From Indian Diplomat.

Doctor Bhadrakumar doesn't mince words when speaking about Washington's paranoia. In fact, it is one of his more aggressive pieces in a while. 

The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against Vladimir Putin can only be seen as a publicity stunt by the Anglo-Saxon clique, with the US leading from the rear. Ironically, though, the ICC acted on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Iraq in 2003, which led to horrific war crimes but the “judges” at Hague slept over it. Both Washington and London admit today that the 2003 invasion was illegal — based on trumped up allegations against Saddam Hussein. There’s no chance, of course, that the ICC warrant will ever be taken seriously. ICC has no jurisdiction in Russia, which, like the US, is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. But the intention here is something else.

The mud-throwing at Putin is yet another display of President Biden’s visceral hatred towards the Russian leader that goes back to a joust in Moscow well over a decade ago when Putin told him off brusquely, and is timed to distract attention from the state visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Moscow on Monday, an event that not only has spectacular optics but is sure to intensify the “no limit” partnership between the two superpowers. The Anglo-Saxon clique is watching with dismay the talks in Moscow tomorrow. To be sure, Moscow and Beijing have decided to stand together to bury the US hegemony.

Bhadrakumar finds a superb definition to American, or, in a large sense, Anglo-Saxon clique's foreign policy or what passes for it anyway in the deep recesses of Anglo-Saxon geopolitical misery--mud throwing. It is, and as my previous post about miserable lies of Senator Kelly states--this misery begins to manifest itself through a complete loss of always in deficit professional and human class. 

But Bhadrakumar goes further and concludes, as many of us also did, that the game for the West is up. 

Again, Biden would have thought he was putting Putin on the mat with the Reaper stunt and the ICC scam. But Putin is nonchalant, choosing today to make his first-ever visit to Donbass. Putin toured Mariupol, the port city that was bitterly contested by the NATO operatives in league with the Ukrainian Neo-Nazi brigade, drove a vehicle along the city streets, making stops at several locations and surveying reconstruction works. It was a defiant signal to Biden that NATO has lost the war.

The desperation is palpable, and the anticipation for the results of tomorrow's summit in Moscow is filled with dread for a bunch of villainous amateurs who through electoral legerdemain occupied positions of power in Washington and not only drove through sheer malice and stupidity their (their??) own country into the ground but put the world at the precipice of a global war, without even understanding that they are completely exposed to a devastating response and those who will survive will be hunted down as war criminals.

As new Russian meme reads:

"If you don't understand what you are doing, neither does you enemy." (c) Joe Tzu.

How The World At Large Sees Things.

The speed with which Washington deligitimizes the remnants of the West's institutions is astonishing. It also explains what REAL influence Russia and her SMO provide on the rest of the world. 

As part of the new payment system launched last year, Indonesian President Joko Widodo called on Wednesday for his country to abandon the use of foreign payment networks like MasterCard and Visa and encouraged the public to adopt credit cards made by domestic banks. At a local business gathering, Widodo emphasized that "everyone [in Indonesia] should be able to use" Indonesian-manufactured credit cards so that "we can be independent," as he explained that the aim is to avoid risking transactions in case of a geopolitical disruption that could economically affect the country. According to the president, the initiative "shows that Indonesia is following the pace of digital technology transformation in the economic sector." "Be very careful. We must remember the sanctions imposed by the US on Russia. Visa and Mastercard could be a problem," he warned. 

We need to check now if Indonesia has human rights abuses, enough "democracy", or has WMD, wink, wink. Though, after what NATO saw in 404 with Russia fighting there with one left hand, I doubt they have any desire to get into the nation with population of  270 million and do the Island Hopping. But here is just one of very many signs of a global tectonic shift in perception of the West and the obvious fact, which some of our friends pointed out on discussion board about Xi's visit, I believe (correct, please, if I am mistaken), that most of the global South views current situation as Russia standing alone against combined West. This, rather well established, fact also contradicts somewhat Ischenko's latest piece about the thrust of Chinese initiatives, because the image of Russia standing alone and the rest of the global South only now beginning to wake up is firmly imprinted in the public opinion around the globe. 

China's initiatives, as well as Xi's visit to Moscow, apart from obvious huge practical significance for both sides and, by extension, for BRICS, serves also a good ol' truism, attributed to JFK, that "victory has hundred fathers, while defeat is always an orphan". But here is where Ischenko makes a mistake, no matter the spin, one obvious fact cannot be obfuscated in SMO--these are Russian Armed Forces alone who face down NATO's proxy and very real actual forces and do it extremely well. Larry wrote about it yesterday (see the link to his blog), and while the eyes of media are concentrated on the slaughter of VSU and NATO's "volunteers" at Bakhmut, elsewhere Russian forces advance steadily and the new cauldron is forming around Avdeevka. 

As SMO demonstrated fully--the fact which many observers, including Ischenko fail to grasp--political-diplomatic dances are not substitution for the practical military results achieved by people who fight. Especially in the realities of the warfare of the 21st century. Quoting Den Xiaoping: "diplomacy is the extension of the war by other, peaceful means". There is NO issue here about who was first, the egg or the chicken; conflict, war decides issues, sorry to upset those who think otherwise. But here we get into the intricacies of the modern war and its realities which many political scientists fail to grasp and continue to apply beaten to death outdated cliches in the world which observes events in the real time. Below is the demonstration of the political "science" meeting warfare realities in SMO.

I can only go so far in explaining an abyss of a difference between Captain Lepic's report to higher command on August 31, 1914 about German columns making a surprise turn from Estre-St. Denis to Compiegne and 80 hours which passed before French started to react to it, and between 2023 ISR in SMO allowing real time operational planning, developing command decisions and obtaining targeting. Same abyss which separates events of August 31, 1914 from events of 2023 strategically and operationally, separates old views on geopolitics and diplomacy from geopolitical realities of our time. There is a reason many Russian civilian leaders are educated in the Academy of General Staff. The faster people understand that, the better will be their level of awareness and preparedness. And I mentioned only one profound difference among very many--a list too long to post here. In the end, recall this:

   

I wrote it on purpose and warned. Much of it came true.

Who Will Take The Part...

... from Russian side during Xi's visit. While losers from AP bemoan Xi's visit to Moscow: 

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Moscow next week, offering a major diplomatic boost to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the same day the International Criminal Court announced it wants to put the Russian leader on trial for alleged war crimes. Xi’s visit was the latest sign of Beijing’s emboldened diplomatic ambitions, and came amid sharpening East-West tensions over the war in Ukraine, now in its 13th month. The U.S. on Friday said it would oppose any effort by China at the meeting to propose a ceasefire in Ukraine as the “ratification of Russian conquest.”

They fail to understand, which is natural for Western office plankton due to it being uncultured ignoramuses, that it is, actually, the other way around. And here comes a bit of a framework. This is not me talking, this is real Sinologist:

Профессор РУДН Андрей Виноградов уверен, что США не хотят воевать с Китаем, но создают институты, которые нужны в условиях перехода к многополярному миру. "Их нельзя назвать в полной мере конфронтационными, но они будут противодействовать китайскому влиянию в Индо-Тихоокеанском регионе", — поясняет китаист.При этом Виноградов считает, что у КНР не так много вариантов ответа. Гонка вооружений выгодна скорее американцам, чем китайцам, которые должны решать проблему модернизации экономики. "Пекин не хочет повторить опыт Советского Союза, но Штаты ставят его в невыгодное положение. Китай мог бы противопоставить AUKUS если не собственный союз, то хотя бы военно-политическое сотрудничество с сильными игроками. Можно договориться с Москвой, но в нынешней ситуации есть риск, что это навредит", — отмечает эксперт.Как бы то ни было, США и их союзники продолжат окружать китайцев военными блоками. А те вынуждены будут проводить внешнеполитический курс, которого придерживаются с начала 1980-х: представлять интересы развивающихся стран и выступать за мирное урегулирование конфликтов. Пока у Пекина нет других вариантов, заключает Виноградов.

 

Translation: RUDN University professor Andrei Vinogradov is sure that the United States does not want to fight China, but creates the institutions that are needed in the transition to a multipolar world. “They cannot be called fully confrontational, but they will counteract Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific region,” the sinologist explains. At the same time, Vinogradov believes that the PRC does not have many options for an answer. The arms race is more beneficial to the Americans than to the Chinese, who must solve the problem of modernizing the economy. “Beijing does not want to repeat the experience of the Soviet Union, but the States put it at a disadvantage. China could oppose AUKUS if not its own alliance, then at least military-political cooperation with strong players. It is possible to agree with Moscow, but in the current situation there is a risk, that it will hurt,” the expert notes. Be that as it may, the United States and its allies will continue to surround the Chinese with military blocs. And those will be forced to pursue the foreign policy course that they have been adhering to since the early 1980s: to represent the interests of developing countries and advocate for the peaceful settlement of conflicts. For now, Beijing has no other options, Vinogradov concludes.

I largely agree with Vinogradov here, with some minor caveats, and I write about it for years. Some of those things I wrote and continue to write often are met with disdain and disbelief by many enthusiastic supporters of China but I will repeat it again: China is still not in the same league militarily as US and Russia, granted that the US is in the process of departing from largely self-proclaimed military superiority. Still, China has a long way to go here. And that is where those first signals started to be sent out by Russia, such as yesterday with Konstantin Biyurulin of KRTV articulating the readiness of KRTV to transfer hypersonic technologies to friendly countries. Now Ria published the list and it is a peculiar one for special meeting in a limited capacity. There will be meeting in an expanded capacity too.

МОСКВА, 17 мар - РИА Новости. Зампред Совбеза РФ Дмитрий Медведев, глава МИД Сергей Лавров, вице-премьер Дмитрий Чернышенко, глава ЦБ Эльвира Набиуллина, министр обороны Сергей Шойгу, глава Роскосмоса Юрий Борисов и директор Федеральной службы по военно-техническому сотрудничеству Дмитрий Шугаев примут участие в первом раунде российско-китайских переговорах, которые пройдут 21 марта, заявил помощник президента по международным делам Юрий Ушаков."У нас намечено с учётом важности визита большое представительство... Переговоры в узком составе - в них предполагается участие Медведева, Лаврова, Чернышенко, Шойгу, я буду участвовать, Набиуллина, Шугаев, Борисов и посол Моргулов. Круг участников позволяет подсказать, какие темы могут быть затронуты", - рассказал Ушаков журналистам.

Translation: MOSCOW, March 17 - RIA Novosti. Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, Head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, Head of Roscosmos Yuri Borisov and Director of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation Dmitry Shugaev will take part in the first round of Russian-Chinese Presidential Assistant for International Affairs Yuri Ushakov said. "We have a large representation planned, taking into account the importance of the visit ... Negotiations in a narrow format - Medvedev, Lavrov, Chernyshenko, Shoigu are supposed to participate in them, I will participate, Nabiullina, Shugaev, Borisov and Ambassador Morgulov. The circle of participants allows us to suggest what topics can be touched upon," Ushakov told reporters.  

Ushakov is correct--easy to understand once you see these names: Shoigu, Borisov and Shugaev. Those are movers and shakers of Russia's Armed Forces and Military-Industrial Complex and I can guarantee you that in Xi's shopping list there will be many very advanced toys present which China will need to push back on the US in general, and AUKUS in particular. Those toys will also serve as a deterrent. It is absolutely clear that China will ask for hypersonics and for aviation. Now, will China ask for S-500? Recall, that India stated that she will be the first recipient of this complex. China DOES need Russia's support and it will be fascinating to hear and see the results of this undeniably monstrously important summit in Moscow.  Per space--yes, I am sure the commitment to new space station and Lunar permanent station will be confirmed.