ERECTING DEFENSIVE LINES ACROSS EURASIA

 

Present-day NATO.

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(Events are moving fast all over Eurasia, while geopolitical blocs are cementing, centered around the Western world and the Bricsian countries. Here are some tweets posted on X in the last few days.)

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Argentina was supposed to join the BRICS informal economic association, but a new pro-US government was elected and chose not to join the group. As for Saudi Arabia, it was interested in joining the BRICS and was formally invited to do so, but its government apparently decided to wait a little before it finalize its inclusion, probably in order to see the outcome of the Israeli war, a major event that may determine who will be the preeminent power in the Middle East in the near future: America or China.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/1365723/brics-expansion-implications-for-africa-and-the.html

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The London-based The Economist may see one day the start of a widespread, violent civil war in Georgia, Myanmar-style, with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dead people all over the place. The Anglo-Americans are good in spreading divisions and fear. Myanmar is a broken country these days, mostly because of their meddling, turning the younger Bamar population and the national minorities against the older Bamar population and the central government. Whatever happen in the next few weeks and months, the whole population of Georgia, both old and young, will decide where to lean politically, whether toward Brussels or toward Moscow. The European Union is richer but much further away than the Russian Federation, a political entity that also keep in its hands two important bargaining tools: Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two autonomous territories that formally belong to Georgia but are protected by Russia. Russia has some more cards to play: it is a member of the BRICS and of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It is also protecting tiny Armenia, located just to the south of Georgia and to the north of Iran, with a military base near Yerevan, capital of the Armenian republic. It must be added here that the Farsi-speaking inhabitants of Iran are also keeping a benevolent eye over the Armeni-speaking inhabitants of Armenia, those two ancient Indo-European peoples having lived side by side in the Middle East for at least two millenia, mostly peacefully. All this mean that the slow erection of a defensive line is going on, running from Arkhangelsk, in the northern part of European Russia, to Abadan, in the southern part of Iran, passing through both Georgia and Armenia. That new-style 'Iron Curtain' is useful for Beijing, in its current tug of war with Washington, protecting China and the other SCO group of countries on their western, continental flank. China may then concentrate on its eastern, maritime flank, facing Taiwan and the first island chain. That western wall will neatly counter the new NATO defensive line, presently running from Norway to the Turkish Straits, then to Anatolia. Thus, two 'Iron Curtains' will be facing each other. For decades, the central part of the NATO defensive position was located along the north-south corridor Germany / Alps / Italy, with lateral wings north and southeast. That central part has been pushed by America toward Russia in the last decades and now runs along the north-south corridor Poland / Carpathians / Rumania, again with lateral wings north and south, following the gradual eastward expansion of NATO that played such an ominous and fateful part in the two Ukrainian wars, the one that took place in 2014 and the one that started in 2022. The new defensive line of the Western world will likely stay in place for the time being, at least for its central part. Even though Turkiye is now a BRICS partner, it is unclear whether it may choose to continue its long-standing association with the Western-oriented NATO or joining one day the Eurasian-oriented SCO. Time will tell. As for the collective security arrangements of continental Europe, they are currently provided through the NATO framework. Whether this change one day for a different arrangement, through an European Union umbrella instead of a NATO one, will depend a lot on what would unfold under the next US administration, a few weeks from now, starting in January 2025...

https://www.economist.com/europe/2024/12/15/protests-threaten-georgias-kremlin-friendly-government

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Washington is cementing its military relations with Japan and the Philippines, those two countries forming a kind of barrier separating China from the Pacific Ocean, along an elongeted axis shaped by the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyus archipelago and the Filipino archipelago. The island of Formosa, the seat of the Chinese province of Taiwan, lies just between the Japanese Empire and the Philippines Republic and remain at the very crux of the current growing tensions between Washington and Beijing.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/South-China-Sea/Philippine-Senate-ratifies-military-access-pact-with-Japan

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Both Malaysia and Thailand are partners of the BRICS countries, and this fact has to be an important factor in these announcements. The economic investments will serve to alleviate poverty and also to reduce the ethnic tensions arising from the Malay rebellion in the three southernmost provinces of Thailand, a mainly Buddhist country, just like Myanmar to the westward of it, and Laos and Cambodia to its eastward. Obviously, the hand of Beijing is at work here, especially when one considers the proposed alignment of high-speed railway lines between the two southeast Asian countries. The construction of a high-speed rail connection between Kunming, the capital of the Chinese province of Yunnan, and Singapore, the mainly sinophone city-state that sit at the southern tip of the Malayan peninsula has long been a dream of the Chinese government. That dream seemingly just crossed another step in its implementation.

https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3291031/malaysia-and-thailand-seek-revive-border-area-bridge-and-rail-upgrade?share=IlfprJSDm%2FYcW3wgP7lMCT838Ye01mbUVAkFDKByn6RxHhp6uOQqE1kCNn52pKnVj3zNiH%2FS7lw8kiNwOY1C5Ly1quicNLfxjUJDfH7Qaa6O%2BeuF7InMclSIYrQjlbez82231iJtQrBi%2Fv2e1bs8EA%3D%3D

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According to The Economist, Israel intend to open more civilian settlements all over the Golan Heights, annexed since the 1967 Six-Days war, presumably to anchor it more firmly into Israeli Hebrew-speaking society. The new Syrian government may change its tune about Israel if that country's far-right government continue to a) overfly it with warplanes as if it own the sky over Syria, 2) use the very convenient "terrorism" epithet to bomb Syrian-held territory with impunity, 3) encroach a little too much on its traditional lands or 4) persist with the same deplorable looking-down-on-you attitude it seems to have toward its many (and collectively powerful) Arab neighbors.

https://www.india.com/news/world/syria-civil-war-israel-changes-stance-on-syria-after-hayat-tahrir-al-sham-abu-mohammad-al-julani-statement-israeli-army-idf-chief-herzi-halevi-mount-hermon-golan-heights-occupation-netanyahu-khamenei-7467387/?usqp=mq331AQIUAKwASCAAgM=&_kit=1

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There is one big difference between Syria and Myanmar. Assad's foreign backers were in no position to support his government when push came to shove. The Assad house of cards crumbled. The government of Myanmar is not in exactly the same situation. Its huge northeastern neighbor, China, has sunk a lot of money over there, in economic projects, and it has the ability to intervene militarily if the need arises, in order to protect its investments and also to insure a direct access to the Indian Ocean, bypassing the Strait of Malacca. As an aside, it must be said that the Indian government may be playing a discreet role in the Burmese crisis, along with Britain and America, since it has almost no allies around it, and the easiest direction in which to gradually develop its economic and political influence is not to the north (China) or to the west (Muslim countries), but to the south (Maldives, Sri Lanka) and, especially, to the east, toward the continental part of the ASEAN countries.

https://johnmenadue.com/european-deportation-of-syrian-refugees-a-sign-of-the-times/

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (X-Twitter)