Global Militarization, the East-West Divide and the March towards World War III

Take a look at every corner of the globe today. Like never before seen on this planet, the global chessboard is fast being carved up with provocative red lines drawn in the sand resulting from rapid military armament and troop deployment throughout this ever increasing bipolar world.

Cold War Part Two was jump started with February’s US backed Ukraine coup and overnight the old familiar East versus West scenario is once again threatening the start of World War III. Wherever untapped precious natural resources can still be extracted from the sea and ground is where opposing military forces from each side are lining up and ready for the end-of-world war. If it wasn’t so alarming, it would be absurdly laughable. Can you hear the global ring announcer? “In the West’s corner, the current and still only heavyweight champion of the superpower world, the greatest empire on earth, the world bully of all bullies, the US-NATO forces! And in this East corner, the up and coming wannabe challenger, once again making its re-appearance on the global stage, the original axis-of-evil we all have all come to love to hate – the armies of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea!”

Beyond the border of the Western nations that are the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel and Western Europe including Asian allies Japan and South Korea and the Eastern nations of Russia and China, virtually everywhere else on earth the West is now locked in a global power grab battling to plunder the earth’s remaining turf and resources before and against the East gets to it first in a fight to the finish. Perhaps this colliding path to increasing conflict, death and destruction can best be graphically understood in terms of geographic regional breakdowns of the various East versus West confrontations.

The champion bully so used to throwing its weight around the world is clearly the American Empire’s high powered killing machine and its right hand killer puppet NATO. But the bully has met its match with the emerging powerful Eastern bloc of a reaffirmed Russia-China alliance threatening to tilt the power away from previously unchecked US global hegemony. Several weeks ago Russia and China  signed a $400 billion gas deal ensuring that Russia’s largest export will only grow regardless of what might happen with supplying Europe. Since the US-induced Ukraine crisis, in self-defense to America’s global aggression and imperialism, Russia and China have reestablished old ties.

Recently discovered evidence exposes the US Empire’s extended Gladio operations into the twenty-first century Europe using strong arm bullying and subversive aggressive tactics against various socialist and left leaning politicians within the European Union who might oppose NATO, tactics that include possible assassination as well as “softer” character assassination techniques. This proves just how much Europe, its EU and NATO are all completely dominated and controlled by any and all means necessary as puppets of the US Empire. 

The US is pushing its “full spectrum dominance” to purposely escalate tensions with encircling Russia and China by militarizing every nation on their border. In the meantime, through mainstream media’s state sponsored propaganda, the US government is attempting to demonize Russian President Putin and his nation as the vilified aggressor when in fact US Empire has always been the warmongering state inciting war after war. Despite the lies and saber rattling propaganda, more Americans are finally seeing the true villain is in fact the hegemonic Empire. And with the overthrow of another democratically elected sovereign government in Ukraine earlier this year, by perpetual US aggression the next war could well be in Eastern Europe against nuclear armed Russia.

In Poland last week Obama promised a billion dollar military aid package to strengthen Ukraine and NATO nations in preparation for war with Russia. US Air Force and Army units along with F-16’s are arriving en masse throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia along the Russian border and will be serving on a rotational basis for years to come. Additionally, long time scheduled nuclear powered warhead missile sites are being lined up in Poland and already this year in Romania pointed across the border to Russia. In Romania Obama’s also rolling out the newest version of the star wars program of nukes from space, capable of taking out Russian target cities with a first strike while neutralizing Russia’s response with its anti-missile defense system. Thus, overwhelming evidence indicates Obama is currently planning and preparing for the likelihood of World War III with Russia and its allies. The geopolitics game of course has everything to do with global hegemony, which in turn has everything to do with money, oil pipelines and access to earth’s most precious resources. 

US Empire agenda has always been to target any nation that defies preservation of the US dollar and petrodollar as the fiat international currency standard to ensure the central banking cabal’s global control of the world population through a feudalistic debtor system. Both Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi went down quickly after planning to no longer trade in US dollars.

The underlying escalation in conflict with Iran centers greatly on Russia and other BRIC nations trade with Iran with rubles and gold. Even NATO ally Turkey’s president yesterday was making a deal with Iran’s visiting leader to buy Iran’s oil through payment in gold rather than the US petrodollar. With Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa all BRIC members that are choosing to not trade in US dollars, they are leading the charge that will soon bring down the US oligarch’s paper fiat. As more and more of the world moves against the US dollar, at some point in the near future the US economy will plunge into a freefall nosedive of a severe depression. But then this also has been the oligarchs’ eventual plan in the making for some time. 

In fact the biggest East vs. West geographical bone of contention covers the elongated stretch of land 10,000 miles long spanning every country bordering Russia and China, all those onetime outer Soviet state nations that end in “stan” that Americans can neither pronounce nor remember. From Europe through the trans-Caucasus of Central Asia to Tibet all the way to East Asia, the big East vs. the big West face-off in recent months has been heating up with noticeable mounting tensions throughout.

And the current hottest of all hotspots in this vast arena of course has been the civil war well underway now in Ukraine. With increasing violence the Ukraine military has been destroying hospitals, schools, residential areas and municipal buildings in eastern Ukrainian cities like Lugansk. Meanwhile Russian troops have overall shown restraint although just recently the southeastern Ukraine border crossing checkpoints have been abandoned by Kiev government forces and are now under Russian control. The impending war between Ukraine and Russia appears increasingly eminent.

But in short order, all along the Russia-China bloc’s own backyard, the West is fomenting and creating dirty secret wars spilling death squad bloodshed in any number of these highly unstable, corrupt, resource-rich borderlands. The strategy is to head Russia off at the pass from forming its own Eurasian Union (EAU) by next year with Kazakhstan and Belarus. A number of other nations in the region like Armenia, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that may even include prior Western leaning nations like Georgia have all expressed an interest in also joining this EAU as well. If Putin succeeds in acquiring these pivotal nations on its side, the EAU would rival the EU and NATO in economic and military power. This development would weaken and potentially threaten the oligarchs’ central banking cabal. To ensure that it does not happen, World War III is more likely to happen first.

One relatively new global region where the US-NATO military is currently facing off against the Russian armed forces is fighting over the disputed waters accounting for 30% of the world’s vast oil reserves sitting underneath the Arctic Ocean floor. As the global warming rapidly melts the polar icecaps, the result makes the value of its mineral and oil reserves both more assessable and coveted by all the nations that share Arctic territory. The melted ice also opens up new trade routes never available before. Thus competition and potential conflict is ratcheting up as Russia the nation with the most Arctic territory has been building a military presence in the region since 2007 and currently possesses ten military bases along the northern sea route. Only in the last year has NATO recognized the need to match Russia’s head start both militarily and economically.

Recently 16,000 soldiers from the US and NATO participated in the largest Western joint military exercise north of the Arctic circle in a hurry up effort to try and catch up to the 70,000 troop buildup of the Russian Army already stationed on the northern tundra. Russia has the distinction of being the only nation in the world with a nuclear icebreaker fleet

Last month Norway’s defense minister echoed the NATO party line seeing Russia’s annexation of Crimea as a direct threat to all NATO countries and called for an increased focus on matching Russia’s Arctic circle growth. In April Russia successfully shipped its first oil from its Arctic drilling operations. Canada, the US, Norway and Denmark through Greenland all have a vested NATO interest in the Arctic for its plentiful deposits of oil, gas and minerals. And the Russian Federation has beaten NATO to the punch both in its resource extraction as well as its military stronghold in the region. 

The US never ratified a UN treaty among the Arctic nations that irons out how access and extraction of resources will be conducted. Even though the oil corporations, the military and environmental groups all agree the US should ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, once again the dysfunctional US Congress has continually voted it down. It seems the US purposely desires to undermine any judicious international solution to the intensifying competition as if a subsequent conflict and potential war is purposely part of the Empire agenda.

In Africa Obama’s exceptionalism manifests in the form of Special Operations on the ground busily training and militarizing the entire continent so the Empire can outmaneuver and undercut surging China’s economic power interest as the continent’s leading trading partner. Training death squads in so called counterinsurgency operations has become the Special Ops modus operandi. The US is spending 1.2 billion dollars to build and expand an outpost into a major military base housing 4000 soldiers at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. America took advantage of the recent Boko Haram kidnapping of girls to ensure its military presence including drone operations secured an even stronger foothold in Nigeria. Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Sudan, Libya and Congo have all been targeted for a growing drone surveillance and missile strike program in answer to intelligence claims that Islamic extremists have posed a rising terrorist threat on the continent. AFRICOM has now extended its operations to all African nations but two. Of course the stronger US military presence and activity are precursors for securing the region for expanding transnational corporations into Africa to compete with China’s economic dominance. 

Historically in modern times the Middle East has never stopped being the world hotspot for multi-layered international conflict. Aside from the longstanding Israeli apartheid genocide against Palestinians and the broader Jewish vs. Muslim antagonism, the focal point for over three years now has been the devastating war in Syria where Iran, Russia and China are aligned with the Assad government while the US-NATO-Israel-Saudi Arabia alliance has been financially backing, arming and deploying thousands of al Qaeda mercenaries to fight their proxy war against Syria and the Eastern alliance.

Iran and Syria have long been in the US imperialistic crosshairs as the final two of seven nations on that neocon regime change list dating back prior to 9/11 and still remain unfinished business. Controlling Ukraine and conquering Syria and Iran would cut off Russia’s oil supply to Europe and America could effectively control the outgoing oil supply from the Middle East to the rest of the world. Thus, Obama is still sending more sophisticated high powered weaponry to the so called moderate anti-Assad rebels in Syria that could potentially end up in the hands of al Qaeda militants who have already pledged to use the US made arms against America. And this comes when the Syrian government forces have begun to gain the upper hand in the bloody war against the US proxy lowlifes.

In a Reuter’s article (June 9, 2014) a Free Syrian Army general warned against Obama’s plan to arm rebel groups in Syria as he believes it will create warlords like in Somalia and Afghanistan that will operate as loose cannons not answering to anyone and only creating more problems for anti-government forces. This view only reinforces the common perception that Obama’s poor, misguided and erratic leadership in the Middle East has diminished America’s international power, reputation and credibility, grossly undermined by Obama’s empty, paper tiger rhetoric and inconsistency.

Though the US-NATO military forces can occupy nations along the entire border of Russia’s and China‘s backyard, the double standard that is US exceptionalism ensures that Chinese and Russian armies are forever banned far from North and South America. Other than Cuba, gaining a foothold of influence and power within the US dominated Western hemisphere has been tenuous for Russia and China. The exploitative and over controlling (with roots back to the Monroe Doctrine) American Empire has driven Latin American nations toward seeking an intra-continental alliance promoting a degree of independence, solidarity and defense from the reigning clutches of the sole world superpower to the north. Nations like Venezuela through the efforts of the late Hugo Chavez have taken a bold and defiant stance against US hegemony, calling Bush “the devil” at the UN a few years ago. Similar to long sanctioned Cuba, resistance to American aggression has taken the form of embracing both Russia and China for bolstered support through economic development and trade. While the US was busy focusing on waging wars on multiple warfronts, China from 2000 to 2009 quietly increased its trade with Latin America by 600%. As a result, China is gaining influence in America’s hemispheric “backyard.” 

Lastly, in the final continent East Asia tensions have only increased between America and China there as well. During his recent so called pivot tour to the Far East, Obama reaffirmed and strengthened military ties with South Korea, Japan and the Philippines. In response to the increasing territorial squabbling between China and other US allies in Asia like Japan, Philippines and more recently Vietnam, always the opportunist the US in Secretary of State Kerry recently invited Vietnam’s deputy prime minister to Washington to discuss establishment of a US naval base in Vietnam. Another recent issue causing friction is the US allegation that Chinese military officers spied on American corporations breaching security to gain valuable information. Of course the fact that the US was caught with the Snowden revelations spying on the entire world has no impact on the US willingness to chastise and accuse others nations. The rest of the planet readily recognizes America’s double standard hypocrisy in constantly objecting to other nations that are merely doing the same behavior that America does. 

The polarizing effect on the world brought on by America’s arrogance, exceptionalism and widespread bullying and aggression has created dangerous conflicts that are leading to military tensions and hostilities that in turn appear to be leading to major wars with nuclear powers Russia and China as well as unpredictable North Korea. And unlike the false propaganda of the US government and its presstitute media outlets, this increasingly militarized, armed and dangerous world is the direct intended result of US foreign policy. As the puppet to the oligarch puppet masters, it is by design that war is on the horizon and the end game of World War III looms ever closer with each passing month. It again must be up to us rational citizens of the world who know better than to plunge into a war that no one can win but all of us earth inhabitants can lose if we allow our leaders to push us off the doomsday cliff.
 
Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate and former US Army officer. He has written a manuscript based on his unique military experience entitled “Don’t Let The Bastards Getcha Down.” It examines and focuses on US international relations, leadership and national security issues. After the military, Joachim earned a masters degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field for more than a quarter century. He now concentrates on his writing.


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Articles by: Joachim Hagopian

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