By Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture
May 10, 2024
Startling mirror images swirl around two major developments this week directly inbuilt in the Grand Narrative that shapes my latest book, Eurasia v. NATOstan, recently published in the U.S.: Xi Jinping's visit to Paris and the inauguration of Vladimir Putin's new term in Moscow.
Inevitably, this is a contrasting tale of Sovereigns - the comprehensive Russia-China strategic partnership - and lackeys: the NATOstan/EU vassals.
Xi, the quintessential hermetic guest, is quite sharp at reading a table - and we're not talking about Gallic gastronomic finesse. The minute he sat at the Paris table he got the Big Picture. This was not a tete-a-tete with Le Petit Roi, Emmanuel Macron. This was a threesome because Toxic Medusa Ursula von der Leyen, more appropriately defined as Pustula von der Lugen, had inserted herself in the plot.
Nothing was lost in translation for Xi: this was graphic illustration that Le Petit Roi, the leader of a third-rate former Western colonial power, enjoys zero "strategic autonomy". The decisions that matter come from the Kafkaesque Eurocracy of the European Commission (EC), led by his Nanny, the Medusa, and directly relayed by the Hegemon.
Le Petit Roi spent the whole of Xi's Gallic time babbling like an infant on Putin's "destabilizations" and trying to "engage China, which objectively enjoys sufficient levers to change Moscow's calculus in its war in Ukraine".
Obviously no pubescent adviser at the Elysee Palace - and there's quite a crowd - dared to break the news to Le Petit Roi about the strength, depth and reach of the Russia-China strategic partnership.
So it was up to his Nanny to volunteer out loud the fine print on the "Monsieur Xi comes to France" adventure.
Faithfully parroting Treasure Secretary Janet Yellen in her recent, disastrous Beijing incursion, the Nanny directly threatened the superpowered hermetic guest: you are exceeding in "over-capacity", you are over-producing; and if you don't stop it, we will sanction you to death.
So much for European "strategic autonomy". Moreover, it's idle to dwell on what can only be described as suicidal stupidity.
Steadfastly defending a debacle
Now let's switch to what really matters: the chain of events leading to Putin's lavish fifth inauguration at the Kremlin.
We start with the chief of GRU (main intelligence department) of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Admiral Igor Kostyukov.
Kostyukov, on the record, actually re-confirmed that right on the eve of the Special Military Operation (SMO), in February 2022, the West was ready to inflict a "strategic defeat" on Russia in Donbass, just as before the Great Patriotic War (Victory Day, incidentally, is celebrated this Thursday not only in Russia but also across the post-Soviet space).
Then the ambassadors of Britain and France were called at the Russian Foreign Ministry. They spent roughly half an hour each, separately, and left without addressing the media. There were no leaks about the reasons for both visits.
Yet that was more than obvious. The Foreign Ministry handed the Brits a serious note in response to David "of Arabia" Cameron's babbling about using British long-range missiles to attack the territory of the Russian Federation. And to the French, another serious note on Le Petit Roi's babbling about sending French troops to Ukraine.
Immediately after this compounded NATO babbling, the Russian Federation started drills on the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
So what started as a NATO verbal escalation was counterpunched not only with stern messages but also an extra, clear, stern warning: Moscow will regard any F-16 entering Ukraine as a potential carrier of nuclear weapons - regardless of its specific design. F-16s in Ukraine will be treated as a clear and present danger.
And there's more: Moscow will respond with symmetric measures if Washington deploys any ground-based intermediate-range nuclear missiles (INF) in Ukraine - or elsewhere. There will be a counterpunch.
All that happened within the framework of astonishing Ukrainian losses in the battlefield over the past two months or so. The only parallels are with the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and the first Gulf War. Kiev, between dead, wounded and missing, may be losing as many as 10,000 soldiers a week: the equivalent of three divisions, 9 brigades or 30 battalions.
No compulsory mobilization, whatever its reach, can counter such debacle. And the much-advertised Russian offensive has not even started yet.
There's no way the current U.S. administration led by a cadaver in the White House, in an electoral year, is going to send troops to a war that from the beginning was scripted to be fought to the last Ukrainian. And there's no way NATO will officially send troops to this proxy war, because they will be minced into steak tartare in a matter of hours.
Any serious military analyst knows NATO has less than zero capability to transfer significant forces and assets to Ukraine - no matter the current, grandiloquent Steadfast Defender "exercises" coupled with Macron's mini-Napoleon rhetoric.
So it's Ouroboros all over again, the snake biting its own sorry tail: there was never a Plan B to the proxy war. And at the current configuration in the battlefield, plus possible outcomes, we're back to what everyone from Putin to Nebenzya at the UN have been saying: it's over only when we say it's over. The only thing to negotiate is the modality of surrendering.
And of course there will be no sniffin' sweaty sweatshirt cabal in place in Kiev: Zelensky is already a "Wanted" entity in Russia, and in a few days, from a legal standpoint, his government will be totally illegitimate.
Russia aligns with the world majority
Moscow has to be fully aware that serious threats remain: what NATOstan wants is to test the strategic capability of hitting Russian military, manufacturing or energy installations deep within the Russian Federation. This could be easily interpreted as a last shot of bourbon at the counter before the 404 saloon goes down in flames.
After all, Moscow's response will have to be devastating, as already communicated by Medvedev Unplugged: "None of them will be able to hide either on Capitol Hill, or in the Elysee Palace, or on Downing Street 10. A world catastrophe will happen."
Putin, at the inauguration, was cool, calm and collected, unfazed by all the hysterical incandescence across the NATOstan sphere.
These are his main takeaways:
Russia and only Russia will determine its own fate.
Russia will pass through this difficult, milestone period with dignity and become even stronger, it must be self-sufficient and competitive.
The key priority for Russia is safeguarding the people, preserving its age-old values and traditions.
Russia is ready to strengthen good relations with all countries, and with the world majority.
Russia will continue to work with its partners on the formation of a multipolar world order.
Russia does not reject dialog with the West, it is ready for dialog on security and strategic stability, but only on an equal footing.
All that is supremely rational. The problem is the other side is supremely irrational.
Still, a new Russian government will be in place in a matter of days. The new Prime Minister will be appointed by the President after the Duma approves the candidacy.
The new head of the Cabinet must propose to the President and the Duma candidates for deputy prime ministers and ministers - except for the heads of the security bloc and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The heads of the Ministry of Defense, FSB, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Emergency Situations and Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be appointed by the President after consultations with the Federation Council.
All ministerial candidacies will be submitted and considered before May 15.
And all that will happen before the key meeting: Putin and Xi face to face in Beijing on May 17. Everything will be in play - and on the table. Then a new era starts - outlining the path towards the BRICS+ summit next October in Kazan, and the subsequent multipolar moves.
The NATOstan lackeys will remain dazed, confused - and hysterical. So what; lackeys lack strategic depth, they just wallow in the shallow waters of irrelevancy.
The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.