Overtaking Events

Wagner's 'March to Moscow’, BRICS success is US failure, war is cause of economic woes, US woos India and Brazil and South Africa, China success a "failure of U.S. leadership"

Jun 27, 2023

UPDATE: This weekend’s attempted ‘March to Moscow’ by the Russian militia Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has spectacularly failed – been a complete victory – or a damp squib – depending upon which views one holds. It’s fairly safe to say that the Western Russophobe academia – all commenting externally from Russia – are spinning it as a loss for President Putin and a gain for Kiev. But these are dangerous views.

The main factor pushing many large and small countries into access to BRICS is, in a word, the present unfair and unreasonable international economic order, and its core is the U.S.-led existing international monetary system based on dollar.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has stated that as long as the Russia-Ukraine war does not end, the world economy will continue to face difficulties. “As the war continues, the world economy will still be impacted negatively, and everyone, whether in Europe or even Cambodia, will be affected.”

Senior US officials will meet with representatives of several countries that have not yet condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine later this week in Denmark. The White House's national security advisor Jake Sullivan will meet with officials from India, Brazil, and South Africa – countries that have refused to follow Western sanctions against Russia.

The foundation of the People’s Republic of China’s rapid growth was laid by Deng Xiaoping. Yet, it could not have been accomplished without U.S. support and cooperation. That the PRC is now the principal enemy of the United States and its challenger in all aspects of global politics is prima facie evidence of the failure of U.S. presidential leadership to prevent its rise.

Yevgeny Prigozhin records a video message in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Saturday. Prigozhin Press Service/AP

The Prigozhin Affair

What really happened – and the potential outcomes

By Chris Devonshire-Ellis

This weekend’s attempted ‘March to Moscow’ by the Russian militia Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has spectacularly failed – been a complete victory – or a damp squib – depending upon which views one holds. It’s fairly safe to say that the Western Russophobe academia – all commenting externally from Russia – are spinning it as a loss for President Putin and a gain for Kiev. But these are dangerous views.

Essentially, Prigozhin was on a march to save his own skin. Having stepped out of line one too many times, and especially his ultimate criticism of President Putin, including the unwise statement “Tomorrow we will have a new President”, Prigozhin was ultimately going to be looking for a deal. He could dress it up as a patriotic ‘deed for good’ as ‘no Russian blood will be spilled’ in turning his army around, but he knew he’d lost support when President Putin’s private aircraft departed Vnukovo airport (10 minutes from my summer Dacha) to spend his usual weekend at the State Dacha, a few hundred km north at Valdai. It meant Putin wasn’t going to deal with him and that a subordinate would. The West dressed that up, partially as Putin running away. They were wrong.

It actually meant that Prigozhin now lacked Russian Presidential and Military support and was deemed insufficiently important to warrant a personal meeting. The subordinate deemed competent enough to deal with Prigozhin instead, was the Belarussian President, Alexander Lukashenko.

But Prigozhin’s ‘march’ was never about an attempted coup, although some viewed it as such – the China-Russia Report (written neither from China nor Russia) even gave Prigozhin a 10% chance of becoming President, which is zanily laughable if not immediately depressing.

Rather, Prigozhin knew his time was up and negotiated his way out of a very serious situation. Why would Prigozhin march to Moscow? Apparently because the Russian military had bombed his own troops on the frontlines with Ukraine – something that seems somewhat unlikely, and that the Russian military denied – although ‘friendly fire’ is a possibility.

No – Prigozhin marched to Moscow because he had simply run out of money to fund his army. It was a ‘march to Moscow’ or face a mutiny from his own men. Whether that was engineered by Putin – whose FSB uncovered millions of dollars in cash from the Wagner Groups St. Petersburg offices – acknowledged by Prigozhin as soldiering wages – is a moot point. Another issue to consider is that neither Prigozhin – nor his men – have any ideological differences with the Russian government. This was not 1917, and was never, ever going to be a coup. It was really, and only, about money.

Shorn – either through theft, political maneuvering, or simply running out of cash – Prigozhin was effectively running away from Wagner. His time was up, and he knew it. The only way out – and a brave, potentially suicidal one – was to march to Moscow and buy time. Which is what happened. The fact that Prigozhin was subsequently exiled to Belarus additionally points to this strategy. So, what are the outcomes of this strange ‘coup that never was’ that got everyone so excited?

Well for a start, it’s not bad for Putin and good for Ukraine. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Despite the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and numerous other Western commentators describing the incident as the start of a Russian ‘civil war’ they completely missed the underlying trends. (Actually, it was civil in a way, as Prigozhin and Lukashenko sat down for a vodka to discuss the route out of the situation). This is what has actually happened, and the implications:

The Wagner Group are now under Russian Military Command
Prigozhin had become too much of a wild card, and although adept – through some fairly brutal tactics – of keeping his men subservient, his outbursts against the Kremlin’s military tactics were becoming irritating and diversionary. The Wagner army is an offensive army, and just one part of the overall military strategy for Russia’s involvement with Ukraine – and elsewhere. Prigozhin has now lost that command, a victory in fact both for Putin and Russia’s Minister of Defence, Sergey Shoigu.

The Wagner troops are now returning to their positions – and will fall under Russian military direction, not Prigozhin’s. This will allow for far better integration, communications and ultimately effectiveness on the battlefield. It also allows Putin to keep hold of the Wagner group campaigns outside Russia, which remain on-going in Syria and a handful of African republics.

Wagner in Belarus
Prigozhin and Lukashenko go back a long way – like many of that era they have come through a great deal of hardships since the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Despite Prigozhin not having political credentials other than a rather thuggish demeanor required, but often hidden out of sight by all politicians; he and Lukashenko are long term acquaintances. The call between Putin and Lukashenko would have been something along the lines of ‘get this guy out of my face’ – and Lukashenko duly obliged.

Prigozhin will almost certainly have been offered some sweeteners – but the fact remains that he is now based in Belarus. This could also mean that Prigozhin is to be positioned partially to create a Belarus wing to Wagner as he did so successfully in Russia. Belarus has a total population of about 9.5 million – but a prison population three times higher than the European average with about 34,000 incarcerated. Depending upon the specific circumstances, that may yield between 3-6 potential battalions. If recruited within the coming weeks, that gives enough time for several months military training and preparation with them ready for action by spring

2024. That could open up a new Northern Front for Ukraine, with the distance from the Belarus border to Kiev just 530km. That, with additional Russian military support coming in would create a new, very serious situation for Kiev early next year.

A Russian Offensive dressed up as a Squabble
On the other hand, what has also occurred is that in just one weekend, a massive shift in the positioning of Russian troops has occurred, with the columns headed towards Moscow suddenly making left turns and regrouping to Russia’s south west borders, Chechen troops brought in to “settle with” Wagner in the south, and Russian army reserve units quickly moving mid-west, again to “settle” with the Wagner Group battalions there. Then, as mentioned earlier, there is Prigozhin himself, now based in Belarus to Ukraine’s north, along with several operational contingents of Wagner.

That doesn’t appear a coincidence; and could mean there was never any planned ‘mutiny’ or ‘coup’. A clue is that Prigozhin last met with Putin just two weeks ago – when everything seemed fine between them.

The repositioning of all these forces, the Russian Army with large reserves, The Chechen Force, and the Wagner Group also means that Russia is now better positioned to take an offensive to a new, far stronger phase from the Russian northeast, leaving the Ukrainians to reassess their positions in the south.

What was shown as a ‘coup’ may in fact have been anything but. In which case Putin, Lukashenko and Prigozhin are laughing through their vodka glasses at the naivety of the West, where anything that looks dodgy about Russia is immediately seized upon as a weakness. If true, the West’s Russophobia is now becoming a weakness for the West.

It also strongly suggests that in Russian terms – which Russians, although not perhaps Western ‘Russia academics’ will understand, is that the entire ruse has been taken from Stanislavsky’s ‘Method for Actors‘. In a nutshell, this calls for the progressive states of Relaxation, Concentrated Attention, Imagination, Communication, and Emotions. This is exactly what appears to have occurred as concerns the entire methodology of the weekend’s Prigozhin Affair.

Prigozhin’s Get Out Of Jail Free Card
As an aside, Prigozhin has another card left to play – he can claim Jewish heritage; and may later seek exile there. A useful guy to have around the Israeli military when facing potential battlefield stresses – as Israel permanently seems to have. Good for Israel, bad for Palestine.

China’s Position
Again, there has been much Western media speculation about China’s views on the Prigozhin incident. In fact, China’s foreign minister Qin Gang met Russian deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko on Sunday (June 25) in Beijing; with the two being pictured smiling and walking

together after what was described as an “exchange of views on Sino-Russian relations and international and regional issues of common concern”. The reality is that China has made no official statement on the weekends events and appears little concerned.

Summary
It should be obvious by now that Russia’s President Putin – and recently the entire country – have been written off so many times by the West that the rhetoric is descending into farcical repetition and misinformation, either deliberate and/or incompetent.

US President Biden declared that economic sanctions ‘would turn the ruble into rubble’ (instead it was the world’s best performing currency in 2022) while the EU constantly assures itself that ‘the sanctions are working’ when clearly, they are not. Neither, it appears, has Ukraine’s long discussed and Western militarily boosted ‘summer offensive’ been anywhere near as productive as originally suggested, with Western media full of content concerning the superiority of their tanks. In fact, they’re nowhere to be seen.

It remains therefore unclear how long the differences between the West’s politicians and the actual on-the-ground reality can remain. What is happening however is that the democratic bird of opinions will soon be winging its way over the United States and much of the EU. 2024 will therefore be a watershed year for Ukraine as determines its future. With winter approaching, there needs to be a massive, and frankly unexpected turn-around for Kiev to be in any position to determine an outcome of its choosing.

With the US about to enter into Presidential campaigning, Biden’s chances will be hampered by a problematic economy and another unwinnable war. With Trump charging around saying he can ‘fix it with just a phone call’, inflation and interest rates remaining high, let alone his age, Biden has his work cut out to maintain his Presidency. That, ultimately, will prove more important than Ukraine’s problems. If so, there will have to be settlement negotiations between Kiev and Moscow. But my opinions on how those are likely to pan out will have to wait for another time.

But what has really come home in terms of the Prigozhin affair, is that it merits little more than an obscure footnote in the Ukraine conflict – despite Western media trying to spin it as something rather more. After all, neither Presidents Putin, nor Lukashenko, and certainly not Yevgeny Prigozhin, are in the business of trying to sell newspapers, nor attract media attention to improve advertising rates.

BRICS Expansion and Dollar Reduction

By Jong Il Hyon

A meeting of foreign ministers of BRICS took place in Cape Town, South Africa some days ago. The meeting, attended by representatives of the BRICS member states and various developing countries, discussed the issue of expanding BRICS as a major agenda. South Africa, the host country of the meeting, announced that 19 countries have so far made formal or informal applications to the organisation for access.

The U.S., which had accumulated a huge amount of wealth along with the Second World War, established the Bretton Woods system with dollar as international standard currency in July 1944. Since then, it has committed worldwide plunder in the way of gaining benefits from mintage based on the predominant position of dollar and has used dollar as a means for realizing its political purpose.

It is well known that the international monetary system based on dollar has become the two pillars backing the U.S. domination over the world, along with military means.

For nearly one century from the gold dollar of the 1940s and the oil dollar of the 1970s to the debt dollar of today, the U.S. has resorted to every means and method to maintain the supremacy of dollar as the key currency, and unhesitatingly committed despicable acts of imposing financial sanctions on those countries which incur its displeasure by abusing the predominant position of dollar.

A typical example is the financial sanctions imposed on Russia after the Ukrainian situation.

The U.S. excluded major banks of Russia from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication with a sinister aim to paralyze Russia's foreign trade and deteriorate its economy, but it fell into the pit it dug for another.

Russia has considerably reduced the dependence on dollar by introducing national currency instead of dollar in trade with other countries including China and India, and the BRICS member states have put spurs to the development of new international currency that will replace U.S. dollar in mutual trade.

Russian President Putin said that the U.S. is caught in its own snare by restricting the use of dollar according to the political situation against other countries, adding that it is inevitable that the U.S. dollar and Western currencies lose their predominant position in international trade due to wrong policy of the U.S. and the West.

A Brazilian political analyst commented that the moves to limit the use of dollar are being made in the trade relations between China and Russia, oil dealing between Russia and India, liquefied natural gas dealing between a Chinese oil company and the French Total Company, nuclear-power plant dealing between Russia and Bangladesh, etc., adding that the global full-dress moves for boycotting dollar are a natural response to the hegemonic country relying on sanctions, threats and blackmail.

The reality goes to prove that it is the high-handed and arbitrary practices of the U.S. trying to maintain its world supremacy that accelerated the world moves for boycotting dollar, spurred the establishment of a new monetary system and encouraged many countries to accede to BRICS.

The U.S.-made axe called sanctions and pressure is cutting down the U.S. foot.

At the recent meeting, BRICS member states agreed to encourage domestic currency settlement in trade among member states and with friendly countries and actively promote the introduction of the common currency in accordance with it. In this regard, experts are unanimous in commenting that BRICS, which is steadily increasing its political influence in the international arena on the basis of rapid economic growth rate and strong military strength of member states, is becoming a challenge to the existing international order and financial system led by the U.S. and the West.

The unprecedented international moves to limit the use of dollar and the tendency of many countries to join BRICS are accelerating the end of dollar as a key currency and the end of the U.S. hegemonism pursuant to it.

Cambodia and other Small States impacted by ongoing Russia-Ukraine war

Prime Minister Hun Sen has reminded Cambodians of the negative impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. The PM made his remarks at a get-together with some 19,000 workers and employees from 13 factories and enterprises in Phnom Penh capital city and Kandal province, held at Morodok Techo National Stadium in Khan Chroy Changvar, Phnom Penh.

The PM stated that as long as the Russia-Ukraine war does not end, the world economy will continue to face difficulties. “As the war continues, the world economy will still be impacted negatively, and everyone, whether Europe or even Cambodia, will be affected,” he underlined.

As European markets have reduced purchase order from Cambodia, the Royal Government is diversifying its export market to Japan, United Arab Emirates… to ensure markets for the Cambodian products, he added.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), amid financial sector turmoil, high inflation, ongoing effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and three years of COVID, the baseline of world economic forecast for growth to fall from 3.4 percent in 2022 to 2.8 percent. in 2023, before settling at 3.0 percent in 2024.

Advanced economies are expected to see an especially pronounced growth slowdown, from 2.7 percent in 2022 to 1.3 percent in 2023.

In a plausible alternative scenario with further financial sector stress, global growth declines to about 2.5 percent in 2023 with advanced economy growth falling below 1 percent.

Global headline inflation in the baseline is set to fall from 8.7 percent in 2022 to 7.0 percent in 2023 on the back of lower commodity prices but underlying (core) inflation is likely to decline more slowly. Inflation’s return to target is unlikely before 2025 in most cases.

Read full article here.

US seeking Ukraine support from India, South Africa and Brazil ?

Officials from China and Turkey could also attend the meeting. Jake Sullivan will be accompanied by Victoria Nuland, another notable official at the US state department and a senior EU official. Despite notable attendance, the meeting will be conducted informally, sources told FT.

"We're working to advocate on their [Ukraine's] behalf with a broader range of countries than just those that show up around in NATO ... or at the G7," Sullivan said earlier this week.

Joe Biden's top aide will fly to Copenhagen after the conclusion of Indian PM Narendra Modi's diplomatic visit to the US.

The move comes on the back of Kyiv's insistence on expanding pro-Ukrainian support, acknowledging the counteroffensive had been "slower than expected".

None of the developing countries invited to Copenhagen for the meeting has condemned the war Russian aggression on Ukraine.

The Copenhagen meeting will discuss potential solutions for conflict resolution, without pushing for a concrete outcome.

While the Russia-China trade has surged in the months following the invasion, India has also emerged as a major trade ally of the Kremlin.

Beijing released a 12-point proposed peace plan in February, but Ukraine’s allies largely dismissed it, insisting Putin’s forces must withdraw and face prosecution for war crimes.

Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has blamed both countries for the war, refusing to condemn Vladimir Putin.

Other countries have also continued to help Russia to varying degrees including Turkey – a NATO member – acting as a mediator between the two warring forces.

Loss of China, Again?

By Bradley Thayer

The fundamental responsibility of every U.S. president was to defend the safety and national security of the United States. Since the end of World War II, the central objective of every U.S. president was to sustain what their predecessors had created. Then, having defeated one peer competitor, the Soviet Union, their obligation was to prevent the rise of another. It was an easier strategic task given the abject poverty and military weakness of the PRC. Thus, sustaining the status quo should have been a far easier task than generating U.S. victory in World War II and the defeat of the Soviets in the Cold War.

Yet they failed.

This failure compels an examination of why it occurred, and thus why post-Cold War U.S. presidents wasted what had been provided by previous generations. The buck stops with the U.S. presidents. During this period—Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama squandered our earned advantage, before Trump attempted to reverse course, and now Joe Biden appears to be reversing Trump’s course correction.

An accounting begins with the recognition that presidential leadership regarding the PRC threat was absent in the aftermath of the Cold War. In fact, the U.S. aided the PRC’s rise through ever-greater volumes of trade and investment. While President Jimmy Carter granted Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status to Beijing in 1980, the PRC’s growth did not take off until Deng fully supported capitalism in the wake of his 1992 economic reforms. Two years later, President Clinton ended the need for MFN renewal on a yearly basis, which had been linked, at least, to improvements in the PRC’s atrocious human rights record. Clinton granted the PRC MFN status on a permanent basis and placed the PRC on the path towards membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). The PRC then entered the West’s economic ecosystem. From that time, the PRC’s rise was rapid and added a new peer competitor.

A review of this history reveals there were four major inflection points in the post-Cold War period where the PRC might have been stopped.

First, from Clinton to Obama, the presidents never publicly communicated to the U.S. government inter-agency system that the PRC was a threat to U.S. national security or tasked the inter-agency process with addressing the threat while Beijing was still relatively weak. Clinton, Bush, and Obama never challenged the intelligence community about the evidence regarding the PRC as a growing threat. Neither did they task the national security council to analyze options for checking and countering the PRC’s rise.

Second, Clinton’s termination of linkage between MFN renewal and the PRC’s human rights record blunted the most effective tool we had for combatting the PRC. Leadership on U.S. trade policy might have been employed to hinder the PRC’s growth and, likewise, the CCP’s claim to legitimacy. This was especially evident in the wake of the 1995-1996 Taiwan Straits crisis. But even this crisis did not change Clinton’s policy. The influence from Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and the Chamber of Commerce adversely affected the U.S. political system, including during the first Clinton Administration when “coffees” provided Chinese money to influence U.S. politics before the 1996 election. This pecuniary and malign influence had a powerful impact on the U.S. domestic political system. It rapidly broadened to include both major political parties. As a result, the highest levels of U.S. government leadership developed pro-PRC engagement priorities.

Third, Bush’s nascent presidency was rocked by the April 2001 collision between a PRC fighter and an unarmed U.S. EP-3E reconnaissance aircraft which offered Bush the possibility of re-evaluating the Sino-American relationship due to the aggression evinced by the Chinese military. The horrific 9/11 terrorist attacks eliminated that possibility. In retrospect, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) viewed 9/11 as a windfall victory for the PRC as it distracted the United States—centering its strategic attention on the Middle East—away from the CCP’s agenda of expansion. Beijing took full advantage of that strategic preoccupation, with the active encouragement of many U.S. business partners, to achieve its present position as the peer competitor and main threat to the interests and position of the United States.

The major strategic consequence of 9/11 was that the United States did not move to reverse Clinton’s policy, it did not check Beijing’s rise when it might have done so at lower cost. The strategic myopia of the United States afforded the PRC a rare and priceless grand strategic gift in international politics: time that yielded freedom of action while the enemy was preoccupied. The results were to move from a relatively weak competitor to a great power, competitive rival without any effective resistance or counterbalancing from the United States. Indeed, just the reverse, unconstrained engagement with the PRC became the de facto U.S. foreign policy directive of this and future presidencies.

As a result, U.S. intellectual capital, investment, and outsourcing continued to flow to the PRC. Washington’s strategic nearsightedness permitted the PRC to change the status quo against the interests of the United States and its allies like Japan in the East and South China Seas, as well as greater belligerence toward a key partner like Taiwan.

Fourth, under Obama there was no change to the engagement strategy. In fact there was an expansion of this misguided strategy despite public proclamations of the administration’s “pivot to the Pacific.” The betrayal of the Philippines at Scarborough Shoal in 2012 single-handedly emboldened the PRC’s expansion in the South China Sea as Beijing realized it would receive no effective resistance from the Obama Administration. Despite a reversal during the Trump Administration, it now appears that the Biden Administration is returning to this failed and destructive agenda that has beset so many prior American presidencies.

As Deng planned, the PRC’s economic growth allowed it to establish new international economic institutions like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), all of which laid the foundation for a new economic order. Beijing had time to spread its influence in Africa, Central and South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America. In the military realm, the PRC augmented its conventional and strategic military capabilities, including in cyberspace and actual space, and in the development of hypersonic weapons. It created the world’s largest navy and generated the infrastructure to build and maintain that fleet. It also labored to professionalize its military and today has prepared it for combined, joint operations against the United States and its allies and partners like Taiwan.

The PRC acted boldly to solidify its impressive rise while the prime U.S. strategic focus was the war on terror in the Middle East and engagement with the PRC. Today the PRC is the most formidable peer competitor the United States has faced in its history. Whether China defeats the United States is the strategically dispositive question of the 21st century, but it is long past time that the United States recognizes the challenge and responds to it. Any response must acknowledge the historical record and the failure of presidential leadership, with the exception of Trump, to identify and defeat the threat.

Read full article here.

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