Let’s put aside for a moment the nonsense about Russia hijacking the vote with Facebook ads and focus on the endgame.
The neoliberal economic order is based on natural resource and market dominance, so it’s no surprise when it reacts violently to efforts by others to map out resource acquisition.
UK Sending 800 Troops to Arctic Citing Russian Threat https://t.co/CurkzVkV9f pic.twitter.com/Zw2AUWflCn
— Russia Insider (@RussiaInsider) October 1, 2018
Case it point: US partner in global crime the United Kingdom is sending 800 commandos to the frozen wasteland that is the North Pole to confront Russia as it searches the large expanse of ice and snow for natural resources. Russian energy titans Gazprom and Rosneft were granted rights to develop hydrocarbon deposits in the region. The British Royal Marine commandos will operate alongside their US, Dutch, and Norwegian counterparts.
It’s believed 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15 percent of its oil lies beneath the frigid waters of the Arctic.
Russia will not be allowed to tap this immense reservoir if the US and its partners have anything to say about it. Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the US control territory in the Arctic, but not Britain, which absurdly declares the region is its “backyard.”
NATO is in on the effort to prevent Russia from tapping additional hydrocarbons. It participated in a Norwegian-led Cold Response exercise in the Arctic earlier this year. The ultimate objective is to militarize the Arctic and prevent Russia or any country not part of the neoliberal economic arrangement from staking out territory and developing its natural resources.
“The United States is anxious to militarize the Arctic Ocean. It has to do it via its relations with Canada and it is also seeking to do it via NATO, through the participation of Norway and Denmark in NATO. And now it is calling upon Sweden and Finland to essentially join NATO with a view to establishing a NATO agenda in the Arctic,” Michel Chossudovsky of the Center for Research on Globalization told RT, the Russian news network recently forced to register as a foreign agent in the United States.
In September, Russia announced it will maintain a long-term stay in the Arctic after its military presence there came to an end with the fall of the Soviet Union. A Russian task group departed the port of Severomorsk.
“The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation will fully implement the task of permanent military presence in the Arctic to secure the legal access of the country to resources and spaces of this region. This will be a constant presence,” Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said.
In 2016, the Pentagon told Congress locking down Arctic resources for the exclusive use by transnational energy corporations is part of the US national security policy.
“It is also in the DoD’s interest to shape military activity in the Arctic region to avoid conflict while improving its capability to operate safely and sustain forces in a harsh, remote environment in anticipation of increasing accessibility and activity in the Arctic in the coming years,” the Pentagon’s Strategy to Protect United States National Security Interests in the Arctic Region report states.
In addition to blocking Russia from developing this bounty of hydrocarbons, the US and its partners are working on multiple fronts to degrade the Russian economy and pile up military forces along its western border. Sanctions were imposed after the Russian-speaking people of Crimea voted to separate from the Ukrainian fascists who took over the country with direct assistance from the State Department. The US calls this vote by the people of Ukraine annexation.
The US exploited the bogus UK poisoning of the Skirpals to further impose sanctions. From the State Department, dated September 27 and posted to the Federal Register:
“The Department of State, acting under authority delegated to the Secretary of State pursuant to Executive Order 12851, has determined pursuant to Section 306(a) of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical weapons in violation of international law or lethal chemical weapons against its own nationals.”
The State Department sanctions, masquerading as an attempt to protect the innocent, are directly aimed at the Russian economy and its national security.
“A State Department official said the main impact of the new measures will be on access by Russian state-owned and state-funded enterprises to goods and technology with national security value. The official said the move would hit key parts of Russia’s aviation and oil and gas sectors, among others,” reports Bloomberg.
In other words, the US and its partners want to make certain Russia cannot realize its national security objectives, thus softening it up for the endgame—a “color revolution” that will bring it back into the neoliberal fold, as it was during the disastrous rule of Boris Yeltsin, basically a useful idiot for the West and neoliberalism.
In early September, Russia and China announced joint military exercises and additional bilateral relations. In the lead-up to the Moscow International Security Conference in April, China said it has Russia’s back. Chinese Defense Minister Wei Feng declared “the Chinese side has come to show Americans the close ties between the armed forces of China and Russia.”
Before annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia viewed China’s demographic advantage and rising influence in Central Asia with apprehension. Then, when Western sanctions hit, Moscow increasingly turned to Beijing for trade and financial support.https://t.co/ewQbgBfeHD
— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) October 1, 2018
Now, in addition to accusations Russia is involved cyber attacks, annexation, physical attacks (the Skripals) and thus endangering “democracy,” we have the prospect of war over hydrocarbons in the frozen Arctic.
If the US continues to push its economic warfare scheme against Russian and China (sanctions, a trade war), eventually the Chinese and Russians will react. The three largest militaries in the world are now edging closer to a final thermonuclear showdown. Meanwhile, the US is racing to reignite the Cold War, which was mostly national security state theater.
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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Another Day in the Empire.
Kurt Nimmo is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
