Ukraine: Zbig’s Grand Chessboard – How the West was Checkmated
To understand this more comprehensively, Ukraine, Zbig’s Grand Chessboard – How the West Was Checkmated is an excellent source. The arguments presented are well supported, concisely described, and through the lense of the Ukraine debacle, effectively demonstrate the intransigence of U.S. geopolitical efforts around the world [...]
A quick review of Ukraine, Zbig’s Grand Chessboard – How the West Was Checkmated is simple – this amazing work should be in everyone’s reading library. Anyone who cares to understand the situation of what has happened, and is happening in Ukraine needs to read this book. It covers the history of the dissolution of the USSR, the resulting creation of Ukraine, and the history of the U.S.’ attempts through various government and non-government organizations (e.g. Soros) towards the first failed colour revolution (Orange, 2004), then on towards the second attempt resulting in the successful installation of the noenazi puppet regime of Poroshenko/Yatsenuk.
Beyond that, it has deeper implications for all global U.S. imperial adventures and the manner in which they are arranged and delivered. The chaos that ensues serves the purpose of stabilizing the US$ hegemony of the petrodollar as the global reserve currency. This latter point is presented at the end of this work, and is notable as it is the first time I have read of that connection so clearly presented within a book oriented towards what is normally considered an historical and/or current events perspective of U.S. imperial affairs.
As indicated above, Ukraine, Zbig’s Grand Chessboard begins with conditions in the USSR, the efforts of Gorbachev vis a vis Reagan’s politics. The rise of the neoconservatives, the Wolfowitz doctrine, the collapse of the USSR, the years of dictatorial autocratic/oligarchic rule under the drunkard Yeltsin, NATO’s moves eastward, the “shock doctrine” of IMF/World Bank austerity accompanied by U.S. corporate alliances with Russian criminal oligarchs (e.g. Khodorkovsky) lays the groundwork for the efforts to turn Ukraine into a U.S./NATO/EU puppet state. The ultimate goal as per Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard was the subjugation and disruption of Russia and the allocation of its resources to friendly corporate/political cronies.
After the more historical items are described and placed into context (context is lacking in many current attempts to validate the depredations of the U.S. empire) the current events surrounding Ukraine and the manipulations which led to the Maidan and the success of the neonazi coup are described within the full context of U.S. interests and activities.
What becomes obvious from the author’s research is that the U.S. finally met up with a government, and a personality, Vladimir Putin, that had strengthened Russia. Another strengthening factor, ironically, have been the U.S.’ attempts to isolate Russia, one of the most unsuccessful foreign policies attempted by the U.S. Certainly the puppets of the EU/NATO have fallen into line, sort of, and U.S. anglo-allies Canada and Australia, but the majority of the world has been able to see the U.S. for what it is – a narcissistic, power hungry, and violent country.
As noted by the authors, the media plays a significant role in the domestic ignorance and demonization of Vladimir Putin – creating the requisite ‘evil other’ for the controlling powers to distract the masses from the reality of U.S. intentions for global hegemony manner of overt and covert military power combined with economic manipulations through the institutions of the Washington consensus (IMF, World Bank, WTO, BIS, et al).
The book went to press in 2015, as the second attack by Ukraine against the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk commenced. The results of the second round proved even more disastrous for Poroshenko/Yatsenyuk as they suffered a strong military defeat within the Debaltsevo cauldron, leading the U.S.’ European puppet leaders, Hollande and Merkel, to cry ‘uncle’ and create the Minsk II agreements.
What I find even more significant is the generalizations that can be made from this narrower historical story to the many violent actions created by the U.S. since the end of WW II. Ukraine is not an isolated event, but is one in a long succession of attacks, overthrows, coups, and jihads created, made, and managed by the U.S’ political-military establishment. The parallel war in Syria is part and parcel of the overall chessboard – it is fortunate that Putin and his advisors have successfully stopped the incursions of ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and the many disparate bands of jihadis supported by the U.S. directly, covertly, and through their Saudi/Qatari allies.
The best ending for all this is for the U.S. to accept the multipolar world, perhaps not within its domestic hubris and arrogance as the ‘indispensable’ nation, but through a less militaristic approach to world affairs, and perhaps, not be left behind while the rest of the world overcomes the chaos – military and financial – created by the empire.
The worst ending would be that the empire recognize that it is checkmated, and simply knock the chessboard over – the nuclear option. No one anywhere wins with that option, but the megalomania and ignorance of the neoconservative/Wall street alliance might simply be unaware of the consequences of initiating a third world war.
To understand this more comprehensively, Ukraine, Zbig’s Grand Chessboard – How the West Was Checkmated is an excellent source. The arguments presented are well supported, concisely described, and through the lense of the Ukraine debacle, effectively demonstrate the intransigence of U.S. geopolitical efforts around the world. This book should and must be added to all contemporary reading lists for global current affairs.
Originally published on 2016-10-03
Author: Jim Miles
Source: Global Research
Origins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.
Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!
Donate to Support Us
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics and international relations.
A weakened leader in a powerful country can be a recipe for danger. Donald Trump's encroaching legal troubles might prove just the time for a seriously big international crisis, even a bit of a war. The obvious choice is Iran, and Trump may well have been heading that way even before his latest problems with Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort and potentially special investigator Robert Mueller.Trump may be confident of holding firm to his support base and thus ensuring the loyalty of Republican candidates in the mid-term Congressional elections. But as pressure grows on him, a conflict with Iran – encouraged ...
The American media specializes in fake news. Indeed, since the Clinton regime the American media has produced nothing but fake news. Do you remember the illegal US bombing and destruction of Yugoslavia? Do you remember “war criminal” Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president branded “the butcher of the Balkans,” who was compared to Hitler until Hillary passed the title on to the President of Russia? Milosevic, not Bill Clinton, was arrested and placed on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal. He died in prison, some say murdered, before he was cleared of charges by the International Criminal Tribunal. http://www.globalresearch.ca/milosevic-and-the-destruction-of-yugoslavia-unpleasant-truths-no-one-wants-to-know/5540873 Do you ...
I am now convinced that the Oligarchy that rules America intends to steal the presidential election. In the past, the oligarchs have not cared which candidate won as the oligarchs owned both. But they do not own Trump.Most likely you are unaware of what Trump is telling people as the media does not report it. A person who speaks like this:- is not endeared to the oligarchs.Who are the oligarchs?— Wall Street and the mega-banks too big to fail and their agent the Federal Reserve, a federal agency that put 5 banks ahead of millions of troubled American homeowners who ...
The NATO war on Yugoslavia which culminated in the 78-days bombing of historic cities and infrastructures – as usual under atrocity propaganda and pretexts – is on its 20th anniversary.The grim anniversary is admirably recognized by Science for Peace members to remember and to prevent who-knows-what NATO war crime next as “humanitarian intervention”.From Yugoslavia to Iraq to Libya, where does it stop? Observe that Trump is now seeking a NATO alliance with Bolsonaro Brazil (see image below) -to perhaps back the bombing of Venezuela, or any other society, including the Brazilian people, not bowing to US-led global corporate colonization. Socialist ...
President Donald Trump Monday, April 3, 2017, welcomed the Egyptian military dictator, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who assumed the title of Field Marshal after arresting and deposing the democratically elected President Mohamed Mursi in July 2013.After the meeting Trump told the press: “We agree on so many things. I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President el-Sisi. He’s done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation.”By “a fantastic job” Trump was apparently referring to the massacre of hundreds of innocent Egyptians in the aftermath of US-endorsed coup ...
We are witnessing a presidential election of epic farce. The Republican Party nominates the caricature of a tinpot dictator. The Democratic National Committee is a caricature too, of comic opera: exposed in collusion with a favored candidate it anoints a felon, shown to be such but unindicted.We are witnessing the collapse of democratic presidential politics. It is a derelict process, complex, absurdly long, insanely expensive, tedious, inconsistent and now chaotic.Professional football is a public extravaganza, its six-month season culminating in the tangible climax of the Superbowl. It is dwarfed in spectacle however by the same suspense and dramatic finale of ...
There have been at least two countries in Europe in recent history that undertook ‘anti-terrorist’ military operations against ‘separatists’, but got two very different reactions from the Western elite.The government of European country A launches what it calls an ‘anti-terrorist’ military operation against ‘separatists’ in one part of the country. We see pictures on Western television of people’s homes being shelled and lots of people fleeing. The US and UK and other NATO powers fiercely condemn the actions of the government of country A and accuse it of carrying out ‘genocide’ and ’ethnic cleansing’ and say that there is an ...
Donald Trump with Larry King on the occasion of the anniversary of the bombing of Serbia criticized Bill Clinton and criminal attack on Serbs, the ally of America in both wars.“The Clintons have made a mess in the Balkans and Kosovo. Look what we did to Serbia in an aerial bombardment from a safe height. Those same Serbs rescued American pilots in World War II.It is a mistake that we bombed a nation that has been our ally in two world wars. The Clintons believe that was a success, and I find it shameful.I extend an apology to all the ...
What is the European UnionIn Europe, regionalization after WWII is taking the form of a gradual process of integration that was leading to the creation of the European Union (the EU) which is a collaborative association of some of the European states previously known as several different communities. Since agreeing at a summit meeting in December 1991 in the city of Maastricht in the Netherlands to move beyond a custom union and common market towards full economic and monetary union[1] (up to that time the EU was similar to the European Free Trade Association – the EFTA),[2] the association of ...
A study by a Toronto-based consulting and research company has revealed that over the past fifty years mainstream reporting about Israel has been distorted to portray the Jewish state in positive terms while ignoring the plight of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. The media study, based on a computer analysis of 50 years of data, found that major U.S. newspapers have provided consistently skewed, pro-Israel reporting on Israel-Palestine. The slanting in news coverage included subtle manipulations like using word associations favorable to Israel and derogatory to Palestinians as well as the persistent publication of stories praising Israel while also avoiding reporting ...
In early January 2020, Serbian media reported the sensational news that recently declassified British Ministry of Defense files contained important new evidence suggesting that the official account of what happened in Srebrenica was unfounded.As from time to time has been the case, Western sources have again disclosed some information about Srebrenica in July 1995, which until recently was kept confidential and therefore not available to the public. The source of this particular batch of documents is the UK Department of Defense. The documents that have finally been declassified contains very interesting assessments and reports that take on even greater significance ...
Post-colonial empires are complex organizations. They are organized on a multi-tiered basis, ranging from relative autonomous national and regional allies to subservient vassal states, with variations in between.In the contemporary period, the idea of empire does not operate as a stable global structure, though it may aspire and strive for such. While the US is the major imperial power, it does not dominate some leading global political-economic and military powers, like Russia and China.Imperial powers, like the US, have well-established regional satellites but have also suffered setbacks and retreats from independent local economic and political challengers.Empire is not a fixed ...
Serbian emergency shelters for Bosnian refugees sold to the public as a concentration camp to win public support for international intervention.In August 1992, millions of people were shocked to see photographs of a supposed Bosnian Serb death camp. But the death camp story was a lie. The ITN crew had filmed from inside a fenced-in storage area. By shooting through the fence ITN created footage that gave the impression that the Bosnian men were imprisoned. With a little editing, this footage was turned into pictures that gave the impression of a death camp – media manipulation.The death camps were in ...
Media across the world are literally transfixed by the spectacle of US elections. The Donald Trump-Hillary Clinton, Republicans vs. Democrats battle is captivating enough to distract public attention from other issues.Democracy promotion has been a centerpiece of US foreign policy for over half a century since the days when President Woodrow Wilson crafted a new foreign policy that involved active democracy promotion. The implementation of the «beacon on the hill» concept presupposes that the United States would act as a model of excellence for others to follow is analogous to contemporary soft-power democracy promotion efforts. Lecturing on democracy is a ...
The Doctrine (1823)The doctrine was presented by the 5-th U.S. President James Monroe (1817−1825) in 1823 as an official warning to (West) European powers that any European policy of imperialistic expansionism on the ground of the Americas (North, Central, and South or Anglo-Francophone and Latin, i.e., Spanish & Portuguese) was going to be taken into account by Washington as a threat to the U.S. national interests. In fact, the doctrine proclaimed the Americas as the sole business of the U.S. without any involvement or/and interruption from the outside world. In other words, James Monroe proclaimed the exclusive U.S. economic, financial, ...
How can it be that in virtually all of the Presidential-candidate head-to-head Democratic versus Republican polling that was done of both Democratic and Republican candidates during the primaries, the preferred Democratic candidate against any one of the Republican candidates was Bernie Sanders, but he almost certainly won’t be that Party’s nominee (and there’s more on that here); and the preferred Republican candidate against either one of the Democratic candidates was John Kasich, but he certainly won’t be the Republican nominee?Sanders and Kasich also scored the highest in his respective Party for net favorability rating, but almost certainly neither candidate will ...
…When did Congress authorize Bill Clinton to go to war againsta Yugoslav army that has never attacked Americans?…This week, NATO conducted air exercises over Albania as a warning to Belgrade that its crackdown in Kosovo must end now.NATO’s demands? Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic must call off his offensive by June 16, allow monitors unimpeded access to the rebellious province, let the refugees return home, and resume talks with the Kosovan resistance. If Milosevic balks, NATO is preparing attacks on his forces and, says The New York Times, “possible air strikes against strategic military targets in Serbia.”France contends that NATO needs ...
The former editor of the Tribune de Genève, [Guy Mettan-RI] visited Moscow and presented his new book Russia and the West: A Thousand Year War, which reviews the phenomenon of Russophobia: its roots, historical evolution and modern incarnations. Izvestia had a chance to interview him.What inspired you to write about this? There are two reasons why I began this work. The first is a personal, family reason. In 1994, my wife and I adopted a Russian girl, who now is now 25. Her name is Oksana, and she is from the Vladimir region. After we adopted her, I became interested ...
A billboard at a construction site, with a photo of an Ottoman-style mosque with four minarets and the flag of Turkey, was erected recently in the center of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. With less than 2 million people, Kosovo, which declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, is the home of over 800 mosques. Now the Islamic Community of Kosovo is building the “Central Mosque” at an estimated cost of $35- $40 million. Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) is financing the project.The Diyanet also financed the building of a similar mosque on a 10,000-square-meter parcel of land on ...
The Ukrainian massacre of anti-regime pamphleteers on May 2, 2014 at the Odessa Trade Unions Building, burning these pamphleteers alive there, was crucial to the Obama Administration’s solidification of its control over Ukraine. That massacre was designed to, and it did, terrorize the residents in all areas of Ukraine which had voted overwhelmingly for the man whom Obama had just ousted, Viktor Yanukovych. Especially in the Donbass region, Yanokovych had received 90%+ of the votes. In Odessa, he had received three-quarters of the votes. (Later will be explained why this terror against the residents of such regions was necessary for ...
Beyond that, it has deeper implications for all global U.S. imperial adventures and the manner in which they are arranged and delivered. The chaos that ensues serves the purpose of stabilizing the US$ hegemony of the petrodollar as the global reserve currency. This latter point is presented at the end of this work, and is notable as it is the first time I have read of that connection so clearly presented within a book oriented towards what is normally considered an historical and/or current events perspective of U.S. imperial affairs.
As noted by the authors, the media plays a significant role in the domestic ignorance and demonization of Vladimir Putin – creating the requisite ‘evil other’ for the controlling powers to distract the masses from the reality of U.S. intentions for global hegemony manner of overt and covert military power combined with economic manipulations through the institutions of the Washington consensus (IMF, World Bank, WTO, BIS, et al).
