The USA and the New World Order: Olavo - Introduction

Source: http://debateolavodugin.blogspot.ca/2011/03/olavo-de-carvalho-introduction.html

Monday, March 7, 2011

Olavo - Introduction

 "What are the historical, political, ideological and economic factors and actors that now define the dynamics and configuration of power in the world and what is the U.S. position in what is known as New World Order?”


Olavo de Carvalho

Words change their meaning, weight and value according to the situations of speech. Upon entering this debate I must clarify from the outset that it is not a debate at all. The very idea of a debate presupposes as much an opposite symmetry between the contending parties, from the point of view of their convictions, as some direct symmetry of their respective socio-professional status: intellectuals discuss with intellectuals, politicians with politicians, professors with professors, preachers of religion with preachers of atheism, and so forth.

As for convictions, if we understand this term as only general statements about the structure of reality, mine do not differ from Professor Dugin’s in many essential points. Does he believe in God? So do I. Does he think a metaphysics of the absolute is possible? So do I.  Does he wager in a meaning of life? So do I. Does he understand traditions, homeland, and family as the values that must be preserved above supposed economic and administrative conveniences? So do I. Does he see with horror the globalist project of the Rockfellers and Soros? So do I.  It is not possible to organize a debate between two people who are in agreement.

On the contrary, from the viewpoint of the real positions we occupy in society, our differences are so many, so deep and so irreducible that the very proposal of putting us face to face has a certain comic incongruity to it. I am just a philosopher, writer, and professor, committed to the search of what seems to me to be the truth and to educating a group of people who are so kind as to pay attention to what I say.  Neither these people nor I hold any public job.  We do not have any influence on national or international politics. We do not even have the ambition – much less an explicit project – of changing the course of History, whatever it may be.  Our only hope is to know reality to the utmost degree of our strength and one day leave this life aware that we did not live in illusions and self-delusion, that we did not let ourselves be misled and corrupted by the Prince of this World and by the promises of the ideologues, his servants.  In the current power hierarchy of my native country, my opinion is worthless, except maybe as an anti-example and an incarnation of absolute evil, which is a great satisfaction to me.  In the country where I live, the government considers me, on the most hyperbolical hypothesis, an inoffensive eccentric.

No political party, mass movement, government institution, church or religious sect considers me its mentor. So I can give my opinion as I wish, and change my opinion as many times as it seems right to me, with no devastating practical consequences beyond the modest circle of my personal existence.

Now Professor Dugin, the son of a KGB officer and the political mentor of a man who is the very incarnation of the KGB, is the creator and guide of one of the widest and most ambitious geopolitical plans of all time – a plan adopted and followed as closely as possible by a nation which has the largest army in the world, the most efficient and daring secret service and a network of alliances that stretches itself through four continents. Saying that Professor Dugin is at the center and pinnacle of power is a simple question of realism.  In order to fulfill his plans, he counts on Vladimir Putin’s strong arm, the armies of Russia and China and every terrorist organization of the Middle East, not to mention practically every leftist, fascist and neo-Nazi movements which today place themselves under the banner of his “Eurasian” project. As for myself, besides not having a plan not even for my own retirement, I count only, as far as war resources go, on my dog Big Mac and an old hunting shotgun.

This tremendous existential difference (fully illustrated by the attached photos) makes our opinions, even when their verbal expressions coincide to the letter, signify entirely different things in the framework of our respective goals. The answers to the questions that inspire this debate will show this, I hope, as clearly as the photos do. 

 

The questions are two: who are the actors in the world scene and what is the position of the United States in it?

As for the first question: aside from Catholic and Protestant Christianity, of which I shall speak later on, the historic forces that today fight for power in the world arrange themselves into three projects of global dominance, which I will provisionally call the “Russian-Chinese,” the “Western” (sometimes mistakenly called “Anglo-American”) and the “Islamic” one.

Each of them has a well documented history, which shows their remote origins, the transformations they have gone through in the course of time and the present state of their implementation.

The agents that personify these projects today are respectively:

1. The ruling elite of Russia and China, especially the secret services of those two countries.

2. The Western finance elite, as represented especially in the Bilderberg Club, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission.

3. The Muslim Brotherhood, the religious leaders of several Islamic countries and the some Muslim countries governments.

Of these three agents, only the first one can be conceived of in strictly geopolitical terms, since its plans and actions correspond to well-defined national and regional interests.  The second one, which is more advanced in the implementation of its plans for world government, places itself explicitly above any national interests, including those of the countries where it originated and which serve as its basis for operations. In the third one, conflicts of interests between national governments and the overarching goal of a Universal Caliphate end up always being resolved in favor of the latter, which, though currently existing only as an ideal, enjoys a symbolic authority founded upon Koranic commandments that no Islamic government would dare to overtly challenge.

The conceptions of global power that these three agents strive to implement are very different from one another because they stem from heterogeneous and sometimes incompatible inspirations.

Therefore, they are not similar forces, species of the same genus. They do not fight for the same goals and, when they occasionally resort to the same weapons (for example, economic warfare) they do so in different strategic contexts, where employing such weapons does not necessarily serve the same objectives.

Although nominally the relations among them are of competition and dispute, sometimes even of military nature, there are vast zones of fusion and collaboration, as flexible and changing as they may be. This phenomenon disorients the observers, producing all sorts of misguided and fabulous interpretations, some under the form of “conspiracy theories,” others as self-proclaimed “realistic” and “scientific” refutations of those theories.

A good deal of the nebulosity in the world scene is produced by a more or less constant factor: each one of the three agents tends to interpret in its own terms the plans and actions of the other two,  partly for deliberate propaganda purposes,  partly due to  genuine misunderstanding of the situation.

The strategic analyses from all involved reflect, each of them, the ideological bias that is proper to it. Even though they attempt to take into account the totality of available factors, the Russian-Chinese scheme stresses the geopolitical and military viewpoint, the Western scheme the economic, and the Islamic scheme the dispute among religions.

This difference reflects, on its turn, the sociological composition of the ruling classes in the respective geographical areas:

1) Stemming from the communist Nomenklatura, the Russian-Chinese ruling class is essentially made up of bureaucrats, intelligence service agents and military officers.

2) The preponderance of financiers and international bankers in the Western establishment is too well known and it is not necessary to insist on it.

3) In the various countries of the Islamic complex, the authority of the ruler depends substantially on the approval of the umma – the multitudinous community of authoritative interpreters of the traditional religion. Even though these countries display great variety in their domestic situations, it is not an exaggeration to describe the structure of their ruling power as “theocratic.”

Thus, for the first time in the history of the world, the three essential modalities of power – politico-military, economic and religious – find themselves personified in distinct supranational blocks, each of them with its own plans for world dominance and its peculiar mode of action. This does not mean that they do not act in all fronts, but only that their respective historical views and strategies are ultimately delimited by the modality of power they represent. It’s not far-fetched to say that the world today is the object of a dispute among the military, bankers and preachers.

Even though in current debates these three blocks are almost invariably designated  by names of nations, States and governments,  to depict their interactions as a dispute among nations or national interests is a residual habit of the old geopolitics that does not help us at all to understand the present situation.

It is only in the Russian-Chinese case that the globalist project symmetrically corresponds to national interests, and that the principal agents are the respective States and governments. This is so for the simple reason that the Communist regime, ruling there for decades, has dissolved or eliminated all the other possible agents.  The globalist elite of Russia and China is the government of these two countries.

On its turn, the Western globalist elite does not represent any national interest and does not identify itself with any particular State or government, though it controls several of them. On the contrary, when its interests collide with those of the nations where it originated (and this necessarily happens), it does not hesitate to turn itself against its own homeland, to subjugate it and, if necessary, to destroy it.

Islamic globalists serve, in principle, the general interests of all Muslim States, united in the grand project of a Universal Caliphate. Divergences arising from clashes of national interests (as for example between Iran and Saudi Arabia) have not proved sufficient to open incurable wounds in the unity of the long-term Islamic project. The Muslim Brotherhood, main leader of the process, is a transnational organization: it governs some countries and in others it is the political opposition party, but its influence is omnipresent in the Islamic world.

The heterogeneity and asymmetry of the three blocks is reflected in the image that they have of each other, as it becomes manifest in their propaganda speeches – a system of errors suggesting that the fate of the world is in the hands of delirious madmen:

1. The Russian-Chinese perspective (enlarged today under the form of Eurasianism, which will be one of the topics of this debate) describes the Western block as (a) a global expansion of American national power; (b) the materialized expression of the “open society” liberal ideology, such as eminently proposed by Sir Karl Popper; (c) the living incarnation of the Enlightenment’s materialist, scientistic and rationalist mentality, and therefore the enemy par excellence of all traditional spirituality.

2. Western globalism declares it does not have any enemies other than “terrorism” – which it does not identify at all with the Islamic block, describing it a residue of barbaric beliefs on the way to extinction – and “fundamentalism,” a notion that indistinctly blends the ideological spokesmen of Islamic terrorism and the “Christian right,” as if it the latter were an ally of the former and not one of its main victims. This way, fear of Islamic terrorism is used as a pretext to justify the official boycott to the Christian religion in Europe and in the United States!  Russia and China are never presented as possible aggressors, but as allies of the West. In the worst case, China is portrayed as a trade competitor. In short: the ideology of Western globalism speaks as if it already personified an established universal consensus, opposed only by slightly insane marginal and religious groups

3. The Islamic block describes its Western enemy in terms that only reveal its disposition to hate it per fas et per nefas, presenting it sometimes as the heir to the ancient Crusaders and sometimes as the personification of modern materialism and hedonism. The generous collaboration of Russian and China with terrorist groups is certainly the reason why these two countries are non-existent in the Islamic ideological discourse.  This way, incurable theoretical incompatibilities are circumvented.  Some theoreticians of the Caliphate allege that socialism, once triumphant in the world, will need a soul, and Islam will provide it with one.

In the same measure as each of the three blocks cultivates a false image of their competitors, so does each of them also project a false image of itself.  Leaving aside for now the Islamic and Western projective fantasies, let’s address the Russian-Chinese ones.

The Russian-Chinese block presents itself as an ally of the United States in the “fight against terrorism,” while at the same time it provides weapons and all sorts of support to practically all terrorist organizations of the world and to the anti-American regimes of Iran, Venezuela, etc., and spreads the legend that the attack on the World Trade Center was the work of the American government.[1]Russia complains that she was “corrupted” by Boris Yeltsin’s liberal reforms, of American inspiration, as if before them she lived in a temple of purity and not in the endless rot of the Communist regime. It is worth recalling that the Soviet government lived essentially out of theft and extortion for over 60 years without ever having to account for it. At the same time, it corrupted its population through the institutionalized habit of kickbacks, exchange of political favors and influence peddling, without which the state machinery would simply not work.[2]  When its assets were allotted after the official dissolution of the regime, those benefitted were the members of the nomenklatura  themselves, who became billionaires overnight, without severing the ties that united them to the old state apparatus, especially to the KGB (“there is no such thing as former KGB,” confessed Vladimir Putin). Imagine what would have happened in Germany after WWII if the winners, instead of prosecuting and punishing the supporters of the old regime, had awarded them access to the assets of the Nazi State.  That is exactly what happened in Russia: as soon as the USSR was officially dissolved, its agents of influence in Europe and in the United States launched a successful operation to block any investigation of Soviet crimes.[3] Nobody was ever punished for the murder of at least tens of millions of civilians and for the creation of the most efficient machinery of state terror known to mankind. On the contrary: the chaos and corruption that followed the dismantling of the Soviet State were not caused by the new system of free enterprise, but by the fact that the first to benefit from it were the masters of the old regime, a horde of thieves and murderers as never before seen in any civilized country.

There’s more: while whining about being corrupted by American capitalism, Russia forgets that it was she who corrupted it.  Since the 1930s the Stalin government, aware that the strength of America resided in “its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life” (sic), unleashed a gigantic operation, in the words of its main perpetrator, Willi Münzenberg, designed to “make the West so corrupt it stinks.” The purchase of consciences, the involvement of high-level officers in espionage and shady businesses, the intense propaganda campaigns to debilitate the moral beliefs of the population and the generalized infiltration in the educational system ended up producing results particularly after the 1960s, radically modifying American society to the point of rendering it unrecognizable.

It was also the Soviet action that gave planetary dimensions to drug-trafficking since the 1950s. Its history is well documented in Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America and the West, by Joseph D. Douglass.  When Russia wails that after the fall of Communism she was invaded by the drug culture, she is simply harvesting what it sowed.

Nothing of this vast corrupting action is a thing of the past. Nowadays there are more Russian agents in the United States than during the Cold War.[4]China, well-fed by American investments, gives evidence that the apparent liberalization of its economy was only a cover-up for maintaining the totalitarian regime, ever more solid and seemingly indestructible.

As for the position of the United States in the world scene, let us first take a look at how Prof. Dugin describes it, and then see how it is in reality.

According to the Eurasian doctrine, the United States are the incarnation, par excellence, of liberal globalism.[5]  Liberalism as Prof. Dugin sees in the face of America is, essentially, the one of the “open society” advocated by Sir Karl Popper. This is how Prof. Dugin summarizes the liberal idea:

“To understand the philosophical consistency of the national-Bolshevik ideology... it is absolutely necessary to read the fundamental book of Karl Popper, The Open Society and its Enemies.

“Popper developed a fundamental typology for our subject. According to him, the history of humanity and the history of ideas divide themselves in two (unequal) halves. On the one hand, there are the partisans of the ‘open society,’ which represents in his view the form of normal existence of rational individuals (so are for him all men), who base their conduct upon reasoning and the supposedly free personal will. The sum of such individuals must logically form the ‘open society, essentially ‘non-totalitarian, since it lacks any unifying idea or value system of a collectivist nature, be it supra-individual or non-individual. The ‘open society’ is open precisely because it ignores all ‘teleologies,’ all ‘absolutes,’ all established typological differences; therefore it ignores all limits that emanate from the non-individual and non-rational domain (supra-rational, a-rational, or irrational, the latter being the more frequent term in Popper).

“On the other hand, there is the ideological camp of the ‘enemies of open society, where Popper includes Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, the medieval Schoolmen, as well as the German philosophy of Schlegel, Fichte, and above all of Hegel and Marx.  Karl Popper… points the essential unity of their approaches and discerns the structure of their common Weltanschauung, whose characteristic traits are the denial of the intrinsic value of the individual, whence stems the loathe for autonomous rationalism, and the tendency to submission of the individual and his reason to the ‘non-individual’ and ‘non-rational’ values, which always and fatally, according to Popper, leads to the apology of dictatorship and political totalitarianism. (…)

“National-Bolsheviks…accept absolutely and without reservations Popper’s dualist view and are totally in agreement with his classification. However, in contrast, they consider themselves to be the resolute enemies of the ‘open society’ and their philosophical foundations, that is, the primacy of the individual, the value of rational reasoning, the progressive social liberalism, egalitarian atomic numeric democracy, free criticism, the Cartesian-Kantian Weltanschauung…”[6]

As for globalism:

“Nowadays, it is evident that the World State conceived as a World Market is not a distant or chimerical perspective, because that liberal doctrine [Karl Popper’s] is little by little becoming the governing idea of our civilization. And this presupposes the final destruction of nations, as vestiges of a bygone era, as the last hurdle to the irresistible expansion of globalization…The globalist doctrine is the perfect and finished expression of the ‘open society’ model.”[7]

Therefore, liberal globalism is the project in progress that aims to establish throughout the world the Popperian model of the “open society,” necessarily destroying on its way national sovereignties and every metaphysical or moral principle that aspires to be superior to individual rationality. It is the end of nations and of all traditional spirituality, the former substituted for a global scientific-technocratic administration, the latter by a mix of scientism, materialism and relativistic subjectivism that inspires the globalist elites of the West.

Being the United States the main radiating focus of this project, and Russia its main focus of resistance (for motives we shall see later), the clash is inevitable:

“The main thesis of the neo-Eurasianism is that the struggle between Russia and the United States is inevitable, since the United States is the engine of globalization seeking to destroy Russia, the fortress of spirituality and tradition.”[8]

I made a point of quoting with some detail my opponent’s opinion because, though I do not consider it to be false with respect to the mentality of globalist elites, which are really inspired on Popperian ideals, I can prove with a narrow margin of error that:

1. The description cannot in any way be applied to the United States, a nation where Popperianism is a recent implant, with no local roots and totally hostile to American traditions.

2. The United States are not the command center of the globalist project, but on the contrary, its priority victim, marked to die. 

3. The globalist elite is not an enemy of Russia, China or the Islamic countries potentially associated to the Eurasian project, but, on the contrary, it is their collaborator and accomplice in the effort to destroy the sovereignty, the politico-military power and the economy of the United States.

4. Far from favoring free-enterprise capitalism, the globalist project has supported statist and controlling policies everywhere. And in this, it does not differ from the interventionism advocated by the Eurasianists.  Globalism is only “liberal” in the local sense that the term has in the United States, as a synonym for “leftist.” The globalist project is a direct heir and continuator of Fabian socialism, a traditional ally of the Communists.  Popperian ideology itself is not liberal-capitalist, in the sense of classical liberalism, but above all else “a ‘test and evaluate’ approach to social engineering.”[9]

5. Eurasianism turns against the Popperian “open society” as an abstract ideological model.  However, as Eurasianism is not only an abstract ideological model, but a geopolitical strategy, it is obvious that it fires at the Popperian ideology to reach, behind it, a specific national power, that of the United States, which has nothing to do with the Popperian ideology and can only expect evil from it.  Even worse: American nationalism is a powerful Christian resistance to the globalist ambitions which have been trying to take over the country in order to destroy it as an autonomous power and use it as a tool for their essentially anti-national plans. The destruction of American power will remove the last reasonable hurdle to the establishment of a world government. Then all that will be left is the sharing of the spoils among the three globalist schemes, the Western, the Russian-Chinese and the Islamic one.

6. Russia is not at all the “fortress of spirituality and tradition,” appointed by a celestial mandate to castigate the flesh the United States for the sins of the immoral and materialist West.  Today as in Stalin’s time, Russia is a den of corruption and wickedness as never before seen, one dedicated to the spreading of its mistakes around the world, as announced in the prophecy of Fatima.  It should be noted that this prophecy never referred particularly to Communism, but to “the errors of Russia” in a generic way, and it announced that the dissemination of these errors, with all its ensuing retinue of disgrace and suffering, would only cease if the Pope and all Catholic bishops of the world perform the rite of the consecration of Russia.  Since this rite has never been carried out, there is no reason not to see in the Eurasian project a second wave and an upgrade of the “errors of Russia,” the announcement of a catastrophe of incalculable proportions.

7. If Russia today, through the lips of Prof. Dugin, presents itself to the world as the bearer of a great saving spiritual message, it is necessary to recall that she has done it twice before: (a) In the nineteenth century, all the thinkers of the Slavophile stripe, as Dostoewsky, Soloviev and Leontiev, saw the West as the source of all evils and announced that in the following century Russia would teach the world “true Christianity.” What happened was that all this spiritual arrogance was impotent to detain the advance of communist materialism in Russia herself. (b) Russian communism promised to bring to the world an era of peace, prosperity and freedom beyond the most beautiful dreams of previous generations.  All it managed to do was to create a totalitarian inferno of which neither Attila nor Genghis-Kahn could have caught a glimpse in a nightmare.

It would be wonderful if each country learned how to heal its own evils before pretending to be the savior of humanity. Alexandre Dugin’s Russia seems to have taken the opposite lesson from her crimes and failures.

[1] See my article “Suggestion to clear thinkers: check into an asylum,” Diário do Comércio, January 30 2002, at http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/semana/060130dc.htm.

[2] See Konstantin Simis, URSS: The Corrupt Society: The Secret World of Soviet Capitalism, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1982, and Alena V. Ledeneva, Russia`s Economy of Favours, Cambridge University Press, 1998.

[3] See Vladimir Boukovski, Jugement à Moscou.

[4] See: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/04/painting-town-red-russian-spies-report-says/.

[5] The two elements that this definition fuses into a unity do not have the same origin, and were not friendly to each other at birth. The first liberal movements of the nineteenth century, coming on the top of the wave of independence movements against the colonial powers, were highly nationalistic, and the first projects for global government that appeared in the beginning of the twentieth century were inspired by notoriously interventionist and statist ideas.

[6] Alexandre Douguine, “La métaphysique du national-bolchevisme,” Le Prophète de l’Eurasisme, Paris, Avatar Éditions, 2006, pp. 131-133.

[7] Id., p. 138.

[8] Vadim Volovoj, “Will the prediction of A. Dugin come true?,” in Geopolitika, 10.11.2008,  at http://www.geopolitika.lt/?artc=2825.

[9] Ed Evans, “Do you really know this person?” at http://itmakessenseblog.com/tag/karl-popper/.

La coupe des cœurs divisés

La coupe des cœurs divisés

Les Brésiliens ne veulent pas soutenir l’équipe nationale à cause des potentiels effets favorables qu’une réussite pourrait ajouter à la campagne présidentielle du Parti de Travailleurs (PT). L’euphorie dans la «patrie des crampons» peut se transformer en soutien indirect pour le projet d’instauration du socialisme à l’image de Cuba et du Venezuela, au Brésil.

Même si la société canadienne ne s’intéresse pas vraiment à la coupe du monde au Brésil, les enjeux du pays hôte l’affectent principalement dans le domaine d’immigration. Comme la presse internationale échappe à la précision, je me sens moralement obligé d’exposer des mythes et la vraie situation du géant de l’Amérique du Sud.

L’année dernière, des manifestations violentes à la ville de São Paulo ont commencé le 7 juin à cause du mouvement de libre passage (Movimento Passe Livre, en portugais, ou simplement MPL). Là-bas, comme au Québec, des extrémistes de gauche veulent la gratuité du transport public. Dix jours plus tard, 65 000 personnes à São Paulo et 100 000 à Rio de Janeiro ont fait une manifestation principalement contre la corruption et l’inefficacité de l’État dans plusieurs domaines. Le lendemain de cette évènement, les extrémistes du MPL ont annoncé leur retraite des protestations parce qu’ils ont perdu l’hégémonie du discours. Ensuite, le black block, un groupe anarchiste financé par les partis politiques d’extrême gauche et par quelques organisations non gouvernementales gauchistes, a essayé de reprendre le contrôle du mouvement politique par l’utilisation de la force et de l’agressivité.

Maintenant, dans le contexte du Mondial de la FIFA, la majorité des journalistes présentent des versions trompeuses à propos du mécontentement brésilien. Le mythe numéro 1 est celui qui indique des facteurs, parfois sociaux, parfois économiques, comme source d’exaspération de la population brésilienne : soit l’inégalité de revenu ou l’inflation ou l’investissement de centaines de millions dans les stades. C’est faux !  Beaucoup de gens au Brésil sont mal à l’aise avec la violence. Comment expliquer qu’un pays où il y a une loi sur le désarmement, qui empêche le citoyen de porter une arme, a enregistré 56 337 homicides en 2012 (un taux de 28,17 par 100 000 habitants)? Pourquoi la police fédérale, un corps d'élite, est-elle «incroyablement réduite pour les dimensions du pays et de la population (200 millions)», comme on lit dans l’article Brésil, le chiffre qui tue (dans le site http://america-latina.blog.lemonde.fr) ?

La réponse : la participation du Parti des Travailleurs (PT) au sein du Forum de São Paulo (forodesaopaulo.org). Le Forum de São Paulo est l’organisation politique qui fait la coordination stratégique  pour instaurer le socialisme en Amérique Latine et aux Caraïbes. Jusqu’à l’année 2001, la FARC-EP (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Ejército del Pueblo), un groupe marxiste colombien qui monopolise les production et distribution de stupéfiants en Amérique du Sud, était membre officiel du Forum de São Paulo. Le 16 mars 2005, la une du magazine hebdomadaire Veja (qui dans cette semaine-là a imprimé 1 248 032 exemplaires), a dénoncé le financement illégal de la FARC à la campagne présidentielle de Monsieur Lula da Silva, du PT, en 2002. L’accommodement entre le PT et la FARC dans le contexte du Forum de São Paulo est à la base de la faiblesse du combat contre le trafic de stupéfiants, qui a causé l’explosion d’homicides et de la violence au Brésil. La pusillanimité des partis d’opposition au Parlement National et la lenteur de la justice ont contribué largement à l’impunité des impliqués dans cet accommodement.  La chronologie sur le Forum de São Paulo est dans le site suivant, en anglais : http://www.theinteramerican.org/blogs/law-and-government/410-what-is-the-sao-paulo-forum. Ce site est l’œuvre du premier journaliste à dénoncer cette situation en 2001, Monsieur Olavo de Carvalho.

C’est la peur de la violence de tous les jours le facteur le plus important pour que les Brésiliens prennent leur décision pour l’immigration. Pour aider les Brésiliens, contre cette tendance d’augmentation de la violence causée par l’accommodement entre le PT et la FARC dans le contexte du Forum de São Paulo, ce que les Canadiens peuvent faire est maintenir l’interdiction du commerce de stupéfiants au Canada.  

C’est la crainte de la réussite du projet du Forum de Sao Paulo et de son projet de régime totalitaire qui fait qu’une partie des partisans brésiliens hue et insulte la présidente aux stades. C’était pour cela que les discours des autorités ont été supprimés de la cérémonie d’ouverture, lors du premier match. Les amateurs du soccer au Brésil sont divisés parce qu’ils font face à la menace du socialisme et par conséquent à une vie dans une situation de démocratie faible, à l’exemple du Venezuela et de Cuba. Pour tout cela, je témoigne déjà une coupe du monde unique et une situation bizarre où plusieurs amateurs du sport n’ont pas envie de soutenir l’équipe verte et jeune.

Nelson Filho, Québec.

En espagnol

PEDIDO NUEVO MUNDO

Aquí se presenta una entrevista en profundidad con el historiador y periodista, Olavo de Carvalho, sobre el fondo de los gobiernos actuales en América Latina.
Esperamos que este interés.

"The Intelligencer", una revista publicada por el Patrick Henry College, de Purcellville, Virginia.
Entrevista con Olavo de Carvalho por Alexander James Biermann, Primavera 2003

I. Las causas del socialismo

¿Cuál cree que son las causas subyacentes de cambio de América Latina hacia el socialismo / comunismo después de la región había al menos Implementado formas de capitalismo?

- La historia de América Latina en el último medio siglo se puede dividir en tres etapas. La primera, la de las dictaduras militares y la derrota de la izquierda armada. El segundo, el retorno de la democracia y de una fase de entusiasmo fugaz y superficial para el capitalismo de libre mercado, coincidiendo con la caída del comunismo en Europa del Este. Por último, el aumento general de la izquierda.

Claramente, se preparó la tercera etapa en la segunda, cuando la opinión pública cree que el comunismo estaba muerto y enterrado para siempre, cuando en realidad sólo estaba haciéndose el muerto para atrapar a sus enemigos por sorpresa. Lo que sucedió fue que, en ese momento, la derecha no entendía del todo el proceso de transformación interna del movimiento comunista.

En primer lugar, el ejército se había centrado en la lucha contra la izquierda armada y sin hacer prácticamente nada contra el comunismo en los niveles ideológicos y culturales, que, precisamente en el momento de mayor represión, estaban en silencio asumidos por los izquierdistas. En casi todos los países latinoamericanos, los izquierdistas dominaban el aparato cultural y periodístico precisamente en el momento en que la caída de la URSS creó entre ellos un estado de confusión ideológica que es muy propicio para una profunda revisión estratégica, que se produjo con notable rapidez, sin que la derecha la note de tan borracha que estaba por la ilusión triunfalista.

Esta revisión consistió en los siguientes puntos:

(1) una reforma organizativa de los partidos comunistas, que abandonó la vieja cadena vertical de mando y adoptó una forma más flexible de organización basada en estructuras de red con el fin de proporcionar una coordinación estratégica entre todas las facciones de la izquierda, por encima de las divisiones ideológicas de edad.
(2) Un cambio radical en el discurso ideológico de la izquierda, que, en lugar de centrarse en una transformación estructural de la economía, comenzó a destacar todo tipo de intereses de grupo que eran antagónicos al sistema contra el cual la izquierda, no en la guerra abierta ya emprendida, sino más bien lanzando ataques en un millar de barrios, creando una total confusión en la sociedad. Estos cambios reflejan lo que Augusto del Noce llama, irónicamente, "el suicidio de la Revolución:" una vez que se disolvió una visión clara de un futuro socialista, la lucha revolucionaria se derrumbó en un aparentemente inconexos mil frentes de combate que, según el mismo del Noce , no avanzó la causa socialista ostensiblemente, pero sirvió para erosionar los valores morales y culturales de la sociedad capitalista, que por lo tanto se asume cada vez más maligna y odiosa para nuevas generaciones. Los partidarios del capitalismo, ya educados sin los valores morales y culturales que se llevan a cabo el régimen, han contribuido a este proceso, entregándose a un pragmatismo amoral que hizo el capitalismo precisamente el monstruo que los izquierdistas desearían que fuera. Mientras tanto, los izquierdistas se aprovecharon de esto con el fin de promover y denunciar la corrupción, al mismo tiempo, por el que toda la culpa al capitalismo. La situación en su conjunto llegó a ser tan confusa que la derecha no entendía lo que estaba pasando. Aturdidos y paralizados, los conservadores y los liberales de libre mercado dejaron a un lado sus principios y se ocuparon en sus intereses. Así es como una facción que parecía casi extinguido en la década de 1990 se convirtió en la casi absoluta fuerza política dominante en el continente.

¿Cree usted que el presidente Chávez fue en gran parte responsable de este movimiento?

- No, en absoluto. Chávez era sólo un señuelo utilizado por la izquierda para distraer a los observadores estadounidenses, que centran su atención en él, mientras que las empresas mucho más grandes orquestadas desde Brasil -Foro de São Paulo- ha consolidado la posición de la izquierda en el continente. El gobierno estadounidense y los medios de comunicación estadounidenses estaban tan fuera de contacto con la realidad que ellos llegaron a creer que hay dos izquierdas en América Latina, una totalitaria y amenazadora, representada por Hugo Chávez, y una más democrática e incluso pro-estadounidense, personificadas por el ex presidente de Brasil, Lula.

Bueno, la verdad es que Lula fundó el Foro de São Paulo y lo dirigió durante doce años como su líder supremo. Y también, la verdad es que las FARC, las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, consideran que la organización de una manera más realista que los estadounidenses, ya que no tardaron en darse cuenta de que la fundación del Foro de São Paulo fue la salvación y el futuro del movimiento comunista. Chávez sólo se convirtió en un miembro del Foro en 1995, después de que la organización había estado funcionando durante 5 años, y cuando sus planes estratégicos para la toma de posesión continental ya estaban en pleno desarrollo. Nunca hubo la más mínima discrepancia entre Chávez y el Foro, o entre Chávez y Lula. El propio Lula, en dos discursos oficiales como presidente que llegó a ser publicada en el sitio web oficial de la presidencia brasileña, reconoció que el Foro había colocado y mantenido a Hugo Chávez en el poder. Chávez siempre fue un dócil instrumento del Foro: fue acusado de dibujo de sí mismo de todos los temores internacionales a fin de proporcionar una cubierta para las operaciones a gran escala del Foro en el resto del continente.

¿Qué papel desempeñan las organizaciones como el Foro de São Paulo, CELAC, y el juego Alianza Bolivariana en el movimiento socialista de América Latina?

- El Foro de São Paulo era Lula y la idea original de su mentor Frei Betto, que se la presentó a Fidel Castro en 1990, quien la aprobó con entusiasmo. La idea central era unificar la izquierda continental bajo una estrategia más flexible y diversa, neutralizando o posponiendo las definiciones ideológicas que puedan dar lugar a conflictos internos. El Foro es, sin lugar a dudas, el centro de mando de la revolución comunista en el continente. Ninguno de los gobiernos socialistas que actualmente dominan América Latina hace nada que no haya sido previamente aprobada por las Juntas Generales del Foro. Por ineptitud o por complicidad consciente, de los medios de comunicación estadounidenses y la mayoría de la clase política en los Estados Unidos han ayudado a mantener la invisibilidad del poder del Foro de São Paulo, precisamente durante los años en que se necesitaba desesperadamente del secreto con el fin de desarrollar en paz sin llamar atención, al igual que el propio Lula dijo. El tanque más grande de pensamiento en Estados Unidos, el Consejo de Relaciones Exteriores, -a través de sus "expertos" en Latinoamérica, Kenneth Maxwell y Luis Felipe de Alencastro- incluso llegó a negar la existencia del Foro, en un momento en que yo mismo había ya ampliamente difundido las actas completas de las reuniones generales de la organización. Quien lee estos minutos, hace diez años, se sabe de antemano el modelo de todo lo que sucedió en la política latinoamericana. La Alianza Bolivariana y de la CELAC son simples ramas del Foro de São Paulo, y nada más.

¿Y el papel de los aliados externos, como Rusia, Irán o China?

- Toda la estrategia del Foro de São Paulo se ajusta claramente a los planes de Rusia y de China para crear un "Nuevo Orden Mundial" que se construirá en la devaluación del dólar y la caída de la economía estadounidense. No hace falta decir que los BRICS siglas podían reducirse a RC, tan grande es la disparidad en el poder militar, y en la visión estratégica -entre Rusia y China, y todos los demás miembros del bloque. Los acuerdos comerciales que abandonan el dólar a favor de las monedas locales, de un grupo de varias monedas, o incluso en favor de una nueva moneda internacional se intensificará en los próximos meses y romper la columna vertebral de la economía estadounidense, salvo en la hipótesis de que la economía estadounidense economía logre una espectacular recuperación a través de la explotación masiva de las reservas de petróleo.

El más grande de todos los estrategas rusos, profesor Aleksandr Dugin, describe la política global de hoy en día como una competencia entre los países emergentes y la élite bancaria que domina el Oeste. Pero, en mi opinión, esto es pura desinformación. Apelación del vicepresidente Joe Biden a favor de un "Nuevo Orden Mundial", muestra claramente que la élite bancaria, la base de apoyo de la administración Obama, no tiene nada en contra de la caída del dólar y la caída de los Estados Unidos. Tenga en cuenta que, en el momento en que los Estados Unidos están bajo la amenaza de la guerra, el gobierno de Obama tiene que ver con el debilitamiento del ejército estadounidense y el fortalecimiento de las fuerzas de seguridad nacionales (armarlos incluso con equipos de tipo militar) al mismo tiempo que promueve la destrucción de la economía estadounidense a través de préstamos y el gasto faraónico. A mí me parece que el BRICS "Brand New World Order" ya está en el poder en Washington y ve como inevitable, si no deseable, la crisis social que le permita limitar severamente las libertades democráticas.

¿Cree usted que la mayoría de los ciudadanos de los países de América Latina socializados realmente creen en la política socialista, o es demagogia y / o corrupción de conducir el movimiento?

- No tienes ni idea del estado de confusión mental y desconexión de la realidad en la que la opinión pública se encuentra en América Latina, especialmente en Brasil. Ninguno de los problemas que he mencionado aquí alguna vez se discute en los medios de comunicación o en el Parlamento. La mayoría de la gente cree que todavía viven en una democracia capitalista y no ven el más mínimo peligro de una dictadura comunista. Es como si el último diario que llegó a sus manos eran de alrededor de agosto de 1990. Los debates públicos no reflejan absolutamente nada de lo que realmente está pasando.

Por otra parte, hay que entender que muchos de los profundos cambios que se han introducido en la vida social, económica, cultural y educativa en América Latina se han establecido a través de: directivas administrativas, decretos, resoluciones ministeriales y sentencias judiciales. Nunca han ido a través del debate legislativo, y rara vez han recibido cobertura mediática. En todas partes la gente entiende la democracia sólo como un proceso electoral, sin advertir que sin el acceso a la información esencial, este proceso es sólo una fachada, sin realidad interior. El estado de la ignorancia política en la que la población vive hoy en día en América Latina, y especialmente en Brasil, muestra que la diferencia entre la democracia y la dictadura se ha vuelto irrelevante. En Estados Unidos, las cosas no han llegado a ese punto, pero se aproxima muy rápidamente.

II. El futuro del socialismo

¿Qué ideologías políticas cree usted que van a dominar América Latina en el futuro?

- Por todas partes en el continente, la política "correcta" es desarticulada y desorientada. En Brasil, el único que existe bajo el nombre de "derecho" es el ala más moderada de la izquierda. En las próximas décadas, es posible que resurjan algunas ideologías correctas, no tanto inspirados por el discurso conservador tradicional, por razones morales y religiosas, ya que la insistencia de la izquierda dominante en modificar rápidamente marco de los valores morales del país entra en conflicto directo con las creencias religiosas de la mayoría de la población. Lo que parece que va a suceder no es una lucha entre el socialismo y el capitalismo, sino más bien entre el espíritu revolucionario y el cristianismo.

¿Espera seguir Socialismo del Siglo 21 sin el liderazgo del presidente Chávez?

- Hugo Chávez nunca-repito nunca fue el líder de la izquierda continental. Asambleas Generales del Foro de São Paulo toman todas las decisiones importantes y ejecutan totalmente el espectáculo, y nunca ha habido la más mínima señal de desacuerdo grave entre los miembros del Foro. Chávez nunca fue más que un señuelo. Fue creado y utilizado por el Foro de São Paulo, que en su momento, sabrá cómo crear muchos otros como él.

Si es así, ¿a quién ves tomando el manto del liderazgo para el socialismo del siglo 21 en la era post-Chávez?

- Creo que la desaparición de Chávez del escenario político es muy beneficioso para el Foro de São Paulo, que ahora puede continuar con sus operaciones, manteniendo un perfil bajo hasta que se encuentre adecuada para crear un nuevo muchacho del cartel.

¿Cree usted que la política chavismo en Venezuela continuará sin mayores cambios?

- Cualquier gobierno antichavista que sube al poder en Venezuela estará rodeado, aislado, y despiadadamente atacado por sus vecinos hasta que se vuelva completamente inoperable.

Russia’s Threat in the Americas

Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/russias-threat-in-the-americas/

March 28, 2014 by Joseph Klein

President Obama dismissed Russia as no more than a “regional power” in remarks he made to the press in The Hague on March 25th, where he was attending a summit meeting on nuclear security. “Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength, but out of weakness,” he said.

True, the Russian Federation is a shadow of the Soviet empire in its heyday. And Russia is not driven by a global Communist ideology that it seeks to spread to every part of the world in opposition to the capitalist democratic model, as the Soviet Union tried to do. But that does not make Russia a weak neighborhood bully posing little threat beyond its “immediate neighbors,” as President Obama seems to think. Mitt Romney was right when he said during the 2012 presidential campaign that Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe.”

First, consider Russia’s nuclear arsenal. According to a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists study published in May 2013, it was estimated that, as of March 2013, Russia had “a military stockpile of approximately 4,500 nuclear warheads, of which roughly 1,800 strategic warheads are deployed on missiles and at bomber bases.” Russia is also “modernizing its nuclear forces, replacing Soviet-era ballistic missiles with fewer improved missiles. In a decade, almost all Soviet-era weapons will be gone, leaving a smaller but still effective force that will be more mobile than what it replaced.”

While these are only estimates, since Russia is not transparent about how many nuclear weapons it has, the size of Russia’s arsenal and its ambitious modernization program do not connote the image of weakness that Obama wants to paint of Russia as a mere “regional” power. By way of comparison, the United States “has an estimated 4,650 nuclear warheads available for delivery by more than 800 ballistic missiles and aircraft,” according to a Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists study published in January 2014.

These numbers and Russia’s modernization strategy should be placed in the context of a very disturbing statement made last December by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Rogozin: “We have never diminished the importance of nuclear weapons—the weapon of requital—as the great balancer of chances.” Rogozin has said that Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons if attacked first even by only conventional weapons.

Russia is also on the march far from its immediate neighborhood and much closer to the United States. According to Gen. James Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, who discussed his concerns regarding the increased presence of Russia in Latin America at a Senate hearing earlier this month, there has been a “noticeable uptick in Russian power projection and security force personnel. It has been over three decades since we last saw this type of high-profile Russian military presence.”

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced last month plans to build military bases in such countries as Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, as well as outside of Latin America including Vietnam, the Seychelles, and Singapore. “The talks are under way, and we are close to signing the relevant documents,” Shoigu said. Russia is also on the lookout for refueling sites for Russian strategic bombers on patrol.

Russia is already a major arms supplier to Venezuela, whose navy has conducted joint maneuvers with Russian ships. At least four Russian Navy ships visited Venezuela last August, the Venezuelan daily El Universal reported.

“Two Russian Tupolev Tu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers flew last October from an airbase in southwestern Russia and landed in Venezuela in routine exercise,” Russia’s Defense Ministry announced, according to the Voice of Russia. “The nuclear-capable bombers, which took off from the Engels airbase in the Volga region, ‘flew over the Caribbean, the eastern Pacific and along the southwestern coast of the North American continent, and landed at Maiquetia airfield in Venezuela,’ the ministry said in a statement.”

Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela, is so enamored of Putin that he expressed support last year for the Russian president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. During a visit to Moscow by Maduro last summer, Maduro and Putin reaffirmed, in Putin’s words, “their wish for continuing their course towards strategic cooperation in all sectors.”

Putin was the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Pravda quoted Putin as declaring in 2012 that Russia gained the consent of the Cuban leadership to place “the latest mobile strategic nuclear missiles ‘Oak’ on the island,” supposedly as a brush back against U.S. actions to create a buffer zone near Russia. Last month, according to a report by Fox News Latino, “the intelligence-gathering ship Viktor Leonov docked in Havana’s harbor without warning.” It was reportedly armed with 30mm guns and anti-aircraft missiles.

Left-wing Argentinian President Cristina Fernández is intent on forging closer relations with Russia, inviting Russia to invest in fuel projects. In return for Russia’s support of Argentina’s quest to annex the Falkland Islands, Fernández supported Putin’s grab of Crimea. Crimea “has always belonged to Russia,” she said, just as the Falkland Islands have “always belonged to Argentina.” She added that the Crimean referendum was “one of the famous referendums of self-determination.”

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa praised Russia as a “great nation” during a visit to Moscow last October after Putin pledged to invest up to $1.5 billion into new domestic energy projects in Ecuador. Correa said Ecuador was also interested in buying Russian military equipment.

Brazil is planning to purchase short-to-medium-range surface-to-air Pantsir S1 missile batteries and Igla-S shoulder-held missiles from Russia. It has already bought 12 Mi-35 attack helicopters. This is all part of what Brazil views as a growing strategic relationship with Russia, as Brazil leads efforts to counter U.S. electronic surveillance that included alleged spying on Brazilian citizens. “More than buying military equipment, what we are seeking with Russia is a strategic partnership based on the joint development of technology,” said Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim after meeting with his Russian counterpart.

After Daniel Ortega, the leader of the Sandinista revolution, returned to power in Nicaragua in 2007, Russia and Nicaragua have moved in the direction of a strategic economic and military relationship. In October 2013, for example, Nicaragua and Russia signed a memorandum of international security cooperation. Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev noted during his visit to Nicaragua that “Nicaragua is an important partner and friend of Russia in Latin America,” pointing to the coincidence of views of the two countries’ authorities “on many issues.” For his part, Ortega said: “We are very grateful and very much appreciate the Russian people’s support of our country.”  Ortega welcomed the arrival of two Russian strategic bombers Tupolev Tu-160.  Ortega added that Putin had sent him a letter, in which the Russian leader reaffirmed his “readiness to continue to work together with our country.”

According to a March 2014 report by the Strategic Culture Foundation, a progressive, pro-Russian think tank, Nicaragua’s

parliament has ratified a cabinet resolution allowing Russian military divisions, ships and aircraft to visit the republic during the first half of 2014 for experience sharing and training of military personnel of the Central American republic. Furthermore, the parliament has approved the participation of Russian military personnel in joint patrols of the republic’s territorial waters in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean from January 1 through June 30, 2015.

Russia is also forging a closer relationship with El Salvador, which has been led by the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (“FMLN”) that arose out of a left-wing guerrilla movement from the country’s 1979-1992 civil war. Leftist ex-guerrilla Sanchez Ceren has just won the presidential election. He can be expected to build on the “Federal Law On Ratification of the Agreement on the Foundations of Relations” between the Russian Federation and the Republic of El Salvador, signed by Vladimir Putin in November 2012. It was the first interstate agreement between the two countries since they established diplomatic relations in 1992.

In fact, given Ceren’s background – one of five top guerrilla commanders during the civil war that left 76,000 dead and over 12,000 missing – we can expect a more avowedly anti-U.S. government that will welcome Russia’s outstretched arms. After all, the FMLN leadership during the civil war described its own ideology as “Marxism-Leninism.”

On a regional level, the Strategic Culture Foundation has reported that the Central American Common Market, which includes Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador, “advocates the creation of a free trade zone with the Customs Union of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus.”

Foreign ministers from members of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and Russia declared their intention, after meeting in Moscow last May, that they were working to establish a means of continuous dialogue “to discuss and synchronize positions on international issues.” CELAC includes thirty-three countries in the Americas, but the United States and Canada are excluded.

“Imperial Russia never left, to be blunt,” Stephen Blank, senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council said as quoted in Deutsche Welle. “What they’re looking for in Latin America is great-power influence, they have never forsaken that quest. There’s no doubt that Moscow is dead serious about seeking naval bases and port access in Latin America.”

In the Middle East, also out of range of Russia’s “immediate neighbors,” Russia continues to prop up the Assad regime in Syria with increased shipment of arms. Reuters reported in January 2014 that “[I]n recent weeks Russia has stepped up supplies of military gear to Syria, including armored vehicles, drones and guided bombs.” Putin also managed to out-maneuver Obama regarding the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons program, buying more time for Assad and enhancing his legitimacy.

Moreover, Russia is running interference for Assad at the United Nations Security Council, where Russia, along with China, vetoed a series of resolutions aimed at condemning and sanctioning the Assad regime. Its veto power in the Security Council puts Russia in parity with the other four permanent members of the Security Council – the U.S., the United Kingdom, France and China. As Russia demonstrated with regard to Syria as well as the veto it recently exercised to block a Security Council resolution on Crimea, Russia is exploiting this lever of “soft power” to exert its influence on the global stage.

Russia is also continuing to cultivate stronger ties with Iran, while also participating in the negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program that include the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany. Russia is one of Iran’s leading trading partners, selling Iran nuclear technology and arms. When Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif visited Moscow last January he extended an invitation to Vladimir Putin to visit Tehran. Putin replied: “I hope to visit you in Tehran very soon. We have a large bilateral agenda. This relates firstly to our trade and economic ties, of course.” Putin also went out of his way to praise the Iranian regime, declaring that the nuclear negotiations were advancing because of “the efforts of the Iranian authorities and the stance of the Iranian authorities.” More recently, because of the mounting tensions over the Ukraine crisis, Russia has threatened to stop cooperating with respect to the nuclear negotiations with Iran. That may not mean very much, considering Russia’s existing back door dealings with Iran that reduce Iran’s economic incentives to negotiate in good faith. However, just by making this threat and having it paid attention to in Washington and other world capitals, Russia has made a point regarding its influence beyond its “immediate neighbors.”

Finally, there is the whole battleground of cyber warfare which has no geographical boundaries. An article in the winter 2014 publication of inFocus Quarterly, titled “Russian Cyber Capabilities, Policy and Practice” by David J. Smith, Senior Fellow and Cyber Center Director at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and Director of the Georgian Security Analysis Center in Tbilisi, paints a grim picture.

“Russia—its government and a motley crew of sometimes government-sponsored but always government-connected cyber-criminals and youth group members—has integrated cyber operations into its military doctrine,” according to Mr. Smith. Russia “has used cyber tools against enemies foreign and domestic, and is conducting strategic espionage against the United States.”

After describing the multifaceted Russian approach to information warfare and the government’s close links with the “thriving cyber-criminal industry” and extensive well-trained youth groups all too happy to sell their services to the government, Mr. Smith concluded:  “In sum, Russia—in its capabilities and its intent—presents a major cyber challenge to the United States.”

Russia is not a superpower on the order of the former Soviet Union. But Putin’s animosity towards the United States, coupled with Russia’s expanding role internationally through alliances with countries in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East, Russia’s exploitation of its permanent member status on the UN Security Council and its nuclear arms and cyber warfare capabilities, all add up to a very dangerous geopolitical foe.  President Obama needs to wake up to the fact that Vladimir Putin will not be content to play only in his own neighborhood, and that he has a variety of tools at hand to cause serious mischief far from Russia’s own borders.