Global Research

The Big Picture of the Geopolitical Chess Game: Ukraine is A “Square on the Chessboard”

Global Research, June 01, 2014

Theme: Global Economy, US NATO War Agenda

The Ukrainian civil war driven by the junta of the Kiev thugs and supported with arms and money by Washington, NATO and the European puppets, continues killing their country-men and women in the eastern Donbass area. The Kiev army and death squads are accompanied by hundreds of Academi (former Blackwater) mercenaries and CIA advisors, mainly to make sure that the Kiev troops will not defect but execute their marching orders, namely fighting and killing their brothers and sisters, lest they risk being shot as traitors.

To be sure, the Kiev criminal army does not take prisoners; they kill them on the spot.

Not to mention the hundred Ukrainians killed by the infamous Maidan snipers – by now known to be US paid mercenaries, just a day before the illegal coup d’état of 22 February 2014, that brought to power the current neo-Nazi government.

More and more compassionate people around the world, including from hapless Europe, are becoming restless, asking impatiently – how much longer blood must flow? – When will Russia intervene? – A legitimate question, so it would appear from the outset. Understandably, as the context is simple: the illegal ‘regime change’ was sponsored, paid for and instigated by the US / CIA / NATO / EU – and prepared during more than ten years at a cost of at least 5 billion dollars – as Madame Nuland boasted on several occasions.

This US / EU organized coup is now turning Ukraine, a once prosperous country, the breadbasket of the Soviet Union and the cradle of Russia into chaos, to become easy prey for the usual western money sharks, the IMF, European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB). Behind them are the FED and Wall Street, to make sure they do as told. No mercy. For starters a US$ 17.5 billion IMF loan with the usual killer strings attached, à la Greece – large-scale privatization of the country’s social safety net, i.e. cutting salaries pensions (in half), food and fuel subsidies, increasing taxes – is rapidly becoming a nightmare for the average citizen and especially the poor.

In addition, a US / NATO sledgehammer style killing machine is launched against the ‘pro-Russian opposition’ movement, now also called the Neo-Rossiia Defense Force (NDF).

So – why is Mr. Putin not speaking up – acting up – saving fellow Russian lives? Why does he seemingly accept the sham election that brought the corrupt and corrupted multi-billionaire, chocolate magnate, Petr Poroshenko to power? – The straw in the wind, that bends to where the money flows?

There is a higher agenda at stake.

Ukraine is a mere square on the chessboard of a large-scale and long-term geopolitical game; one that is about to cause a slow but steady tectonic power shift. The symbiotic alliance between the two giants – Russia and China, the world’s largest economy, has been under preparation for the last couple of decades. It came to a sudden head thanks to Washington’s bullying arrogance, thrashing around with empty threats, worthless sanctions, anti-Russia and Putin demonizing lies and propaganda.

The historic signing on 21 May 2014 of the US$ 400 billion equivalent gas deal between Mr. Vladimir Putin and China’s President Xi Jinping had an important symbolic significance. It is a complement to the US$ 270 billion equivalent oil deal, signed in June 2013 between Russia’s Rosneft and China. The treaties are not denominated in dollars but in the two countries’ local currencies. In a larger context, the – $ 400 billion over 30 years, about $ 13 billion per year – is nothing extraordinary. Russia’s annual trade in hydrocarbons alone is estimated at close to one trillion dollars.

However, the deal signals more than gas. It signals an alliance, a trusting and lasting partnership, beyond the Putin-Jinping generation. In parallel with the gas deal is the solidification of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a Eurasian political, economic and military union founded in 1996 as the Shanghai Five – China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, expanded in 2001 under the leadership of China to also include Uzbekistan.

To further solidify the Oriental pact is the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Created in 1992, it comprised Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In 2012 Uzbekistan withdrew under pressure from the West, aiming to become associated with the EU. The current membership includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, with a rotating Presidency. Iran is a possible candidate to join this alliance of otherwise all former Soviet Republics.

In addition, and based on the idea of the European Union, on 29 May 2014, a day before the signing of the Russia-China gas deal, the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) treaty was signed. The initial members include Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Provided the treaty is approved by the parliament of each government, the union will enter into effect on 1 January 2015 under the umbrella of the Eurasian Commission (modelled after the European Commission). It comprises 170 million people with an expected economic output of 2.7 trillion dollars equivalent. Further candidates to join the organization are Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

And then – there is the New Silk Road – recently announced by President Xi Jinping in Duisburg, Germany, inviting Germany to become the western-most link of the road connecting Russia, several of the former Soviet Republics and China. Interested in joining this new alliance are also Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, all of which were present last week in the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, the Russian counterpart to Davos, when then New Silk Road was one of the priority topics.

The new Silk Road is poised to become a huge magnet for trade, attracting in the West most if not all of the current EU members – whose currently largest trading partner is Germany – and in the East it may reach as far north as Mongolia and as far east as Malaysia.

These alliances and partnerships for trade, security and cooperation are unions of mutual trust. Europe would do well to take a good look at what TRUST means. They would perhaps discover that NATO is but a neo-colonization of Europe, with the purpose of keeping Europe in the Anglo-Zionist sphere as a buffer zone, so to speak, between East and West, preventing them from ‘switching over’ to the rapidly growing Eurasia Economic Union which already now looks more attractive and promising for the future than the economically down-trodden EU in alliance with the US. Not to mention the attraction of the new Silk Road.

Is it so hard to notice that the Washington – NATO gang are just a bunch of lies and broken promises? – Proven throughout the Cold War which was based on false anti-Soviet propaganda in order to bolster the US military industrial complex, already then the lifeline of the American economy and the basis for its wasteful consumer society. Lies exacerbated by the broken promise in 1990 by James Baker, then US Secretary of State, to Soviet President Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastwards? – A promise totally ignored when in 1999 NATO entered Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, and in 2004 followed Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Besides, who could trust a nation with destabilizing counter-insurgency units deployed in 134 countries? – Last count, according to Joachim Hagopian, former West Point army officer -

The just congealed eastern-oriental union – SCO, CSTO, EEU and the New Silk Road – signify a geopolitical sea-change hard to swallow for Washington and its minion allies. They won’t let go easily. Their world vision, though short-sighted, is on global hegemony, control of the world’s resources, people and economies.

Now – what if Mr. Putin would just for a moment sidestep from its long-term objective of peace and cooperation – and would intervene in Ukraine to safe lives? – Would he risk US-NATO retaliation, with Europe the cannon-fodder in between?

What are the Kremlin’s options, other than a direct involvement? – (i) an indirect engagement by arming Novorossiia to the teeth, pretty much as the US / NATO is doing with Kiev, or (ii) ride it out until the economic collapse of the dollar-linked Western world pulls with it the US / NATO military might – which might comprise significant collateral damage, including a mounting death toll in Ukraine, or (iii) a combination of both – arming NDF and inducing the economic collapse of the West, by the introduction of a new monetary / economic system, currently being prepared by the BRICS. This might at once reduce casualties in the Ukraine, as well as eliminating the chance of a new Cold War – CW II.

Why? – Because for a CW II to flourish, the rest of the world needs to have confidence in the dollar, since the US printing machines would run amok churning out worthless greenbacks, flooding the ‘market’ as debt, expected to be absorbed by central banks as reserves. But this trust is gone, by most of the world. And those who still hope to get some ‘crumbs’ from the emperor loot for sticking to him until the very end, become fewer and farther in between. – Europe certainly is no longer solidly behind the White House with Obama’s bully tactics.

There is the risk that in last desperation Washington would trigger an all destructive nuclear war. This is doubtful, though, since the banking and corporate elite of the Anglo-Zionist Empire, those who pull the strings on Obama’s actions, are too self-centered to risk auto-destruction.

In the end, and seen with a bird’s eye Big-Picture vision, Ukraine may become the mere square on the chessboard where the arrogant and greedy Queen was lost to a humble but wise peon.

Peter Koenig is an economist and former World Bank staff. He worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, the Voice of Russia and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.