Quote:
Originally Posted by xelasnave
Clive I like the idea of the new world order.
It has the potential to eliminate wars and reduce military to local mob control.
Once we get there corruption should disappear.
Or am I missing something?
Alex
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Alex, what follows is an excerpt from the Trilateral Commission, Rome plenary meeting *15/17 April 2016.... regarding engagement of Russia.
You can find the presser, here:
http://trilateral.org/download/files...ING_RUSSIA.pdf
In their own words, the Trilateral commission is there to bring together experienced leaders
within the private sector to discuss issues of global concern.
http://trilateral.org/
This organisation is an international network which serves the interests of global commerce. They issue policy recommendations (to who exactly?) and use their media, financial and political assets to leverage change for their own ends.
Ever wonder why U.S. foreign policy seldom serves the interests of the American people.. yet has driven the U.S. economy to the point of insolvency? Simple... U.S. foreign policy serves the interests of big multinational corporations and the international financiers who profit handsomely from endless wars.
The Russian (engagement) policy statement can easily be seen for what it is - the international business community is waging economic war against non-compliant states using the pretext of human rights and protection of democracy. This is the reason petrol is so cheap at the moment... the Saudi's are pumping it like there is no tomorrow, driving the price down. The goal is to destabilise Russia (which relies on oil as a primary export commodity) The banksters also destroyed the Rouble (18 months ago) for the same reason... To get the Russian people to depose Putin and replace him with a puppet of their choosing.
Ask yourself this... why isn't the Saudi regime also an international pariah? they are the main financial backer of ISIS, and amongst the most intolerant and vicious bunch of thugs on the planet... beheading political dissenters on a daily basis... Answer - because they're doing the bidding of the big money interests in the world.
So... it could be argued that we already have a de-facto global 'understanding' amongst the power brokers of
the liberal world... if not an actual formal bureaucratic structure called a world government...
Anyhoo...
some light reading from the Trilateral Commission:
THE TRILATERAL COMMISSION
ROME PLENARY MEETING 15-17 APRIL 2016
PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge; Vice Chair, National Executive Committee, U.S. Water Partnership; former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs
ANDRZEJ OLECHOWSKI, Chairman, Supervisory Board, Bank Handlowy, Warsaw; Professor, Vistula University; former Minister of Foreign Affairs and of Finance of Poland
YUKIO SATOH, Vice Chairman of the Japan Institute of International Affairs in Tokyo; former Japanese diplomat and Permanent Representative to the United Nations
IGOR YURGENS, Chairman of INSOR, Institute of Contemporary Development; President, All-Russian Insurance Association (IRIA); President, Russian Association of Motor Insurers (RAMI), Moscow
Introduction
In May 2014, the Trilateral Commission task force on Russia released its report, “Engaging Russia: A Return to Containment?” It notes areas of consensus as well as disagreements between the task force’s four regional co-chairs: Paula Dobriansky (North America); Andrzej Olechowski (Europe); Igor Yurgens (Russian Federation); and Yukio Satoh (Asia-Pacific).1
This issue brief provides an update on our perspectives since the report’s publication two years ago.
Russia's Economy
International sanctions along with the decline in oil and gas prices have taken a devastating toll on Russia’s economy. In the 2014 report, we agreed that sanctions could set off further attacks on the ruble, accelerate inflation, and trigger a general economic downturn. These assessments have been borne out. Year-to-date inflation in 2015 was nearly 13% and the ruble’s exchange rate hit record lows in January 2016.2 Industrial output, according to Rosstat state statistics service, shrank for the first time in six years in 2015. And Russia, to quote Sberbank CEO Herman Gref, joined the ranks of the world’s “downshifter countries”3; it is now only the world’s fifteenth largest economy, just behind Mexico. The International Monetary Funds expects the Russian economy to shrink by another 1% in the coming year.
Prominent analysts in both Russia and the West are warning that Russia’s economic situation could unleash a domestic upheaval. Economist Anders Aslund, a member of the North America task force, broaches the possibility of “another regime implosion and attempted democratization.”4 Russian analyst Dmitri Trenin, one of the authors of the 2014 report, draws parallels to the Romanov era, arguing that Russia’s economy, in combination with other factors, could “trigger a collapse of not just the system, but the entire country.”5
Russia will need to enact significant structural reforms to stave off domestic instability. Even before the sharp decline in oil prices from $97 a barrel in 2014 to $30 today, we assessed that trends in international trade flows and global energy markets – for example the growing LNG market -- were changing in ways detrimental to Russia. As the ongoing European Commission competition review over Nord Stream 2 shows, calls for reform in Russia’s energy sector will be particularly demanding so long as Russian foreign policy provokes fears from its neighbors. Russia’s continued dependence on natural resource revenues could have far-reaching consequences for the “social contract” that the Putin government has struck with Russian society.
The Russian chapter’s 2014 assessment remains valid today: “a tangible downturn in living standards automatically delegitimizes the political course and its actors. Russia’s democratic institutions, now deformed and imitational, are not capable of making up for this deficit of legitimacy.” Given the demonstrable decline in Russia’s standard of living -- average monthly incomes have fallen by 10% and food prices are up at least 14%6 -- sustained economic stagnation could cause ongoing protests by Russian truckers and pensioners to spread to other discontented segments of society.
Putin’s former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin argued at the January 2016 World Economic Forum that Russia’s social order will remain stable for another two years, a “reserve” period during which Moscow faces the choice of reverting to inefficient spending or moving toward “a new economic model.”7 It is not likely, however, that Moscow will undertake reforms before assessing the outcomes of such major unfolding events as the November 8, 2016 U.S. presidential elections, the June 23, 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, and the future economic and political trajectory of China.
Domestic Political Snapshot
Our 2014 report provided a mixed appraisal of Russia’s political stability. We noted that Russia’s top figures received a boost in the immediate aftermath of the Crimea annexation and enjoy a high level of popularity. This is largely true today, with President Putin’s approval ratings remaining above 80%. Russians, as they have historically, are consolidating around national leaders in the face of an “external enemy.” However, Parliamentary elections in September 2016 – particularly if they are marked by voting irregularities -- could spur major demonstrations across Russia.8
The North America, Europe, and Russia chapters of the 2014 report alike noted that the anti-Putin Bolotnaya Square protests in December 2011 stemmed from Russians’ dissatisfaction with a repressive, corrupt system that is no longer delivering economic growth. The same factors are apparent today. Russia stood at 119th place in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index along with Azerbaijan, Sierra Leone, and Guyana. Four hundred thousand Russians emigrated in 2015, compared to 35,000 in 2010.9 A majority believe the country’s economy is in a “bad state,” and just 45% think Russia is on the right track.
We noted in 2014 that respect for democracy and human rights had deteriorated and that President Putin’s consolidation of power was at odds with Russia’s international commitments. Continued crackdowns against civil society, laws against foreign-backed organizations, and the assassinations of journalists and opposition political figures suggest that the trend has hardly reversed over the past two years. The Litvinenko Inquiry found “strong circumstantial evidence of Russian state responsibility” in the poisoning of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, and concluded that Putin “probably approved” it. In the case of liberal leader Boris Nemtsov – who, on the eve of his assassination, was preparing to unveil “documentary” evidence on Russian involvement in Ukraine – Russia’s Investigative Committee has identified five Chechen suspects, but prominent opposition figures are accusing the Kremlin of complicity in the murder. To date, investigators have refused to explore who ordered the killing and have not questioned Head of the Chechen Republic Ramzan Kadyrov. The overall brutality of the Kremlin’s crackdowns manifests Moscow’s underlying insecurity.
Russia’s Foreign Relations
Russia’s global ambitions and grand strategy have not changed substantially. As we wrote in the 2014 report, “Russia aspires to superpower status and seeks a regional order in Eurasia that is no longer underwritten by the United States.”
What has changed, however, is the nature of Russia’s engagement in key regions, as well as the international community’s response.
Nuclear Proliferation
The 2014 report generally attributed defensive motives to Russia’s nuclear program and “first use” doctrine. The North America chapter cited Moscow’s goal of “pursuing strategic stability and inducing missile defense accommodations” from the United States. The Asia report noted Russian “concerns about the growth and modernization of Chinese military power, including nuclear forces” as well as its desire to “retain the status of a global superpower.”
Russia’s foreign policy over the past two years, however, has provoked fears that Moscow’s nuclear strategy is part of a more ambitious Russian gambit to remake the liberal international order10. Russia continues to test cruise missiles in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, modernize its nuclear programs, and engage in nuclear saber rattling against the West.
Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter recently said that he considers Russia an existential threat “by virtue simply of the size of the nuclear arsenal that it’s had.” In January 2016, the U.S. Department of Defense cited “higher-end” threats from Russia as a rationale for its fiscal year 2017 budget proposal, which would quadruple funding for the European Reassurance Initiative.
NATO defense ministers subsequently approved a plan to protect Central and Eastern Europe from Russian aggression by enhancing NATO’s military presence in the region, rotating forces through regional states to conduct exercises, and bolstering the alliance’s infrastructure.
“This will be multinational,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg explained, “to make clear that an attack against one ally is an attack against all allies, and that the alliance as a whole will respond.”11