Whispering in the Wind (WITW 30) May 20, 2014
The big boys are starting to flex some serious muscle in the
geo-political arena where there is no referee and there are no Queensberry
rules of play. What makes the current
sparring between nations so dangerous is how will the geo-political landscape
change?
Putin’s
Vision for a New Russia
As outlined last week, Russian President Putin’s prime
political objective is to assemble a reconstituted Soviet Union, if not a new tsarist
type, Imperial Russia. Operating under
the pretext that Russia was only protecting ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, Mr.
Putin was able to annex the autonomous region of Crimea where it is estimated
that 90 percent of the population is Russian speaking. Now the two most eastern regions in eastern
Ukraine, the Luhansk and Donetsk districts are under pro-Russian control, have
declared independence from the central government in Kiev and will not allow
for the national presidential election scheduled for May 25. Oligarchs in the eastern provinces are not
supporting the pro-Russian forces and are asking that they lay down their arms
and go back to work. For Mr. Putin, he
has taken a wait-and-see strategy saying that he welcomes the presidential
elections and ordered some Russian troops back from the Ukrainian boarder. I don’t think there is any doubt there will
be revolt by some disgruntled rebels, if not civil war in the eastern provinces
after May 25’s election. Mr. Putin will
restrain himself from further intervention in the eastern provinces as long as
NATO doesn’t get involved. The big
question for Mr. Putin; will he have to back down on his expansionist visions
or will he be satisfied with just the Crimea’s annexation? .
China’s
Bullying Tactics
The Philippines and Vietnam are involved in a standoff
with China on the high seas and it appears that there could be war in the South
China Sea – for the moment the two sides are using water cannons to express
their views and displeasure. It appears
that China has moved a giant oil rig (along with a number of war ships) last
month into waters that are claimed by the Filipinos and the Vietnamese. China’s incursion into the region appears to
be a blatant bullying tactic on the part of the People’s Republic of China – as
they have done in other territorial disputes in the Asian region. For the current standoff in the South China
Sea the Vice-president of the United States opined to the Chinese
authorities: “China must not undermine
security and peace” which to me is a rather weak statement coming from the once
undisputed authority on international conduct – how things have changed!
United
States in Trouble
Forty fifty years ago there was no question as to who was
the world’s economic power house, who was the world’s military superpower, who
set the standard of international conduct and who did the policing. In the same fifty year timeframe “globalization”
took hold and again the United States’ corporate giants were the dominant
factor in international economic relations.
In 1975 Fortune 500 ranked the world’s largest companies (in terms of
revenue) and of the 10 largest, 9 were United States based – the three largest being;
Exxon, General Motors and Ford. In 2013
Fortune 500 top 10 list included 2 US based companies (Wal-Mart was second and
Exxon was third) with China having 3 on the top 10 list, Europe having 4 and
Japan’s having one. On top of Fortune’s
list was the Royal Dutch Shell company of the Netherlands with close to a half
trillion dollars in revenue. From my
perspective it doesn’t take a lot of analysis to conclude that the United
States has lost considerable ground when it comes to world economic
dominance. At present the US remains
the largest, most significant market for goods and services produced outside
its territorial boarders and it will remain so as long as it can continue to
borrow money (and go further into debt).
For the United States, the big question is going to be can they turn
themselves around and remain a dominant player – at the moment things do not
look particularly good.
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