Chinese drills near the Taiwan Strait. Click to enlarge

Michael Hudson The Unz Review July 22, 2023

The July NATO summit in Vilnius had the feeling of a funeral, as if they had just lost a family member Ukraine. To clear away NATOs failure to drive Russia out of Ukraine and move NATO right up to the Russian border, its members tried to revive their spirits by mobilizing support for the next great fight against China, which is now designated as their ultimate strategic enemy. To prepare for this showdown, NATO announced a commitment to extend their military presence all the way to the Pacific.

The plan is to carve away Chinas military allies and trading partners, above all Russia, starting with the fight in Ukraine. President Biden has said that this war will be global in scope and will take many decades as it expands to ultimately isolate and break up China.

The U.S.-imposed sanctions against trade with Russia are a dress rehearsal for imposing similar sanctions against China. But only the NATO allies have joined the fight. And instead of wrecking Russias economy and turning the ruble to rubble as President Biden predicted, NATOs sanctions have made it more self-reliant, increasing its balance of payments and international monetary reserves, and hence the rubles exchange rate.

To cap matters, despite the failure of trade and financial sanctions to injure Russia and indeed, despite NATOs failures in Afghanistan and Libya, NATO countries committed themselves to trying the same tactics against China. The world economy is to be split between US/NATO/Five Eyes on the one hand, and the rest of the world the Global Majority on the other. EU Commissioner Joseph Borrell calls this as a split between the US/European Garden (the Golden Billion) and the Jungle threatening to engulf it, like an invasion of its well-manicured lawns by an invasive species.

From an economic vantage point, NATOs behavior since its military buildup to attack Ukraines Russian-speaking eastern states in February 2022 has been a drastic failure. The U.S. plan was to bleed Russia and leave it so economically destitute that its population would revolt, throw Vladimir Putin out of office and restore a pro-Western neoliberal leader who would pry Russia away from its alliance with China and then proceed with Americas grand plan to mobilize Europe to impose sanctions on China.

What makes it so difficult in trying to evaluate where NATO, Europe and the United States are going is that the traditional assumption that nations and classes will act in their economic self-interest is not of help. The traditional logic of geopolitical analysis is to assume that business and financial interests steer almost every nations politics. The ancillary assumption is that governing officials have a fairly realistic understanding of the economic and politica...

Jim Holt The Gateway Pundit July 22, 2023

Retired four-star General Stanley A. McChrystal, who was removed from his command by Barack Obama following critical comments on his administration, has made explosive comments suggesting that the United States was behind the Nord Stream pipeline bombing, in a covertly recorded conversation obtained by Valuetainment Media.

The decorated general, known for his command of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the mid-2000s and later for his role as Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, voiced these speculations during a seemingly impromptu conversation that was secretly recorded and subsequently leaked.

The clip begins with McChrystal discussing Russia and its leadership.

Theres no obvious better solution than Russia. I think Putin ought to go, but theres nobody that Im aware of standing on the wings, the general said.

In the short conversation, a man is heard asking McChrystal for his opinion on the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline that took place earlier last year.

McChrystals response implied that he and his son, who worked at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), didnt believe the Russians or the Ukrainians were responsible, as many had initially suspected.

Instead, he proposed that the bombing might have been in the interests of global natural gas producers the United States being chief among them.

My son is the leader of the in energy team at DIA, said McChrystal.

He didnt think that the Russians did it He didnt think that the Ukrainians did it either, he added.

There are people who benefited from it, and that was people who produced natural gas around the world, said McChrystal.

He then dropped a bombshell, implying a potential U.S. role in the attack.

So if you really want to get conspiracies, the United States made more money off that deal than anybody else. But yeah, but thats because we were huge beneficiaries, and we changed our policy. We started providing liquid natural gas overseas and, you know, he said.

Iranian-American entrepreneur and podcaster Patrick Bet-David reached out to General McChrystal for a comment but has not heard back.

PBD discussed this new revelation from the four-star general on his show.

BREAKING: Footage obtained by Valuetainment captures General Stan McChrystal (Ret.) confirming neither Russia or Ukraine blew up the Nord Stream pipeline.

"United States made more money off that deal than anybody else." pic.twitter.com/FF9x16B4Rz

Valuetainment Media (@ValuetainmentTV)...