Rise and Fall of Hillary's American Silk Road

Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 1:56pm

As we look to the future of this region, let’s take this precedent as inspiration for a long-term vision for Afghanistan and its neighbors. Let’s set our sights on a new Silk Road – a web of economic and transit connections that will bind together a region too long torn apart by conflict and division.
- Hillary Clinton, 2011

Hillary Clinton once had an ambitious idea.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rolled out the new plan, called the New Silk Road Initiative, last month. In the U.S. vision, she said: “Turkmen gas fields could help meet both Pakistan’s and India’s growing energy needs and provide significant transit revenues for both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Tajik cotton could be turned into Indian linens. Furniture and fruit from Afghanistan could find its way to the markets of Astana or Mumbai and beyond.”

The idea was created by Frederick Starr, chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University. The plan was then approved and pushed by Gen. David Petraeus, before being announced by Hillary.
Almost immediately people were saying that it couldn't be done. Why? Because there were too many political and military rivalries in the area. (Which I guess is new to central Asia, because the ancient Silk Road required peace for it to function. LOL)
However, the purpose of an American Silk Road was never to actually help the people of the region.

As Marlene Laruelle writes in a new book, Mapping Central Asia, which includes a great chapter on the revived metaphor of the New Silk Road: "The underlying geo-economic rationales of these Roads is to exclude Moscow from new geopolitical configurations."

If your purpose is to create a large trade network, but the real purpose was to exclude several large nations in the area from that network, then you've crippled your initiative from the start. When you think about it, the easiest was to prevent a rival country from using that trade network is to never make the trade network in the first place.
No surprise when Hillary's plan never got off the ground. Meanwhile, China had heard of the plan and liked it.

So by 2013 Mattis had zeroed out the funding for the New Silk Road tiger team at CENTCOM. China turned the tables on America by filling this gap with its own version of the New Silk Road which it called “One Belt, One Road.” In contrast to America surrendering its New Silk Road strategy, Beijing was serious. China committed itself to a $1.4 trillion New Silk Road plan. To finance this commitment, Beijing created a New Silk Road Bank and an Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
How was China so successful in turning the tables on America? And why is America so reluctant to actually implement its version of the New Silk Road plan? The short answer is China understands how to connect economics and security in its foreign policy. In contrast, American foreign policy keeps economics and security in separate silos. For the most part, America tries to solve conflicts in the world militarily.

Years later, the idea of a New Silk Road in Afghanistan is spooky, scary, and a threat to the U.S.

This second headline we need to dive in deeper.

for China, it holds the dazzling prospect of ending the country’s dependence on seaborne trade - trade that is at the mercy of the US Navy’s control of the world’s key "choke-points" - allowing it to import its energy needs and export its goods without a shipping container in sight, neutralising perhaps the last remaining element of US preponderance at a stroke.
And Afghanistan - the gateway between Central Asia and South Asia - is fundamental to the realisation of this vision. “Without Afghan connectivity,” said the Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan in 2016, “there is no way to connect China with the rest of the world.”
But it is precisely because a peaceful Afghanistan has such potential for global south integration that it cannot be tolerated by the US.
“We may expect that the CIA will try to stand up an Afghan counter-insurgency [sic] to the new government,” wrote Alastair Crooke, former MI6 liaison officer to the Mujahideen. While the Asia Times noted that “an unstable Afghanistan that exports terror threats to strategic rivals Russia, China and Iran is actually in Washington’s geopolitical interest”.

Given the current US National Defense Strategy’s brazen admission that “interstate strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security”, and its commitment to “forcing” competitors “to confront conflict under adverse conditions”, such worries seem sadly well placed.

Now you know why the U.S. stole billions of dollars from Afghanistan in order to spark a man-made famine.

The US has frozen the entirety of Afghanistan’s $9.5bn central bank reserves, and the IMF has cancelled its lending to the country, leaving the new government unable to pay the salaries of government officials or for imports.

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Comments

Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 2:58pm

This is an amazing number

from being a global empire

Earlier this month, a bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress that, among other important provisions to combat undue foreign influence in politics, would ban former members of Congress from lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.
...
We analyzed Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings since 2000 and found that at least 90 former members of Congress have registered as foreign agents, representing nearly half (87) of all countries in the world, and the trend has only become more pronounced in recent years. This raises critically important questions for U.S. national interests and highlights the importance of legislation to combat the potential risks of former members of Congress working for foreign interests.

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 3:36pm

Withdrawing military operations in Afghan was ugly

Freezing their assets is even uglier. Trading war for famine is not a great choice.
Hopefully the new BRICS agreements will smooth out that process.
American interests require cutting the silk purse to maintain their hegemony.
Further indication of the western central banks limiting role.
Strangulating nations' economies in a rapidly changing market and military
evolution shows just how short sighted the IMF neoliberal agenda is.

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question everything

Submitted by Will Rogers Guthrie on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 3:37pm

I was very angry

I was very angry , learning some things from your main post on the Silk Road.
After all the horror we have rained on Afghanistan, we are engaging in more horror.
I so hope China, with the help and support of other countries, can establish this lifeline for Afghanistan.

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 4:10pm

Let's try and keep track here...

Yemen.

Afghanistan.

The economic casualties of lockdown and the war on home ownership.

An often-coercive global medical experiment that has basically-healthy people dropping like flies for "no apparent reason".

The cutting-off of some of the world's largest "breadbaskets".

The 6th Great Mass-Extinction.

How many Holocaust-comparable events is "our" government presently overseeing?

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 4:43pm

If the government is 'overseeing' depopulation

@The Liberal Moonbat

makes one wonder what is 'overseeing' the government.
Critical mass extinction helps which group? Oh, yeah it's
in favor of the ruling class.

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question everything

Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 6:31pm

IS it, though?

@QMS Fewer 99% = less competition = less expendability = a shift toward a seller's market for labor

The Black Death was indeed an Apocalypse-Horseman for High Feudalism, and one of the key midwives of the Renaissance; its impact on world history can hardly be overstated ("History of the Plague" would easily be worth its own 400-level college history course - hell, "Plageuology" could be its own historical sub-discipline, and I'll be rather disappointed if it already isn't!).

We've even already seen that this time around; the pandemic's done the "impossible" and reignited America's labor movement.

—

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 7:43pm

The Silk Road is an increasingly important reality

...for the World. As I understand it, China's main route for the BRI does not run through Afghanistan. There are many connecting spurs on the rail route, including one that goes to Pakistan.

Here's an important new summary that offers instant expertise to those interested:

China Has Urged The West To Read The New 14th BRICS Summit Declaration Carefully. This Is What It Says.

Jun 28, 2022 Posted by Silk Road Briefing Written by Chris Devonshire-Ellis

While the G7 group of nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States together with the European Union) has been meeting in Germany, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have been meeting in China for the 14th Summit. The contrasts could not be more different – one the grouping of mainly white, powerful Western nations, representing contemporary global leadership, the other a grouping of globally powerful emerging markets wanting a larger say in the developing world. The BRICS nations differ from the G7 in two main factors, most notably in the populations they serve – 3 billion as opposed to the G7’s 987 million (including the EU), and GDP, where the G7’s GDP is currently US$33.93 trillion and the BRICS about US$23.5 trillion.

Western economists as a result tend to talk up the G7’s role in global financial strength however the growth rates of both the G7 and BRICS predicted by the IMF suggest that the latter could be responsible for 50% of all global trade by the 2030’s. This means that paying attention to the BRICS consensus leads to some direction over how the global economy is likely to change over the next decade.

At present, the G7 appear determined to continue with the existing world order, which China and Russia in particular view as ‘unipolar’, meaning centered around the United States and directed by whatever US foreign, global and domestic policies are at the time. Both countries (and others) are looking for a more inclusive role in global affairs as befits their status. China for example is the world’s second largest economy, and India the fifth. Yet neither have the percentage say in global financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF they would like – hence the development of alternative policy banks such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS own New Development Bank. There are also accusations that global institutions such as the United Nations (based in New York) has begun to be too influenced by Washington’s policies than global ones. Calls for reform are increasingly being heard.

How the BRICS nations then view these changes are vitally important in order to understand the changing global dynamics, and where pressures may start to build, problems require solving and opportunities exist. This is why China’s President Xi Jinping has called the BRICS 2022 Summit Declaration an important document that should be studied carefully.

The Declaration runs to 75 points. I include them all, however for the purposes of fast tracking, I break them down into subject matter as follows...... continue here....

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 07/07/2022 - 9:16pm

Thanks for the link to BRICS 14th summary

@Pluto's Republic

very informative.

where future development flows, problems and opportunities can be seen, dealt with and pave the way to a more inclusive, and fairer, multi-polar global society

...for the World. As I understand it, China's main route for the BRI does not run through Afghanistan. There are many connecting spurs on the rail route, including one that goes to Pakistan.

Here's an important new summary that offers instant expertise to those interested:

China Has Urged The West To Read The New 14th BRICS Summit Declaration Carefully. This Is What It Says.

Jun 28, 2022 Posted by Silk Road Briefing Written by Chris Devonshire-Ellis

While the G7 group of nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States together with the European Union) has been meeting in Germany, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have been meeting in China for the 14th Summit. The contrasts could not be more different – one the grouping of mainly white, powerful Western nations, representing contemporary global leadership, the other a grouping of globally powerful emerging markets wanting a larger say in the developing world. The BRICS nations differ from the G7 in two main factors, most notably in the populations they serve – 3 billion as opposed to the G7’s 987 million (including the EU), and GDP, where the G7’s GDP is currently US$33.93 trillion and the BRICS about US$23.5 trillion.

Western economists as a result tend to talk up the G7’s role in global financial strength however the growth rates of both the G7 and BRICS predicted by the IMF suggest that the latter could be responsible for 50% of all global trade by the 2030’s. This means that paying attention to the BRICS consensus leads to some direction over how the global economy is likely to change over the next decade.

At present, the G7 appear determined to continue with the existing world order, which China and Russia in particular view as ‘unipolar’, meaning centered around the United States and directed by whatever US foreign, global and domestic policies are at the time. Both countries (and others) are looking for a more inclusive role in global affairs as befits their status. China for example is the world’s second largest economy, and India the fifth. Yet neither have the percentage say in global financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF they would like – hence the development of alternative policy banks such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS own New Development Bank. There are also accusations that global institutions such as the United Nations (based in New York) has begun to be too influenced by Washington’s policies than global ones. Calls for reform are increasingly being heard.

How the BRICS nations then view these changes are vitally important in order to understand the changing global dynamics, and where pressures may start to build, problems require solving and opportunities exist. This is why China’s President Xi Jinping has called the BRICS 2022 Summit Declaration an important document that should be studied carefully.

The Declaration runs to 75 points. I include them all, however for the purposes of fast tracking, I break them down into subject matter as follows...... continue here....

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question everything

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Fri, 07/08/2022 - 12:19am

Glad it's helpful.

@QMS

It is probably the most important global event in the world right now. It is changing everything already. Information about the project is generally withheld in the West.

The same (British) authors also provide the best BRI Briefing, that I know of.

Biden arrived at the G7 with a "Build Back Better" plan to compete with the BRI. It will exclude China and Russia, but hook up the rest of the participants.

It's probably the last we'll ever hear of it.

Submitted by ban nock on Fri, 07/08/2022 - 8:50pm

@Pluto's Republic Brics also has the world

@Pluto's Republic Brics also has the world's 2 largest authoritarian regimes as members. Whereas the G7 are all highly functioning democracies. I don't think India, Brazil, and South Africa are much ideologically aligned with those two countries other than wanting cheap oil and weapons systems. India is buying a couple of ships of the same type that Ukraine blew up for the tune of billions.

I'd think most people in the world would wish their country to be more like Japan and Germany not like Russia or China. Notice where immigrants head?

...for the World. As I understand it, China's main route for the BRI does not run through Afghanistan. There are many connecting spurs on the rail route, including one that goes to Pakistan.

Here's an important new summary that offers instant expertise to those interested:

China Has Urged The West To Read The New 14th BRICS Summit Declaration Carefully. This Is What It Says.

Jun 28, 2022 Posted by Silk Road Briefing Written by Chris Devonshire-Ellis

While the G7 group of nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States together with the European Union) has been meeting in Germany, the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) have been meeting in China for the 14th Summit. The contrasts could not be more different – one the grouping of mainly white, powerful Western nations, representing contemporary global leadership, the other a grouping of globally powerful emerging markets wanting a larger say in the developing world. The BRICS nations differ from the G7 in two main factors, most notably in the populations they serve – 3 billion as opposed to the G7’s 987 million (including the EU), and GDP, where the G7’s GDP is currently US$33.93 trillion and the BRICS about US$23.5 trillion.

Western economists as a result tend to talk up the G7’s role in global financial strength however the growth rates of both the G7 and BRICS predicted by the IMF suggest that the latter could be responsible for 50% of all global trade by the 2030’s. This means that paying attention to the BRICS consensus leads to some direction over how the global economy is likely to change over the next decade.

At present, the G7 appear determined to continue with the existing world order, which China and Russia in particular view as ‘unipolar’, meaning centered around the United States and directed by whatever US foreign, global and domestic policies are at the time. Both countries (and others) are looking for a more inclusive role in global affairs as befits their status. China for example is the world’s second largest economy, and India the fifth. Yet neither have the percentage say in global financial institutions such as the World Bank and IMF they would like – hence the development of alternative policy banks such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the BRICS own New Development Bank. There are also accusations that global institutions such as the United Nations (based in New York) has begun to be too influenced by Washington’s policies than global ones. Calls for reform are increasingly being heard.

How the BRICS nations then view these changes are vitally important in order to understand the changing global dynamics, and where pressures may start to build, problems require solving and opportunities exist. This is why China’s President Xi Jinping has called the BRICS 2022 Summit Declaration an important document that should be studied carefully.

The Declaration runs to 75 points. I include them all, however for the purposes of fast tracking, I break them down into subject matter as follows...... continue here....

Submitted by on the cusp on Thu, 07/14/2022 - 11:32pm

Please check out Sima's OT

You just may be wrong.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981