Gabriel Borich at the White House by his US counterpart Joe Biden.

“In my opinion, there are times – perhaps once every six or eight generations – when the world changes extremely quickly,” the US president said.

“We are going through such times now,” Borich believes.

“I think what happens in the next two or three years will determine what the world will look like in the next five or six decades,” Biden said.

by Ekaterinburg Blinova via Sputnik
The multipolar world that Russian President Vladimir Putin has referred to over the past several years has finally taken shape, international observers told Sputnik.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech on October 5 at the plenary session of the 20th meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club in Sochi emphasizing the tectonic and irreversible shifts taking place in the global order.

Sixteen years ago, at the 2007 Munich Security Conference, Putin told Western leaders that the natural type of international system is multipolarity, clearly showing that Russia would oppose US unipolar dominance. The moment of truth has come, and US hegemony is fading in front of our eyes while a new multipolar world is emerging, per ProfessorJoe Siracusa, political scientist and dean of Global Futures, Curtin University.

“In many, many ways, the future that Mr. Putin is talking about has already arrived,” Siracusa told Sputnik. “What he’s kind of saying between the lines is it’s already here. Now we have to see it. The world has changed. And the reason he thinks that the Americans, particularly in Washington, make these terrible mistakes is because they do not see that the world has changed around them already. The world, the future is changing in front of them and they fail to see it. He thinks that might be the cause of the conflict.

Putin Outlines Six Civilizational Principles

During his Valdai speech, Putin outlined six principles Russia wants to adhere to and offers other nations to join it.

“First, we want to live in an open, interconnected world, in which no one will ever try to erect artificial barriers to people’s communication, their creative realization, and prosperity. There must be a barrier-free environment,” Putin said.

The second principle is the diversity of the world, which should not only be preserved, but should also be the foundation of universal development.

The third principle, according to the Russian head of state, is maximum representativeness: “No one has the right or can rule the world for others or on behalf of others. The world of the future is a world of collective decisions,” the president emphasized.

Fourth is universal security and lasting peace that takes into account the interests of great states and small countries equally. To achieve this, it is important to free international relations from the bloc mentality and the dark legacy of the colonial era and Cold War, according to Putin.

The fifth principle is justice for all: “The era of exploitation of anyone – I have already said this twice – is a thing of the past. Countries and peoples are clearly aware of their interests and capabilities and are ready to rely on themselves, and this multiplies their strength. Everyone must be provided with access to the benefits of modern development,” Putin emphasized.

The sixth principle is equality: no one should be forced to obey those who are richer or more powerful at the cost of their own development and national interests, according to the Russian president.

“The ‘civilizational model’ referred to in Putin’s speech seems anchored on ‘principles’ – such as non-colonial relations; non-patronizing attitudes; respectful of diversity rooted in the diverse traditions – that will require a huge work to generate new shared international norms,” Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels, told Sputnik. “The Western ‘rules-based liberal international order’ is unilateral, and it could be imposed in a specific time in history leveraging on the power and prominence of a small group of colonial powers that after the liberal model crisis and civil war (1914-1945) has been inherited by a distant but super-powerful country (US). In a nutshell, I can say that the ‘civilizational model’ approach probably aims at structuring a shared world ‘software,’ while the ‘liberal rules-based order’ has been aiming at building an imposed ‘hardware’ defended by ‘rules’ serving the financial and military hegemony.”

World’s Corrupt Elites & Special Interests to Blame for Crisis

Putin does not blame the people of the West or their governments for the unfolding global crisis, but the corrupt elites, or particularly corrupt interests within these permanent elites, according to Siracusa.

“And so, he’s targeted the problem that a lot of the people have targeted, and that is the political elites, the foreign policy elites have targeted Russia, then, of course, China as part of their campaign to keep their people fearful and concentrated,” Siracusa said.

“He’s really telling these other publics to hold the elites accountable. And, of course, the elites that need a war of choice or necessity, forever war to keep going, etc., etc.. I mean, most of America’s great industries, Boeing, Northrop, Raytheon, etc., depend on a continuing war. With whom? Doesn’t make a difference. It’s got a kind of war-like production. That’s been the essence of American prosperity since the 1950s,” the scholar emphasized.

The arrogance of the Western elites reached its highest after the collapse of the USSR, according to the scholar. When the Russian Federation “was prepared to come to terms, to deal with the West, the West, particularly the United States, interpreted this as a weakness, not strength,” and “started to dictate things,” Siracusa pointed out.

Thirty years ago, the US and its satellites embraced hegemony, no one was going to listen to Russia; however, attempts to establish a unipolar order were doomed to failure, since the world is too diverse, the Russian president stressed.

“The overall speech gave a steady image of Mr. Putin, who also displayed a comfortable situation for Russia,” Raffone said. “I would synthesize it in a few words: ‘Russia has overcome critical challenges, and it is here to stay.’ He stressed that ‘Russia is the largest state on the planet’ and he underlined that ‘while the Russian civilization has no frontiers, the Russian civilization can exist because there is the Russian state.’ This gives the impression of Russian steadiness and projection in the world.”

Russia Open to Dialogue Having Strong Negotiating Position

Despite simmering tension, Moscow has left the door to dialogue open for the West, according to Siracusa: “I think he’s made it very clear to the elites that they’re going to have to change their view on Russia and even China, because the world they’re looking for is one of, he said, cooperation. It’s not a sustained conflict. He made very clear to the elites that they’re going to have to reconsider and rethink their position and that Russia is prepared to sit down with them.”

Siracusa drew attention to the fact that the Russian president “made it very clear to the elites that Russia is not interested in territorial gain in Eastern and Central Europe.”

At the same time, “in a reassuring format that is open to dialogue despite the differences, Mr. Putin’s speech showed moderation matched with the determined willingness and capacity to defend the state interests,”Raffone underscored.

When it comes to Russia’s nuclear capability, Putin did not demonstrate any intent “to deviate from the deterrence approach despite the US not legally abiding to the treaty,” the strategic analyst remarked.

“He explained that the Russian superiority in nuclear weapons constitutes a sufficient deterrent to anybody imagining the use of nuclear heads against Russia or threatening the existence of the Russian state,” Raffone said.

Moscow feels quite confident on the global stage despite last year’s gloomy prognoses in the Western mainstream press. Russia’s economy is up and running, the nation’s defense industry has expanded, and the goals of the special military operation will be accomplished, Putin stated in his speech.

“There is no situation in which, say, today something would threaten Russian statehood and the existence of the Russian state,” the president said.

Russia Showed Alternative Ways for Global Development

Unlike during the post-Cold War period, the world now has alternatives for development, according to Siracusa, outlining Russia’s key role in creating these conditions.

“There are two models out there: the BRICS model, which is kind of one model of multipolarity, and the other one is the G7. That’s the other model, dominating one,” the political scientist noted.

“So international cooperation begins with harmonious coexistence. And if you’re not prepared to play that game, and if you’re not prepared to leave your arrogance at the door and your misunderstandings at the door, what he’s saying is that it’s a brand new game. And I also think that the future has actually arrived. And now we have to open our eyes and see that the world has broken down into different groupings, regional groupings and territorial groupings that weren’t there before. So we don’t have a unipower. We don’t have superpowers. We don’t have any of that kind of thing. We have a multipolarity which depends on multilateral diplomacy.”

Per Siracusa, a brand new age for diplomacy has come and the Valdai conference made very clear that diplomacy is the major moderating influence. The political scientist believes that Vladimir Putin’s Thursday speech was written in a very plain fashion and that its message is clear and simple: “If you want international cooperation and peace with Russia, you can have it. And if you don’t, you’re going to have a problem,” the scholar said.

“Russia (and China) supported many decolonization processes and national liberation movements,” emphasized Raffone. “The new independent states have been re-colonized using the ‘rules-based order’ but today many are reacting. The large interest for the BRICS+ shows that today many countries and peoples are looking for concrete alternatives to the West dominated world.”

Simultaneously, Putin demonstrated how following in the footsteps of a hegemon could end up for its allies, according to the analyst.

“Mr. Putin has been very gloomy for the European economics perspectives. Much less for the US. The European recession and social difficulties are a fact. The more Europeans continue to serve the American interests, the more gloomy will be their perspective,” Raffone concluded.

by M. K. BHADRAKUMAR via indian punchline

The prognosis of “war fatigue” on the part of the United States and its allies in the proxy war in Ukraine was greatly exaggerated. On the contrary, the war is acquiring a new swagger.

The Biden Administration is riding a tiger and a dismount is fraught with the danger of being devoured by the beastly consequences of defeat in the war, which could only lead to the discredit of trans-atlanticism and the disintegration of NATO, and spell the doom for US’ global hegemony.

Biden’s formal address to the nation from the Oval Office on Thursday can only be seen as the launch of a new phase of the Ukraine war carrying forward the the demonising of Putin to a new level, Biden weaves together a new narrative claiming that Hamas and the Russian leader both want to “completely annihilate a neighbouring democracy — completely annihilate it.”

The bedrock of Biden’s argument was that resolute support of US allies is essential for preserving American primacy in the world. The main plot was that the hybrid war in Ukraine will continue so long as Biden remains in office in the White House. It has morphed into a “forever war”. Biden called Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky before making his speech.

Analysts would have us believe that Europe is increasingly disenchanted with the war. But Poland, a major frontline state, has just voted to power a centrist government that is cause for celebration in Kiev (and Washington). In Britain too, a similar outcome is to be expected — only that it will be Tweedledum replacing Tweedledee, two rotund little men of the Deep State who are identical except that they are left-right reversals of each other.

Make no mistake that the Joint Statement after the US-EU summit in Washington on October 20 amounts to a resounding victory for the Biden Administration as the EU agreed with the US on “unwavering” military support to Ukraine; demand that Russia should “end its brutal war and withdraw its military forces and proxies and military equipment immediately, completely, and unconditionally from the entire internationally recognised territory of Ukraine”; the imperative of restoration of “internationally recognised borders” in any peace settlement; forcing Russia to “bear the legal consequences of all its internationally wrongful acts” against Ukraine; further deepening of “joint work to undermine Russia’s ability to wage its war, and maintain and expand its defence industrial base and capacity”, and so on.

There is no sign of a potential wobbling in the steadfastness of Europe’s military support to Ukraine, either. The most recent example is Sweden where, as in other Nordic countries and across the Baltic states, geographical proximity to Russia has heightened security fears, and there is little sign of any wavering.

Politico reported on Tuesday that Sweden’s Defense Minister Pål Jonson had instructed the country’s military leadership to examine the potential impact of providing various types of support to Ukraine’s fighter-jet capability, including Gripen planes. The military is to report back to Jonson by November 6. This followed announcements by Sweden’s European neighbours Norway, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands that they planned to send Lockheed Martin F-16 jets to Kiev.

The expert opinion is that even a limited number of Gripen could meaningfully help Ukraine’s efforts to control its airspace, and is seen as relatively cheap and easy to maintain jet that can operate from shorter, narrower runways, including improvised landing strips on straight stretches of highways, thus reducing the risk of aircraft congregating at a larger base and being destroyed by a single enemy attack.

As for the US, now we know that the Biden Administration was dissimulating as regards the ATACMS missiles, whereas, it had already surreptitiously equipped Kiev’s forces with that system. Furthermore, encouraged by the success of Kiev’s devastating attack on the Russian-controlled airfield attacks in Beryansk and Luhansk on Tuesday by using ATACMS (which reportedly destroyed multiple Russian helicopters, an ammunition dump, and an air defence system), the Biden Administration is now considering supply of an advanced version of the missile that can fire twice (190 miles) as far as the ones Ukraine just received (100 miles only).

Certainly, there is no weakening of Biden’s resolve. In fact, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan brazenly disclosed on Friday in a special White House briefing that Washington has “contracted for certain types of weapons systems that have yet to be delivered because they’re still in production.” Plainly out, the Biden Administration considers it possible to hand over weapons and military vehicles to Ukraine that have never been shipped before.

“The President has the discretion based on circumstances of the conflict, the situation on the ground, consultations with allies to make determinations about whether he will provide weapons systems to Ukraine that we have not previously provided,” Sullivan noted. He then went on to explain that the US has “contracted for certain types of weapons systems that have yet to be delivered because they’re still in production. We expect them to be delivered in the coming months.”

Yet another flawed assumption has been that within the US Congress, a groundswell of opinion is building that would make it increasingly difficult for the Biden Administration to get approval for military aid to Ukraine in an election year. But, as luck would have it, Biden, who is an immensely experienced politician in navigating challenging legislations, has found an ingenious way.

Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy put it nicely, “They’re intentionally combining the debates around Ukraine, Israel, & our border to ram through the $61BN for Ukraine that otherwise would have never passed.” According to White House documents, the request for the fiscal year 2024 proposes to allocate over $61.4 billion for Ukraine and over $14.3 billion for Israel.

Sullivan called the Biden administration’s latest budget request as coming “amid a global inflection point” following the Hamas attack on Israel “and as the people of Ukraine continue to fight every day for their freedom and independence against Russian brutality.” He turned the focus on Biden’s new narrative that “the outcome of these fights for democracy against terrorism and tyranny are vital to the safety and security of the American people.”

Who can say now that what happens in Ukraine, which is 10000 kms away, does not concern the United States? Biden began his speech on Thursday on a Churchillian note: “We’re facing an inflection point in history — one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come. That’s what I’d like to talk with you about tonight.”

He went on to say, “American leadership is what holds the world together. American alliances are what keep us, America, safe. American values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with. To put all that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine, if we turn our backs on Israel, it’s just not worth it.”

So, Ukraine war is no longer about the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty and the UN Charter — or even about this being not an era of wars. It is actually about American leadership, American alliances, American values — plainly put, hegemony, NATO, exceptionalism.

Sergei Markov says:

There is a widespread myth that it is the United States that is fueling the conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Arabs. And they create controlled chaos in order to strengthen their power in the world.

This is absolutely not true.

The United States is interested in having good relations with both Israel and Arab countries. This is their dominance in the world. And when Arabs and Israel fight, American power over the world is not strengthened, but weakened.

In particular, the US has worked so hard to restore normal relations between Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel. And this Hamas attack destroyed this entire American combination.

Therefore, the war between Israel and Hamas is not organized by the United States, but undermines the unipolar world led by the United States.