Friday, October 26, 2018

Just A Brief Note: So, Who Is a "Senior" Partner?

Just a morning note on this constantly-discussed China-Russia "alliance" and a favorite Western media shtick of pointing out that Russia is a junior member of such an alliance.  
Speaks volumes, doesn't it? It is especially remarkable against the background of this (as Bloomberg's article continues):
The Chinese government’s move is in contrast to India, which has said it plans to continue taking limited volumes from the Persian Gulf state in November.
If true, I underscore it, because US media are as much a propaganda machine as they are news organizations, then it should not create any illusions on who is "senior" or who is "junior" partner in Russian-Chinese arrangement. As I always say, much more goes into the meaning of Superpower than merely the size of economy--I already made some use of National Status model starting here, and will continue to elaborate, once the "news cycle" calms down a bit (Yes, and the monkey will fly out of my butt, as Wayne used to say). I will repeat--I know, it is ad nauseam by now--Barnett's classic definition of the national power:
For the power of the nation-state by no means consist only in its armed forces, but also in its economic and technological resources; in the dexterity, foresight and resolution with which its foreign policy is conducted; in the efficiency of its social and political organization. It consists most of all in the nation itself, the people, their skills, energy, ambition, discipline, initiative; their beliefs, myths and illusions. And it consists, further, in the way all these factors are related to one another.  
In other words--one has to behave like a Superpower and that skill is not easy to come by. 

Meanwhile, in related news--of course these were Russians! We knew it all along. But you ain't seen nothing yet--some Arab media also report (in Russian) that these were Russians who were guilty of killing Khashoggi. I knew Russia was powerful but to be omnipotent. Hey, the proof is in the pudding--the combined West, even when one discounts purely propagandist deliberate hysteria, is scared to hell with Russians, much less so than with Chinese and there are reasons for that--see Barnett's definition of power.

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