US Seeks “Super Weapons” to Reign as Sole Superpower

September 3, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - The US openly declares that it seeks to maintain a monopoly over shaping the “international order” following the Cold War and America’s emergence from it as the sole superpower. 

This policy is not new.

The New York Times in a 1992 article titled, “U.S. Strategy Plan Calls for Insuring No Rivals Develop,” would note that the Pentagon sought to create a world, “dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.” 

This policy set the stage for decades of US wars of aggression, political interference, regime change, US-sponsored terrorism, economic sanctions, and a growing confrontation directly between the US and a reemerging Russia as well as a rising China, all of which continue playing out to this day.

Emerging from the Cold War as the sole “superpower,” the US carefully cultivated public perception through likewise carefully chosen conflicts showcasing its military supremacy. While the US still to this day cites its wars with Iraq in 1990 and 2003 along with the toppling of the Libyan government in 2011 as proof of its uncontested military power, in truth, both targeted nations were not nearly as powerful or as dangerous as the Western media claimed at the time.

This facade has crumbled since. “American primacy” is now not only facing serious challenges, the premise it is based on – the notion that a single nation representing a fraction of the global population can or even should hold primacy over the rest of the planet – has been revealed as wholly unsustainable, if not self-destructive.

Not only is US military and economic power visibly waning, the military and economic power of China, Russia, and a growing number of other nations is rapidly growing.

The special interests within the US pursuing global primacy, do so in perpetual pursuit of wealth and power, often at the expense of many of the purposes a modern, functional nation-state exists to fulfill. Often this process includes the deliberate plundering of the key pillars of a modern nation-state’s power –  industry, education, culture, and social harmony. This, in turn, only accelerates the collapse of US economic and military power.

Ukraine Lays Bare American Weakness 

Washington’s proxy war in Ukraine has laid bare for the world to see this fundamental weakness. US weapons have proven less-than-capable against a peer adversary, Russia.

America’s expensive precision-guided artillery shells, rockets, and missiles were built in smaller numbers than their conventional counterparts, supposedly because they could achieve with just one round what several conventional rounds could. A single US-made 155 mm GPS-guided Excalibur artillery shell, for example, is claimed by Raytheon to achieve what would otherwise require 10 conventional artillery shells.

This myth of quality over quantity has unraveled on and over the battlefield in Ukraine. Russia is not only capable of producing vastly more conventional weapons than the US and its European proxies, it is able to produce vastly more high-tech precision-guided weapons as well, including its own precision-guided artillery shells (the laser-guided Krasnopol), precision-guided multiple launch artillery systems (the Tornado-S), as well as larger quantities of ballistic and cruise missiles (Iskander, Kalibr, and Kh-101).

In other areas, Russia possesses capabilities the US does not have. Russia fields two types of hypersonic missiles, the Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile and the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile. Russia also possesses air and missile defense as well as electronic warfare capabilities the US cannot match – not in quality, not in quantity.

How is the US Convincing the Philippines to Destroy Itself?

August 29, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - As China rises, Asia rises with it. The Southeast Asian state of the Philippines stood to rise alongside the rest of the region until relatively recently as the United States successfully convinces the Philippines to do otherwise. 

Before the current administration of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office, China was working with the Philippines to build badly needed modern infrastructure. Now, rather than working and trading together with China, the Philippines is pointing missiles at China. It has “invited” the United States, the Philippines’ former colonial master, to build new military facilities across its territory, using semantics and legal loopholes to sidestep the Philippines own constitution and undermine its sovereignty in the process.

Instead of rising with the rest of Asia, the Philippines continues to escalate toward a conflict that could set the entire region back decades or more.

Just as the United States politically captured Ukraine in Eastern Europe in 2014 and transformed it into a geopolitical battering ram against neighboring Russia at the expense of Ukraine’s population, economy, sovereignty, and possibly even its existence, it is repeating the same process with the Philippines vis-à-vis China.

How has the United States convinced a nation of over 115 million people to forego economic progress and development in exchange for an escalating confrontation with its own largest trade partner? What are the mechanisms Washington uses to convince an entire nation to race toward conflict and self-destruction?

A Vast Network of Propaganda 

There is growing awareness of the means by which the US interferes politically in targeted nations through the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and adjacent organizations, agencies, and foundations, compromising a nation’s leadership and reshaping national policies to serve Washington at the expense of the targeted nation.

The NED does this through targeting every aspect of a nation-state, from its political system, to academia, from its courts and legal system to a nation’s information space.

Philippine information space, like many nations around the globe, has been targeted by a vast media network built up by the US government as well as corporate money funneled through intermediaries including foundations and endowments, to poison the Philippine people not only against China specifically, but against the Philippines’ own best interests in general.

Part of this vast network are so-called “fact-checking” projects the US government together with the largest names in Western media as well as US-based tech giants like Google uses to paradoxically reinforce US government disinformation and attack and undermine people and organizations working to inform the public – including the Philippine public – of what the US is really doing and why.

In the Philippines, this network includes PressOne. Its “fact-checking” activities have repeatedly targeted those exposing US interference in the Philippines’ internal political affairs and undermining Philippine sovereignty.

Kursk: Fighting Russia to the Last Ukrainian

August 21, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - In the lead up to the Ukrainian military’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, even Western headlines were dominated by reports of Ukraine’s gradual demise. Ukraine is admittedly suffering arms and ammunition shortages, as well as facing an unsolvable manpower crisis. Russia has been destroying Ukrainian military power faster than Ukraine and its Western sponsors can reconstitute it.

Western headlines have also been admitting the scale on which Russia is expanding its own military power as its Special Military Operation (SMO) continues into its third year.

While the launch of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has diverted attention away from Ukraine’s collapsing fighting capacity, the incursion itself has not only failed to address the factors leading to this collapse, it is already accelerating it.

Politico in an August 15, 2024 article titled, “As Kyiv makes gains in Kursk, Russia strikes back in Donetsk,” cites the spokesman of Ukraine’s 110th Mechanized Brigade who would admit, “since Ukraine launched the Kursk offensive I would say things have become worse in our part of the front. We have been getting even less ammo than before, and the Russians are pushing.”

The same article would also cite “Deep State,” a mapping project Politico claims is “close” to Ukraine Ministry of Defense, claiming, “over the past 24 hours, Russia occupied the villages of Zhelanne and Orlivka and made advances in New York, Krasnohorivka, Mykolaivka and Zhuravka in Donetsk.”

Thus, while Ukraine claims gains in Kursk, it comes at the expense of territory everywhere else along the line of contact.

Because of the nature of the fighting in Kursk where Ukrainian forces have come out from behind extensive defensive lines and are operating out in the open, they are suffering much greater losses than Ukrainian units being pushed back along the line of contact, according to even the Western media.

Superficial Success, Strategic Suicide  

Despite this reality, the Western media has invested heavily in depicting Ukraine’s Kursk incursion as a turning point in the fighting.
CNN in its August 15, 2024 article, “Russia appears to have diverted several thousand troops from occupied Ukraine to counter Kursk offensive, US officials say,” attempts at first glance to portray the Ukrainian operation as having successfully diverted Russian forces from the front lines.

Buried deeper in the article, however, CNN reveals that whatever troops Russia is moving are relatively insignificant compared to the number of Russian forces still fighting along the line of contact primarily in Kherson, Zaporozhye, the Donbass, and Kharkov.

In the short-term, experienced forces utilized as a mobile reserve are likely being moved to Kursk until Russian reserves within Russia itself can be sufficiently mobilized and moved to the area of fighting. The vast majority of Russia’s forces not only remain along the actual line of contact, they continue making progress at an accelerated rate.

The same CNN article would quote US officials, saying:

Some officials also raised concerns that Ukraine, which one western official said has sent some of its more experienced forces into Kursk, may have created weaknesses along its own frontlines that Russia may be able to exploit to gain more ground inside Ukraine. 

“It’s impressive from a military point of view,” the official said of the Kursk operation. But Ukraine is “committing pretty experienced troops to this, and they can’t afford to lose those troops.” 

“And having diverted them from the front line creates opportunities for Russia to seize advantage and break through,” this person added. 

Buried under optimistic headlines across the Western media regarding this latest incursion is an ominous truth – that an operation aimed at humiliating Russia, boosting morale, and raising the political, territorial, and military costs for Russia, has only brought Ukraine deeper into its growing arms, ammunition, and manpower crisis.

Toward what end does an incursion accelerating the collapse of Ukraine’s fighting capacity serve?

Washington’s, Not Kiev’s Ends  

CNN would also attempt to convince readers that the Kursk incursion took the US itself entirely by surprise. This is untrue.

The United States, following its political capture of Ukraine in 2014, admittedly took over Ukraine’s intelligence networks. These are the same networks that would have been required to organize this most recent incursion.

A New York Times article, “The Spy War: How the C.I.A. Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin,” not only admits to the CIA’s role in training, shaping, and directing Ukrainian intelligence operations, but also admits to a network of CIA bases along the Ukrainian-Russian border and the fact that the CIA stood up covert military units specifically for crossing over into Russian territory and conducting operations there.

The CIA and other US military and intelligence agencies have been involved in Ukrainian military operations leading up to and all throughout the duration of Russia’s SMO.  The Washington Post admits that the US worked with Ukraine to “build a campaign plan” ahead of the failed 2023 Ukrainian offensive.

It is inconceivable Ukraine moved multiple brigades of manpower and equipment, including US-European trained soldiers and Western military equipment to Sumy where the Kursk incursion was launched without Washington’s involvement, let alone without Washington’s knowledge.

What’s Behind Regime Change in Bangladesh

August 11, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - Violent regime change in the South Asian country of Bangladesh unfolded rapidly and mostly by stealth as the rest of the world focused on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, growing tensions in the Middle East and a simmering confrontation between the US and China in the Asia-Pacific region.

The implications of the successful putsch, carried out by US-backed opposition groups, stands to impact South and Southeast Asia, as well as create instability along the peripheries of the two most populous nations on Earth, China and India.

Because of Russia’s close relations with both China and India, Russia itself stands to be affected as well.

Who Was Protesting and Who Was Behind Them? 

It was US government-funded media, Voice of America, in a 2023 article admitting the role the US ambassador to Bangladesh himself played in backing opposition in the South Asian country.

The article would admit in a photo caption that US Ambassador Peter Haas, “is popular in Bangladesh among pro-democracy and rights activists and critics of the Sheikh Hasina regime.”

The same article would admit to steps the US had already taken to pressure Bangladesh to conduct future elections in such a manner as to produce the desired outcome Washington sought, noting:

…the U.S. government announced that it had started “taking steps to impose visa restrictions” on Bangladeshi individuals who are found complicit in “undermining the democratic electoral process” in Bangladesh.

The article admits that the Awami League (AL) party, which had ruled in Bangladesh up until the recent, violent protests, had accused US Ambassador Haas of interfering in Bangladesh’s internal political affairs and specifically of supporting the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as well as street violence on its behalf.

The “Muscle” 

While the Western media portrayed the unrest in Bangladesh as “pro-democracy” demonstrations led by “student protesters,” the BBC in its July 2023 article, “Bangladesh PM blames political foes for violence,” would obliquely admit that the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami movement, including its student wings, were behind the violence.

Since Bangladesh gained independence, it has banned Jammat-e-Islami on and off for decades, depending who held power, with the organization accused of having committed extensive acts of violence.

Voice of America, republishing an Associated Press article, would note that, “most of the senior leaders of the party have been hanged or jailed since 2013 after courts convicted them of crimes against humanity including killings, abductions and rapes in 1971.”

It should be noted that outside of Bangladesh, other governments have also designated Jammat-e-Islami as a terrorist organization, including the Russian Federation.

The US State Department, for its part, has published a report as recently as 2023 whitewashing the violent history and enduring threat the organization poses to Bangladesh, portraying Jammat-e-Islami instead as the victims of government “abuses.”

While the Western media has reported on the ban of Jammat-e-Islami, none of the reports have attempted to deny its involvement in the most recent protests.

The “Face” of the Protests 

Just like other protests organized by the US around the globe, it appears a conglomeration of violent organizations like Jammat-e-Islami along with so-called “civil society” groups funded by the US government as well as supporters of US-backed opposition parties took to the streets, each performing a vital role.

Violent street fronts create violence in a bid to escalate protests, civil society poses as the “face” of the movement both on the streets and across information space, while US-backed political parties use the resulting chaos to maneuver themselves into power.

Fulfilling the role of providing a “face” to the global public were a number of students from Dhaka University’s political science department including Nahid Islam and Nusrat Tabassum, both of whom have their own profile on the US and European government as well as Open Society-funded Front Line Defenders database.

Who Really Controls US Foreign Policy?

August 7, 2024 (NEO - Brian Berletic) - From the ongoing US involvement in Ukraine, to an enduring US military presence in the Middle East, and growing US-Chinese tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, regardless of who controls the US Congress and regardless of who sits in the White House, these conflicts continue forward – often with a Democratic president setting the stage for his Republican successor, and vice versa. 

Why, no matter who Americans vote into power, US foreign policy, and even domestic policy, seems to steamroll forward regardless?

Contrary to popular belief, US foreign and domestic policy is not determined by the US Congress or even by the White House, but instead by a powerful combine of unelected corporate-financier interests who fund a vast network of policy institutions known as “think tanks.”

These think tanks create a consensus among the various corporate-financier interests funding their activities as well as sitting upon their boards of directors, boards of trustees, or serving as advisors to these institutions.

This consensus manifests itself in the various policy papers these think tanks publish every year, which are then crafted into bills by teams of lawyers and legislative specialists. The bills are proposed to Congress and the White House by lobbyists, who then vote on or sign off on these bills, often without even reading their contents.

Because the center of American power rests with these interests rather than either Congress or the White House, efforts to influence, challenge, or change US policy must focus on these interests based primarily on Wall Street rather than on politicians in Washington D.C.

What Are Think Tanks? 

Far from a “conspiracy theory,” the central role corporate-financier funded think tanks play in driving US foreign and domestic policy was explained by none other than US government-funded media outlet Voice of America in a 2018 article titled, “What’s Behind the ‘Think Tanks’ That Influence US Policy?”

The article would note:

Out of more than 1800 think tanks in the United States, nearly 400 are based in Washington. Previous administrations have relied on the research and ideas generated by such organizations to formulate policy. Such institutions have been criticized in the past for their outsized influence on U.S. policy formulation.

The article would also admit that many of those in American media and politics began within the halls of these corporate-financier funded institutions.

The article says:

In addition to influencing public policy, such institutions are often a training ground for those wishing to gain a foothold in media or the corridors of power.

The same article admitted, “think tanks are also a revolving door for talent,” pointing out that,

“in the George W. Bush administration, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, all came from Washington think tanks.” 

Only toward the very bottom of the article was any mention made of the corporate-financier interests actually funding such think tanks.

The article claims:

But policies and ideas are often developed through the prism of political bias so knowing who’s paying for those ideas is important.

“I think the important thing for the public to know is that, when think tanks issue a report, it is important for those who are reading the report to try to understand if it was influenced by the funder or not,” says Rom of Georgetown University. “And good think tanks are open and transparent in the kind of research they do so that those who read that research can judge its independence.”

Few Americans are even aware of, let alone understand the central role of think tanks in US policymaking. Fewer still are aware of the monumental conflict of interest that exists between the corporations and financial institutions funding these think tanks, the policies these think tanks propose, and the bills and policies that are eventually passed and implemented by Washington.

Because of this lack of understanding, many Americans believe the future of US policy is determined in Washington through elections. In reality, the future of US policy is determined by unelected corporate-financier interests who advance their desired policies regardless of who controls Congress or who currently sits in the White House.

How Bills are (Really) Made 

CBS News, in a 2017 article titled, “Who Actually Writes The Bills In Congress?,” would admit that “attorneys” who are knowledgeable about the subjects of the bills often write them. The same article admits that bills may originate, “directly from a member, who might receive input from constituents, lobbyists or staff on a particular issue.”

As Voice of America admitted in its article, such “lobbyists” and “attorneys” and even “members” of Congress, are drawn from corporate-financier funded think tanks.