NATO is a creature of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the USA, representing their competing ideologies of Communism and Capitalism, faced off for global hegemony after WWII. The war ended with them dividing Europe into “East and West” literally through Europe’s most powerful state, Germany. But the Cold War ended in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of the USA and the West. So, why all the sabre-rattling between the USA/NATO and Russia, that’s threatening an apocalyptic “war break”?
While the Armageddon may appear to threaten only folks in Europe and the US, we all know that when those states sneeze, we catch a cold!! And when we examine the moves being made, we’ll see that this isn’t just a theoretical hypothesis. Basically, while the ideological Cold War might’ve ended, the logic of the older, eternal international competition between states took over. The first standoff was between the USSR and the US in 1962, over missiles which the former had placed in Cuba. That experience simply reinforced JFK’s decision to oust Jagan and the PPP from office with the 80-day strike in 1963!! See the connection?
Anyhow, NATO – which everyone understands is a creature of the US – started to woo and absorb the ex-communist states of Eastern Europe and the detritus of the USSR when the latter was shattered like humpy-dumpty. The Russian rump drew the line on Crimea in 2014 when some informal agreement on the Balkans was broken by NATO. They invaded and annexed it!! So, what’s going on now? Another line’s being drawn over the Ukraine – which is the USSR’s largest European breakaway state.
Putin was a lowly KGB officer who disagreed when Russian President Boris Yeltsin allowed the Balkans to slip away, and he’s vowed this won’t happen to the Ukraine. So, he’s massed more than 100,000 troops at the Ukraine border with the full complement of battle support – and vows to invade if the West doesn’t back off. In the meantime, after the October 2004 Orange Revolution and its see-saw between Russian- and Western-friendly presidencies, Putin is sending a message that Russian regional security concerns must be respected.
More of interest to us is that the Ruskies also announced that if that doesn’t happen, they’ll rearm not only Cuba – but VENEZUELA!! They believe that with the US preoccupied in the Pacific with China, they wouldn’t want to pivot to their backyard!! And that’s the last thing we would want, won’t we? Can you imagine the sabres Maduro would be rattling across our western border if he gets more MIGs and stuff? The global security chess game is on.
We have skin in the game, so we’d better be informed.
…in the PNC
Forbes Burnham was a pretty decent chess player at Queen’s – and it did help him in the manoeuvres during the Cold War struggles against Jagan. Your Eyewitness isn’t sure if his latest successor – Aubrey Norton – plays the game. But he seems to be following Burnham’s moves from that same era to seize control of the PNC’s power base.
Nowadays folks seem to think Burnham was supreme in the party from the word go, but it wasn’t so. His PPP(B) had to coalesce with the coloured elites of the UDP, and they had their (snotty) biases. Burnham simply banished their leader John Carter diplomatically – literally – with foreign postings. He “controlled to a T” occupants in executive offices. Well, in the PNC leadership elections, Norton ran on a slate, and it was ON HIS COAT TAILS that all of the positions went to his followers. Excepting Chris Jones tying with one of them for the Vice-Chair.
Now Jones has “stepped aside” – and Norton reigns uber alles!! He thinks!!
…in APNU/AFC
AFC Ramjattan’s move to have his ex-personal assistant replace APNU’s trained financial analyst nominee on the Procurement Commission isn’t strategic – just opportunistic horse trading.
If he can retain the 9 AFC MPs in Parliament, THAT would be strategic!!
