Well, maybe.
The Asia Times has some analysis about some news that US media have ignored or have been blind to the significance of as a result of tunnel vision on fossil fuels, the Middle East, and the shiny keys of the new Global War on Terrorism (although that’s not likely the policy the White House thinks it is running).
Pepe Escobar: Does Bear + Dragon Trump Eagle? How Russia & China May Block the US in Asia
The US has pivoted to Asia, meaning that it is increasing its eastern Pacific Rim presence and working through trade deals and diplomatic moves to create a wall of containment around China’s southern and eastern sides. The US through its actions and policy in Ukraine has been frantically trying to provoke Putin into hostile action; Putin is not taking the bait. The US has tried paralyzing Russia oil industry through economic sanctions; the US is not getting the cooperation from NATO allies that it expected.
The US is already implicated in efforts to co-opt the Umbrella movement of Occupy Central in Hong Kong.
Russia and China have over the past years been laying the cooperative agreements on infrastucture and development that would pipeline Russia’s oil directly from the Arctic to China. China has been developing and promoting a high-speed rail link that would effectively go from Beijing to Berlin and has been in economic negotiations with Germany.
The prosperity from those Eurasian investments may provide future global economic benefits that move towards trade and stability. But they more fully integrate China, Russia, and Europe much as the US was integrated in the first half of the 20th century with the massive rail and highway and air transport infrastructures.
The ball-and-chain of the Republican caucus in Congress and the failure of Democrats to educate the public on the real state of the world will make the US integration of its activities into this economic reality all the more difficult. At some point that will put us in a dependent relationship with this Eurasian system instead as one of the equal powers. Unless we very quickly wise up.
The attempt to establish a new American Century with US dominance and ability to act without restraint is rapidly closing. Even our friends are tired of the arrogance.
