July 20, 2023:

Information Clearing
House
–
The Vilnius
Summit Communique is a crude attempt to
NATO-ize Washington’s list of enemies in
order to enlist broader support for the
impending global conflict. The intended
targets of this campaign are Russia and
China, the main opponents of the
so-called “rules-based order”. Neither
of these countries pose a direct
security threat to NATO or the United
States, but their sudden re-emergence on
the Asian continent makes them
Washington’s de facto enemy. The
United States is determined to dominate
Central Asia, which means that all
potential rivals must be contained or
crushed. The purpose of the Vilnius
Communiqué is to identify these rivals,
divulge their alleged offenses, and
denounce them in the harshest terms
possible. This is how NATO makes its
case for war and lays the groundwork for
future hostilities. This is an excerpt
from the Communique:

The Russian
Federation is the most significant
and direct threat to Allies’
security and to peace and stability
in the Euro-Atlantic area… Russia
bears full responsibility for its
illegal, unjustifiable, and
unprovoked war of aggression against
Ukraine, which has gravely
undermined Euro-Atlantic and global
security and for which it must be
held fully accountable. We
continue to condemn in the strongest
terms Russia’s blatant violations of
international law, the Charter
of the United Nations, and OSCE**
commitments and principles. We do
not and will never recognize
Russia’s illegal and illegitimate
annexations, including Crimea.
There can be no impunity for Russian
war crimes and other atrocities,
such as attacks against civilians
and the destruction of civilian
infrastructure that deprives
millions of Ukrainians of basic
human services. All those
responsible must be held accountable
for violations and abuses of human
rights and international
humanitarian law, particularly
against Ukraine’s civilian
population….

Vilnius Summit Communiqué, NATO

The strident tone
of the announcement is intended to quash
any counter-argument or opinion. The
author’s approach is rigid and
inflexible. Russia is portrayed as a
serial offender with whom negotiations
are impossible. Thus, diplomacy is
reflexively precluded with a wave of the
hand. The only way to deal with a war
criminal is though military force.
That is the underlying message of the
Communiqué. Peace talks must be avoided
at all cost so that Russia can be
dealt a strategic defeat in Ukraine.
That remains the primary objective.
Here’s more from the Communiqué:

Russia must
immediately stop this illegal war of
aggression, cease its use of force
against Ukraine, and completely
and unconditionally withdraw all of
its forces and equipment from the
territory of Ukraine within its
internationally recognized borders,
extending to its territorial waters.

Vilnius Summit Communiqué, NATO

There is a
delusional quality to the Communiqué
that has drawn a fair amount of
criticism from all quarters. Why would
the authors embarrass themselves by
making demands that they can’t back-up
on the battlefield? After 17 months of
fighting, reasonable people can agree
that Russia is winning the war, and
winning it handily. There will be no
“unconditional withdraw of Russian
forces and equipment” nor will Ukraine
recapture the territory it has lost.
Zelensky was given the opportunity to
accept those concessions early-on, but
chose to follow Washington’s diktat
instead. Now Ukraine is hopelessly
divided and no longer exists as a
viable, contiguous state. That was
Zelensky’s choice not Putin’s. Here’s
more from the Communique:

We will
continue to ensure our collective
defense from all threats, no matter
where they stem from, based on a
360-degree approach, to fulfill
NATO’s three core tasks of
deterrence and defense, crisis
prevention and management, and
cooperative security.”

Vilnius Summit Communiqué, NATO

This is how
NATO’s mandarins have decided to
announce the organization’s
transformation from a regional security
alliance to a global gendarmerie free to
conduct military operations wherever
Washington’s dominance is challenged.
There is considerable disagreement on
this issue among the members, many of
who think that NATO should limit its
activities to the European theater. So,
it is instructive that the above excerpt
was put in the Communique at all.
What it shows is that NATO policy is not
decided by the individual members or
their respective parliaments, but by the
billionaire elites who have a
stranglehold on Washington and who have
decided that NATO is the preferred
vehicle for prosecuting their war on
China. This is a clip from Time
Magazine:

NATO is
continuing to gradually move toward
the Asia-Pacific region to counter
China’s increasing power…..

For the
second consecutive year, Japan and
South Korea, which are not NATO
members, were invited to attend the
annual summit. Japanese Prime
Minister Fumio Kishida walked away
with a so-called “partnership
program” with NATO, a five-page
agreement that aims to strengthen
defense cooperation between Japan
and the alliance, up to the fielding
of joint exercises. The NATO
joint communique stated in no
uncertain terms that China is a
potential threat that needs to be
taken seriously…. NATO, it
seems, is making a concerted
decision to add Asia to its docket
at a time when the alliance has its
hands full managing Europe’s largest
war since 1945….

NATO’s
rationale for venturing into Asian
security affairs is clear enough.
The U.S. categorizes China as its
“pacing challenge,” a country that
seeks to displace Washington as the
world’s leading center of gravity.

Why NATO’s Growing Interest in Asia
Is a Mistake, Time Magazine

The benefits of
deploying NATO to the Asia-Pacific
cannot be overstated. First, NATO
involvement creates the impression that
a broad coalition of nations support US
warmongering in Asia. Second, the
expense of any Asian military
intervention will be shared among the 31
members. And, third, a stronger
NATO-US alliance divides the world into
warring blocs (similar to the Cold War)
which is what Washington now seeks since
it finally realizes that control of
China will remain in the hands of the
Communist Party and will not be
transferred to Western oligarchs.(as
planned) A bifurcated world,
preserves Washington’s dominance of the
West which is critical to prosecuting
its long-term war on Russia and China.
Here’s more from an article at the World
Socialist Web Site:

The
declaration adopted this week by the
heads of state and government of the
31 NATO members in Vilnius,
Lithuania is a blueprint for global
war. Only a fraction of the
24-page document deals with the
central issue of the summit, the war
in Ukraine. In the rest, NATO
declares its intention to impose its
will on the entire world. Hardly
any continent and region are left
out in what the document calls
NATO’s “360-degree approach.”….

A central
focus of the communique is on China,
which is accused of employing “a
broad range of political, economic,
and military tools to increase its
global footprint and project power.”
It is damaging the alliance’s
security with “malicious hybrid and
cyber operations” and
“confrontational rhetoric and
disinformation,” and is attempting
“to control key technological and
industrial sectors, critical
infrastructure, and strategic
materials and supply chains.”…

the “North
Atlantic” Treaty Organization has
been transformed into a Frankenstein
monster that asserts its interests
and “values” in every part of the
globe.…

Vilnius NATO summit unveils plans
for global domination, World
Socialist Web Site

There is a
striking similarity between the NATO
Communique and the Biden
administration’s National Security
Strategy. In fact, we suspect that the
authors may have collaborated on the
text. In any event, the laser-like focus
on China as an emerging threat is a
recurrent theme in both documents as is
the inference that the United States
–which has grown increasingly
uncompetitive over the last three
decades– must use military force to
preserve its position in the global
order. Here’s a brief clip from the NSS:

The PRC is
the only competitor with both the
intent to reshape the international
order and, increasingly, the
economic, diplomatic, military, and
technological power to do it.
Beijing has ambitions to create an
enhanced sphere of influence in the
Indo-Pacific and to become the

world’s leading power. It is using
its technological capacity and
increasing influence over

international institutions to create
more permissive conditions for its
own authoritarian model…

Our strategy
toward the PRC is threefold: 1)
to invest in the foundations of our
strength at home – our
competitiveness, our innovation, our
resilience, our democracy…

In the
competition with the PRC, as in
other arenas, it is clear that the
next ten years will be the decisive
decade. We stand now at the
inflection point, where the choices
we make and the priorities we pursue
today will set us on a course that
determines our competitive position
long into the future.

US National Security Strategy,
White House

The NSS refers to
“competition” four times in this short
excerpt and yet nowhere do we see any
indication that Washington is taking
steps to improve competitiveness.
There is no federal program for
improving critical infrastructure. There
is no federal program for improving
education. There is no federal program
for expanding worker training or for
supporting the industries and
technologies of the future. The
United States has basically given up on
competition altogether, realizing that
the Robber Barons who control the system
are determined to extract as much wealth
as they can rather than recycle their
profits into productive outlets that
would make the country more competitive.
This is why “the world’s largest
economy” can no longer compete with
China. China’s state-led model is vastly
superior to America’s extractive model.

How do the
Chinese feel about all of this? How
do they like the idea of being blamed
for the voracious greed of US elites who
threw the American worker under the bus
3 decades ago so they could make bigger
profits on China’s low-paid workforce?
How do they like being lambasted for
their success or criticized for putting
their capital to work on more productive
ventures? How do they like the prospect
of a hostile military alliance taking
root in their neighborhood so they can
stir up trouble and provide aid to
China’s enemies? Check out this blurb
from the Global Times:

NATO’s
strategic impulse to meddle in the
Asia-Pacific region is also imminent
at this summit. Expanding
cooperation with the four
“Asia-Pacific partners” – Japan,
South Korea, Australia and New
Zealand – is another major topic of
the summit. In this regard, the US
media boldly stated that NATO is
trying to “deter China’s strategic
ambitions.”

This is the
second year that Japan, South Korea,
Australia and New Zealand have been
invited to the NATO summit. In order
to firmly rope in these four
countries, NATO imitated the
“Quad” mechanism of the US, Japan,
India and Australia at last year’s
summit, and specially created a
new name for these four countries
called “Asia-Pacific Four (AP4).”
This aims to institutionalize the
cooperation between these four
countries and NATO, and make them de
facto new allies of “NATO+” in the
Asia-Pacific region….

There are
31 NATO members, but they have …
been kidnapped by the panic and
tension instigated by the US,
becoming “Washington’s axe, spears
and shovels.” Wherever NATO goes,
wars are likely to break out.
These are not only the subjective
impressions left by NATO, but also
objective facts to a large extent….

NATO must
promptly withdraw the black hand it
has extended toward the Asia-Pacific
region, and it should not even think
about squeezing half of its body in
the future. Apart from certain…
the majority of countries in Asia
not only do not welcome NATO but
also see it as a terrible monster
that should be avoided at all costs.
This is because NATO only brings
security risks, war threats, and
development predicament to Asia….

The
transatlantic military alliance… is
now extending its reach into the
Asia-Pacific region. Its ulterior
motives are well-known in the
international community. Inciting
division and hatred, creating group
confrontations, and causing chaos in
Europe, they now seek to disrupt the
peace in the Asia-Pacific region. We
firmly resist this, together
with the majority of countries in
the Asia-Pacific region.
Two Stern Warnings Must be Given to
NATO, Global Times

Clearly, China is
not happy with these developments, and
why should they be? After all, the US
never stops preaching about the
wonderous symmetry of the “free market”
until, of course, some upstart country
in Asia uses that free market to its own
advantage and becomes the unrivaled
engine of global growth. That’s when
Uncle Sam does a quick about-face
claiming that China’s success is the
result of “coercive policies that
challenge our interests, security and
values.”

But don’t be
deceived; it’s just jealousy.

Brzezinski’s
Warning

Washington’s
grandiose plan to confront Russia and
China at the same time illustrates the
shortcomings of a policy-making body
that has eliminated anyone whose views
veer even slightly from the warmongering
consensus. (“Groupthink” writ large)
It’s interesting to note that the
main architect of Washington’s plan to
rule the world, Zbigniew Brzezinski,
eventually abandoned the idea altogether
and called for forging ties with Russia
and China. In an article that was
written shortly before his death,
Brzezinski said the following:

As its era of
global dominance ends, the United
States needs to take the lead in
realigning the global power
architecture…

the United
States is still the world’s
politically, economically, and
militarily most powerful entity but,
given complex geopolitical shifts in
regional balances, it is no
longer the globally imperial power….

the United
States must take the lead in
realigning the global power
architecture in such a way that the
violence …can be contained without
destroying the global order.…

a long and
painful road toward an initially
limited regional accommodation is
the only viable option for the
United States, Russia, China,
and the pertinent Middle Eastern
entities. For the United States,
that will require patient
persistence in forging cooperative
relationships with some new partners
(particularly Russia and China)…

The fact is
that there has never been a truly
“dominant” global power until the
emergence of America on the world
scene…. During the latter part
of the 20th century no other power
even came close. That era is now
ending.

Toward a Global Realignment,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, The American
Interest)

Brzezinski is right. Instead of creating
more enemies who seek to destroy us,
the US should be looking for ways to
ease the transition to a world in which
one center of power no longer dictates
policy. That doesn’t mean America
should not defend its vital interests.
It simply means that policymakers must
realize that the world has fundamentally
changed and we must change with it.