Tag: Coercion (international relations)

Cuckold Europe, prop up dictators: Trump’s global plot laid bare

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Cuckold Europe, prop up dictators: Trump’s global plot laid bare

A month after Donald Trump’s second inauguration and the geopolitical global upheaval that may be unprecedented, one thing is clear: The president is an American sovereigntist, not an isolationist. Once this is understood, Trump’s seemingly wild upturning of the geopolitical order actually makes sense.

Sovereigntists are illiberal internationalists. They came of age after World War I, preventing the US from joining the League of Nations (the predecessor of the United Nations). At the time, American sovereigntists regarded the league as a stalking horse for global governance, anti-colonial independence movements, black internationalists, left-wing political movements and liberal Christians.

Today’s sovereigntists aim to weaken non-Western international associations that seek a more democratic international order. They make common cause with similar forces; Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Hungary’s Viktor Orban, for example. Their aim is an illiberal international geopolitical order where domestic political systems resemble “competitive authoritarianism” – multi-party elections embedded in a rigged legal and political environment. Under this model, the media and the machinery of government are used to attack opponents and co-opt critics.

Trump wants the US, not China, to write the technical standards of the global economy. Control over these standards creates lock-in effects in finance, telecommunications, space, robotics, bioengineering, nanotechnologies, and advanced materials and manufacturing methods. That means full-spectrum rivalry with China. If economic control is not possible, the plan B goal is global economic separation from China.

For Trump to achieve these goals, there are three key frontlines: Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Taiwan.

A Wave of Pessimism

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Una oleada de pesimismo (Google Translate)

“Keep calm. Hasty emotions are unnecessary today,” wrote yesterday Mykhailo Podolyak, one of the most belligerent members of the Ukrainian government, reacting to the wave of pessimism and, at times, hysteria that spread across the European continent throughout the day yesterday, focusing on analyzing the implications of the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump and the subsequent statements by the president of the United States. “The Trump-Putin conversation reduces tension, but at the expense of Ukraine,” stated the British BBC before the political spin managed to create a continental crisis from an initial conversation whose only agreement is to continue talking. Because despite the adjectives that are being used to describe the contact between the two presidents or the way in which it occurred, the result of the call was the mutual reaffirmation of the importance of peace and the implementation of the mechanisms to schedule a meeting between the two leaders, which will presumably be in Saudi Arabia, and begin a negotiation process.

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Donald Trump’s cabinet picks signal tougher stance on China

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Donald Trump’s cabinet picks signal tougher stance on China

Alexander Gray, who served as National Security Council chief of staff in the first Trump administration, said the selections showed that Trump wanted “to surround himself with strategic thinkers who understand the challenge posed by the People’s Republic of China”. 

But Gray said Waltz would be an “honest broker”, mediating debates in the inter-agency process rather than trying to impose his own positions instead of the president’s.

Related:

Marathon Initiative:

Alexander Gray is a Senior Advisor at the Marathon Initiative. Gray previously served at the White House for four years, most recently as Deputy Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council. He had earlier served as Special Assistant to the President for the Defense Industrial Base at the National Economic Council and as the first-ever Director for Oceania & Indo-Pacific Security at the National Security Council.

Front Organizations

Hong Kong ‘Protests’

*Xinjiang*

Marathon Initiative (Colby & Pottinger)

Indonesia’s feared ex-general Prabowo claims victory in presidential election + Notes

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Indonesia’s feared ex-general Prabowo claims victory in presidential election

But the likely victory of Prabowo — an ex-general who was kicked out from the army and subjected to a two-decade ban from the U.S. over human rights violations — raises fears of the world’s third-largest democracy sliding backward into authoritarian rule.

Related:

3 things you should know about Indonesia’s presidential elections

Continuity and its risks


Prabowo is expected to largely continue the policies of President Widodo, or “Jokowi,” as Indonesians call him. President Widodo is not up for reelection as he’s serving his final term.

Through his two five-year terms, Indonesia’s economy — Southeast Asia’s largest — has grown at about 5% a year. His infrastructure building, cash and food assistance to the poor and health and education policies have been popular.

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of nickel, used in making electric vehicle batteries, and Jokowi has barred the export of raw nickel, to help Indonesia move up the value chain from mining to manufacturing.

…

Prabowo is Suharto’s son-in-law. He received training in the 1980s from the U.S. military at Fort Benning, Ga. (now Fort Moore) and Fort Bragg, N.C. (now Fort Liberty).

Indonesia’s presidential election emerges as key battleground in US-China rivalry

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US Embarks On Proxy War Against Iran

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

A massive US naval deployment in a wide arc of the so-called Greater Middle East is under way — stretching from Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean, into the Red Sea and the Bab el Mandeb and into the Gulf of Aden and all the way into the Gulf of Oman. This deterrent display may transform as large scale offensive operations and aims to rework the geopolitical alignments and bring them back to the traditional grooves of intra-regional rivalries in the Gulf region.

US Embarks On Proxy War Against Iran

TGIF: “America First” Need Not Be Antiwar

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Today’s Trump-inspired “America First” faction cannot be counted on to be consistently noninterventionist and antiwar. That it may lean that way because its chief rival faction is so enthusiastic about foreign adventurism is hardly a firm assurance that it will remain antiwar in the future.

TGIF: “America First” Need Not Be Antiwar

*Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Ms. Cat’s Chronicles.

US would rather see the world end than lose its supremacy

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Editor’s Note:
The recent developments in East Asia, such as the détente between South Korea and Japan, South Korea’s increasing hostility toward China, and the talk of a liaison office of NATO in Tokyo, have raised alert of observers, as the US escalates confrontation with China. What are the obstacles for East Asia to maintain peace? Global Times (GT) reporter Wang Wenwen discussed these issues with K.J. Noh (Noh), a US-based journalist, political analyst, writer and educator specializing in the geopolitics and political economy of the Asia-Pacific region. He is a member of Veterans for Peace and Pivot to Peace.

US would rather see the world end than lose its supremacy