Kermit Heartsong - Ukraine - ZBIG's Grand Chess Board & How The West Was Checkmated

However, as a result of economic sanctions leveled by the US and, as explained by Mr. Engdahl (2014) in his article, “Obama’s Stupid Sanctions Give Putin New Oil Bonanza”:

Because of the economic sanctions drafted by the US Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, David S. Cohen, as of October 10, ExxonMobil will be forced to withdraw from the Russian project and incur huge losses or violate the US Government sanctions and face severe penalties. (Engdahl 2014)

In an odd twist of fate and what amounts to a reverse telling of the “Little Red Hen” story, ExxonMobile and Morgan Stanley (financier of the project) helped Russia to plant the oil-seeds, cut and mill the oil-wheat, and bake the oil discovery bread, metaphorically speaking, but ExxonMobile and Morgan Stanley will not be able to enjoy a single bite of the baked oil discovery bread, of course, through no fault of Russia’s. Thus the potential $90 trillion loaf of oil-discovery-bread will have to be shared with someone else.

Enter China. To continue the metaphor, President Putin has asked Chinese state oil companies to take a stake or a bite that is, in a major onshore subsidiary of Rosneft, Vankor (Engdahl 2014):

It will be the largest Chinese equity deal in a Russian oil company to date. Until the Ukraine crisis and sanctions, Russia had jealously limited foreign share-holding in its state-owned oil and gas companies. That deal deepened the growing energy ties between China and Russia, ironically, the opposite result of what Washington geopolitical Eurasia strategy is intended to achieve. (Engdahl 2014)

As of October 31, 2014, Halloween, the EU received its “tricks” and Russia received a few “treats” after the EU, Russia, and the Ukraine finally signed a gas deal.

The gas deal will find the EU paying Russia for Ukraine’s several billion-dollar gas debt and prepaying Russia for all new Ukrainian gas purchases. Thus, Russia will no longer be responsible for continuing to fund a bankrupt Ukraine — it will finally have the Ukrainian debt cleared from its balance sheet — and the recession-stricken, heavily indebted EU will assume Ukraine’s full financial burden, as related to gas purchases and, no doubt, a good deal more.

It appears that the leverage responsible for the EU stepping up to the plate was Ukraine’s threat to steal the EU’s gas, as Ukraine had done in the past, and Russia’s threat to turn off the flow of natural gas entirely, should that happen.

In a recent RT article entitled, “Europe to Pay for the Whole Mess in Ukraine (RT 2014),” economist and Wall Street analyst, Michael Hudson made the following statement:

Europe realized that it wouldn't get the gas if it didn't step behind Ukraine and all of a sudden Europe is having to pay for Ukraine's war against Russia. Europe is having to pay for the whole mess in Ukraine so that it can get gas, and this is not how they expected it to turn out. (RT 2014)

And a final “treat” for Russia on Halloween 2014, as described by Michael Hudson:

The sanctions are hurting Europe, they are turning out to be a great benefit for Russia because finally Russia is realizing: “We can't depend on other countries to supply our basic imports, we have to rebuild our industry.” And the sanctions are enabling Russia to give subsidies to its industry and agriculture that it couldn't otherwise do. So Russia loves the sanctions, Europe is suffering and the Americans are finding that the Europeans are suddenly more angry at it than they are at Russia. (RT 2014)

It would appear that there is nothing more Keystone Copish or more tragic than the “geostrategy” of the West.

Eastern Pivot — Bear & Dragon

What's been clear at the meeting is that there's a coming together between China and Russia. And this has been just exactly the opposite of what American foreign policy has been trying to push for ever since the 1980s. So what is ironic, if we get to irony, is that where the United States thought that it was putting pressure on Russia and sanctions by the adventure of NATO in the Ukraine, what it's actually done is bring Russia and China together.

— Michael Hudson, RNN, 2014

“Go east bad bear!” said the recalcitrant, oblivious, intellect-starved, and heavily indebted West. And so the resource-rich, heavily-armed, technologically sophisticated, flush bear turned eastward and into the hug of a friendly, welcoming resource-starved, heavily-armed, increasingly technologically savvy, and very well-to-do dragon. On their way to the “Rising Eurasian Pole” they encountered a stately Bengal Tiger (India), a savvy Honey Badger (South Africa), and a powerful Jaguar (Brazil). The end.

A fairytale to some, a nightmare to others, “The West,” as written, produced, and published by none other than — the West.

What happens when the scholars, the diplomats, and the adherents and practitioners of realpolitik and diplomacy leave the various government buildings? See above.

Whether one loves them or hates them, the old-school diplomats of yesteryear knew better than to force a heavily-armed bear into a political, economic, and military alliance with a heavily armed dragon. This, however, is the current reality of the day.

It is safe to say that based upon Western/NATO extortive tactics (sanctions), resource wars, encroachments, serial provocations, and the chronic interference in the domestic affairs within both Russia and China (and numerous other nations), that the two have been moving closer and closer together over the course of the past two decades. Militarily, at least, a touchstone may have been reached between the two Eastern nations in September 2013, when the West/NATO sought to call the bluff of Russia and China with respect to Syria.

The US/NATO was about to begin yet another campaign of regime change via the violent removal of another elected leader and the murder of countless innocent civilians in an attempt to “free” those same civilians. This time, however, Russia and China had had enough of US/NATO regime change campaigns and were about to put their proverbial foot down. It would be a show of force against the West not witnessed for at least a quarter of a century.

With Russian, Chinese, and NATO fleets staring each other down in the Eastern Mediterranean, the possibility for World War III was the highest it had been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. As Israel Shamir points out in his article, “The Cape of Good Hope: American Hegemony is Over”:

The chances for total war were high, as the steely wills of America and Eurasia had crossed in the Eastern Mediterranean. It will take some time until the realisation of what we’ve gone through seeps in: it is normal for events of such magnitude. The turmoil in the US, from the mad car chase in the DC to the shutdown of federal government and possible debt default, are the direct consequences of this event. The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them — the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and supported by Chinese warships. Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to reach their destination. (Shamir 2013)

The reason the expensive GPS-guided missiles failed to reach their targets, says Shamir, is that “they are relatively easy to subvert with the proper, cost-effective technology” (Shamir 2013).

Perhaps the most important consequence to the West, besides their defeat and capitulation on Syria, was the military alliance forged in a war setting between Russia and China. The Russian bear had begun its own eastern pivot.