{"id":278624,"date":"2016-11-11T13:09:12","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T12:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-quake\/"},"modified":"2016-11-11T13:09:12","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T12:09:12","slug":"trump-quake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/trump-quake\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Quake"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

What has just happened in the \u201cindispensable nation\u201d is nothing less than a geopolitical 9\/11.<\/p>\n

With, of\u00a0course, a major twist. The suicide bomber sneaked out\u00a0of the successful attack \u2013 which was meant to\u00a0decimate virtually the whole War Party\/neocon-neoliberalcon\/Wall Street\/think tank\/corporate media establishment.<\/p>\n

And then, out\u00a0of left field, when no one saw him coming, he reappeared, trumping it all.<\/p>\n

Internal geopolitics was key \u2013 as\u00a0in the Trump campaign rust belt strategy mastering geography, demography and the rudiments of\u00a0class struggle to\u00a0effectively shatter the much-vaunted Democrat blue wall.<\/p>\n

For all the requiems\u00a0\u2014 \u201cAmerican tragedy\u201d downwards \u2013 there won\u2019t be an armed revolution in\u00a0the US. There won\u2019t be civil war. The \u201cdeplorables\u201d may have given a collective finger to\u00a0the liquid modernity elites \u2013 but\u00a0there will be no vengeful victory laps.<\/p>\n

And geopolitically \u2013 and that\u2019s what matters to\u00a0the whole world\u00a0\u2014 there will be no Warmonger-in-Chief.<\/p>\n

Instant Access to Current Spot Prices & Interactive Charts<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Heart of\u00a0Glass <\/strong><\/p>\n

Donald Trump \u2013 populist or not, a conduit to\u00a0a mass revolt of\u00a0the excluded and downgraded \u2013 managed to\u00a0destroy the self-propelled myth of\u00a0US institutional stability\/predictability\/credibility because these were already hollow qualities, vaunted by\u00a0a bunch of\u00a0vainglorious functionaries of\u00a0Empire (\u201chollow men, stupid men, heads filled with\u00a0straw\u201d, to\u00a0quote T.S.Eliot).<\/p>\n

Corruption \u2013 duly exposed by WikiLeaks \u2013 apart, what was on\u00a0offer was a neocon cum neoliberalcon \u201chumanitarian\u201d imperialist, privileging military \u201csolutions\u201d to\u00a0problems these same Exceptionalistan functionaries created and\/or de-multiplied.<\/p>\n

No wonder the beggars banquet clearly saw through\u00a0the looking glass; and by\u00a0not buying the myth of\u00a0a \u201cseasoned\u201d, \u201ccapable\u201d, \u201cprogressive pragmatist\u201d, they engineered her rebound on\u00a0the glass ceiling.<\/p>\n

There may be reasons to\u00a0doubt what certain dodgy Trumpsters such as\u00a0Newt Gingrich or Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn could concoct as\u00a0possible cabinet members. What\u2019s certain is priorities will deviate from\u00a0regime change in\u00a0Russia and containment of\u00a0China, pivot to\u00a0Asia-style (after all, Hillary was the pivot\u2019s Mother).<\/p>\n

The Global Times, reflecting what the Chinese leadership really thinks, got the basics right; \u201cHe did not only beat Hillary Clinton, but\u00a0also the traditional elite politics\u2019 convictions and authority [that] she stands for.\u201d What\u2019s left unsaid is that this is a man Beijing can do business with.<\/p>\n

The true test starts of\u00a0course next January. One cannot forget that Russia and China, in\u00a0that order, remain the Pentagon\u2019s top two \u201cexistential threats\u201d to\u00a0the US.<\/p>\n

\n

Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, US Army deputy chief of\u00a0staff for\u00a0operations, plans, and training, only recently stressed the US faces existential threats from \u201cmodern nation-states acting aggressively in\u00a0militarized competition.\u201d And Army Chief of\u00a0Staff General Mark Milley stressed a war, against\u00a0one of\u00a0those threats or both, is \u201calmost guaranteed.\u201d <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It will be up\u00a0to President Trump to\u00a0defuse this madness. Unlike Hillary, who is a true believer in\u00a0the doctrinal \u201cfirst-strike\u201d nuclear policy, Trump at\u00a0least promised, in\u00a0one of\u00a0the debates, he would not start WWIII.<\/p>\n

In parallel, there won\u2019t be neocon\/neoliberalcons around\u00a0to advocate a \u201cmuscular\u201d, \u201cinterventionist\u201d policy, from\u00a0the Russian borderlands to\u00a0the South China Sea all the way to\u00a0an al-Qaeda Air Force-style \u201cno-fly zone\u201d Syria. Trump does not seem inclined to\u00a0build \u201corder\u201d in\u00a0the chaos the Empire fomented \u2013 from \u201cIraq\u201d to\u00a0Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. He has only pledged to\u00a0bomb ISIS\/ISIL\/Daesh to\u00a0smithereens.<\/p>\n

The desperate plea by\u00a0former vassal NATO secretary-general Anders \u201cFogh of\u00a0War\u201d Rasmussen\u00a0\u2014 \u201cWe need America as\u00a0the world\u2019s policeman\u201d \u2013 will not be heeded.<\/p>\n

Iran though will remain a flashpoint. Flynn, not free from\u00a0neocon indoctrination, is a certified Iranophobe. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani already pre-empted him, stating the Iran nuclear deal cannot be reversed (and he\u2019s lawfully correct).<\/p>\n

Trump the Eurasian? <\/strong><\/p>\n

As usual, the buck always stops with\u00a0China. At the recent Valdai discussion group, Fu Ying, chair of\u00a0the Foreign Affairs Committee of\u00a0China\u2019s National People\u2019s Congress, went straight to\u00a0the point; \u201cChina views the US-dominated world order as\u00a0a mess and this is why it does not want to\u00a0take over. Why should China repeat the mistakes which the US did?\u201d<\/p>\n

With Beijing not taking over\u00a0while Trump focuses on\u00a0rebuilding the US, a geopolitical power vacuum is bound to\u00a0emerge. Yet don\u2019t discount Trump proposing a \u2013 power-sharing\u00a0\u2014 deal China simply won\u2019t refuse, centered on\u00a0respecting spheres of\u00a0influence.<\/p>\n

The same could apply to\u00a0Cold War 2.0 hysteria. It\u2019s not far-fetched to\u00a0see Trump accepting Crimea as\u00a0part of\u00a0the new status quo; a real Minsk II in\u00a0Ukraine; and respecting Russia\u2019s spheres of\u00a0influence. In a flash, Cold War 2.0 will be gone. Talk about\u00a0a real reset \u2013 not Hillary\u2019s, which featured a handicapped State Dept. which could not even properly write \u201creset\u201d in\u00a0Russian.<\/p>\n

And what about\u00a0TPP and TTIP? Considering Trump\u2019s aversion to\u00a0NAFTA, it\u2019s improbable this Obama administration twin obsession \u2013 geoeconomic and geostrategic \u2013 will prosper. Hillary was mesmerized by\u00a0the US-EU as \u201cthe greatest strategic objective\u201d of\u00a0our \u201ctransatlantic alliance\u201d \u2013 meaning NATO. Trump is not exactly ecstatic about\u00a0NATO \u2013 unless everyone is religiously paying their 2% of\u00a0GDP into\u00a0it. Don\u2019t count on\u00a0Trump being seduced by\u00a0an \u201ceconomic NATO\u201d.<\/p>\n

What this would all mean, in\u00a0the long run, is something quite extraordinary; the progressive dissolution of\u00a0the US-EU politico\/economic\/military bloc, in\u00a0parallel to\u00a0the inexorable ascension of\u00a0Eurasian integration \u2013 ranging from\u00a0the China-Russia strategic partnership to\u00a0the interlinking with\u00a0the SCO and the BRICS.<\/p>\n

\n

Imagine Trump turning Dr. Zbig \u201cGrand Chessboard\u201d Brzezinski upside down: \u201cTo respond effectively in\u00a0both the western and eastern parts of\u00a0Eurasia, the world\u2019s central and most critical continent, the United States must play a dual role. It must be the promoter and guarantor of\u00a0greater and broader unity in\u00a0the West, and it must be the balancer and conciliator between\u00a0the major powers in\u00a0the East.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The US is in\u00a0no position anymore to\u00a0be promoter, guarantor, balancer and conciliator of\u00a0whatever there is \u2013 starting with\u00a0itself. Now imagine Donald Trump ultimately revealing himself \u2013 by\u00a0proxy\u00a0\u2014 as\u00a0a Eurasian at\u00a0heart; that would be the ultimate Trumpquake.<\/p>\n

Reprinted from Sputnik News<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Best of Pepe Escobar<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What has just happened in the \u201cindispensable nation\u201d is nothing less than a geopolitical 9\/11. With, of\u00a0course, a major twist. The suicide bomber sneaked out\u00a0of the successful attack \u2013 which was meant to\u00a0decimate virtually the whole War Party\/neocon-neoliberalcon\/Wall Street\/think tank\/corporate media establishment. And then, out\u00a0of left field, when no one saw him coming, he reappeared, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-278624","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}