On 8 January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkiye is determined to send flour and grain to African states through the Black Sea corridor.
He added that the Russian President Vladimir Putin assured Ankara that Russia would be able to provide grain for free on the condition that it is delivered to underdeveloped countries in Africa.
As the prospect of a rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus becomes more imminent, the most extreme elements of Syria’s armed opposition have been feeling a sting of betrayal, accelerating a trend that, over the past year, has seen many jihadists relocate to Ukraine.
The newly-initiated Syrian-Turkish rapprochement talks are headed in Damascus’ favor and the “Turkish concessions” derided by opponents are just the start, insiders tell The Cradle.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already abandoned his dream of “praying in the Umayyad Mosque” in Damascus. But sources say this will be swiftly followed by further concessions that will throw a wrench into the ambitions of Syria’s opposition factions.
Predictions about the future of war follow narratives and intellectual fashions. At the beginning of the millennium, the emergence of high-tech drones—the U.S. military’s all-seeing eyes in Afghanistan—fueled futuristic visions of battles contested by robots and computers. By the mid-2010s, the success of Russian information operations, election interference, and weaponized corruption in Europe and the United States had given rise to the idea that even a major country could be controlled without the use of force. Others thought that mutual dependence on trade and commerce in a globalized age would render a major war unlikely—or keep it locally contained.
The South African Institute of International Affairs has put into circulation its latest policy report on Russia-African relations. In the introductory chapter, Steven Gruzd, Samuel Ramani and Cayley Clifford – have summarized various aspects of the developments between between Russia and Africa over the past few years and finally questioned the impact of Russia’s policy on Africa.
The coming war as concept
The war against Russia is currently the most discussed issue in the West. At this point it is only a suggestion and a possibility, but it can become a reality depending on the decisions taken by all parties involved in the Ukrainian conflict – Moscow, Washington, Kiev, and Brussels.
I don’t want to discuss all the aspects and history of this conflict here. Instead I propose to analyze its deep ideological roots. My conception of the most relevant events is based on the Fourth Political Theory, whose principles I have described in my book under the same name that was published in English by Arktos Media in 2012.
Therefore I will not examine the war of the West on Russia in terms of its risks, dangers, issues, costs or consequences, but rather in an ideological sense as seen from the global perspective. I will therefore meditate on the sense of such a war, and not on the war itself (which may be either real or virtual).
Essence of liberalism
In the modern West, there is one ruling, dominant ideology – liberalism. It may appear in many shades, versions and forms, but the essence is always the same. Liberalism contains an inner, fundamental structure which follows axiomatic principles:
The West cannot relinquish the sense of itself at the centre of the Universe, albeit no longer in a racial sense, Alastair Crooke writes.
A strategic aim would require a unitary purpose that could be succinctly outlined. It would require additionally a compelling clarity about the means by which the aim would be achieved and a coherent vision about what a successful outcome would actually look like.
Олег Нестеренко
Представителям западного сообщества довольно удобно сплотиться вокруг нарративов НАТО о причинах вооруженного конфликта в Украине и не ставить себя в положение дискомфорта сомнений и проверки постулатов, доминирующих общественное мнение.
Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announces the Biden Administration’s commitment of $3.075 billion in additional security assistance for Ukraine. This includes the authorization of a Presidential Drawdown of security assistance valued at up to $2.85 billion to meet Ukraine’s critical security and defense needs, as well as the Department of State’s announcement of $225 million in Foreign Military Financing to contribute to the long-term capacity and modernization of Ukraine’s military.
More than one-third of the U.S. population was born after 1970, and thus has no personal memories of the Cold War, particularly the Berlin crises or the Cuban missile crisis. Since we are in the early stages of a new Cold War, it’s a good time to review the tensions that we will confront. Spoiler alert: Cold War 2.0 will be more costly and risky than its predecessor.