The Empire of Chaos Strikes Back

By Pepe Escobar

April 26, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Strategic Culture Foundation"- Soon after the impeachment motion against President Dilma Rousseff was approved in the Brazilian Congress by what I chose to call Hybrid War hyenas, President-in-Waiting Michel «Brutus» Temer, one of the coup’s articulators, dispatched a senator to Washington as special paperboy to deliver the news on the coup in progress. The senator in question was not on an official mission for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Brutus Temer was alarmed by global media reaction, which is increasingly interpreting what he’s doing – allied with Brutus Two, notoriously corrupt head of the lower house Eduardo Cunha – for what it is: a coup. 

The senator’s mission was allegedly to launch a PR offensive to counter the coup narrative, which is, according to Brutus One, «demoralizing Brazilian institutions».

Nonsense. The paperboy senator was sent to tell the US State Department that everything is proceeding according to plan.

In Washington, the paperboy senator mumbled, «we will explain that Brazil is not a banana republic». Well, it was not, but now, thanks to the Hybrid War hyenas, it is.

When you have a man holding 11 illegal bank accounts in Switzerland, listed in the Panama Papers, and already under investigation by the Supreme Court controlling the political destiny of a whole nation, you have a banana republic.

When you have a self-righteous provincial judge threatening to imprison former President Lula for a modest apartment and a ranch that he does not own, but at the same time is incapable of laying a finger on Brutus Two, alongside largely pompous Supreme Court judges, you have a banana republic.

Now compare Washington’s non-reaction with Moscow’s. The Russian Foreign Ministry, via the irrepressible Maria Zakharova, stressed the crucial BRICS partnership as well as the common Brazil-Russia positions within the G20. And Moscow made it clear that Brazil’s problems should be solved within «the constitutional legal framework and without any external interference».

Everyone knows what «external interference» means. 

Full Spectrum Dominance reloaded

I have been following the Brazilian coup-in-progress with a special emphasis on the US-backed/driven Hybrid Warfare bent on destroying «the neo-developmentalist project for Latin America – uniting at least some of the local elites, invested in developing internal markets, in association with the working classes». The key Hybrid War objective in this case is to install a neoliberal restoration.

Obviously the key target had to be Brazil, a BRICS member and the 7th largest economy in the world.

Imperial hacks go straight to the point when listing the Hybrid War tools and aims of what the Pentagon defined as Full Spectrum Dominance way back in 2002. So, «US power flows from our unmatched military might, yes. Anything that expands the reach of US markets – such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership in trade, for example – adds to the arsenal of US power. But in a deeper way, it’s a product of the dominance of the US economy».

Yet the US economy is far from dominant. What matters now is what drives «business away from America, or allow other nations to build a rival financial architecture that’s less encumbered by a smorgasbord of sanctions». 

«Rival financial architecture» has BRICS written all over it. And a «smorgasbord of sanctions» was not enough to make Iran cry uncle; Tehran will continue to practice a «resistance economy». Not by accident, two of the BRICS – Russia and China – as well as Iran, feature as the Pentagon’s top five existential threats, alongside nuclear-armed North Korea and, as the last lowly priority, «terrorism».

Cold War 2.0 is essentially about Russia and China – but Brazil is also a key player. Edward Snowden revealed how NSA spying was centered on Petrobras, whose proprietary technology was responsible for the largest oil discovery of the young 21^st century; the pre-salt deposits. US Big Oil is excluded from its exploitation. That’s anathema; and that requires deployment of Hybrid War techniques inbuilt in Full Spectrum Dominance.

Brazilian comprador elites have been gleefully playing the game. Over two years ago JP Morgan analysts were already conducting seminars with neoliberal macro-economy enforcers preaching how to destabilize the Rousseff government. 

Industry, commerce, banking and agribusiness lobbies have ostensibly favored impeachment, as representing the end of the Lula-Dilma social democracy experiment. So it’s no wonder President-in-Waiting Brutus Temer made a comprehensive deal with Big Capital – including no limits for interests on public debt (way above the international norm); the relation between debt and GDP bound to go up; more expensive credit; and the corollary being cuts on health and education.

As far as Washington is concerned, and that’s bipartisan, it’s absolutely out of the question to allow an autonomous regional power in the South Atlantic, blessed with unrivalled eco-wealth (think the Amazon rainforest and all that water, coupled with the Guarani aquifer) and on top of it closely linked to key BRICS members Russia-China, which have their own strategic partnership.

The pre-salt factor is the cherry in the tropical cake. Out of the question for US Big Oil to allow Petrobras to have the monopoly of exploitation. And just in case, if need be, the US 4th Fleet is already in position in the South Atlantic.

One BRICS down, two to go

The Cheney regime-declared «war on terra» distracted the Empire of Chaos for too long. Now finally comes a – coordinated, global – chaos offensive. From Southwest Asia to South Asia, the Hybrid War dream would be some sort of Iraqi chaos to replace the governments of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Egypt – as the leading-from-behind Empire of Chaos is trying hard in Syria even though the Assad dynasty was a «secret» US ally for decades.

The Masters of the Universe above paperboy Obama decided to stab the House of Saud in the back – not necessarily a bad thing – over Iran; the prevailing wishful thinking was to have Iranian natural gas replacing Russian natural gas going to Europe, thus collapsing the Russian economy. Major fail.

Yet there’s still another option; the Qatari natural gas pipeline through Saudi Arabia and Syria, also replacing Russian natural gas to Europe. That remains the CIA chief goal in Syria – no matter what; Daesh, the phony Caliphate – this is all just propaganda.

The CIA is also keen on Saudi Arabia destroying the Russian economy through an oil price war – and they do not want that to stop; thus holding over the Saudis those famous 28 pages on 9/11 to keep the oil price war going.

The CIA has also been trying like mad to lure Moscow into a Syrian trap as in 1980s Afghanistan, and as they did with the Kiev coup, even to the extent of ordering the Turkish military, which is their agent, to shoot down a Russian Su-24. The «problem» is that the Kremlin did not bite the poisoned apple.

Way back in the 1980s, the mix of House of Saud unleashing their reserves along with the GCC petrodollar gang, driving the price of oil to $7 a barrel in 1985, together with the Afghanistan Vietnam op, ended up driving the USSR bankrupt. Arguably, the whole op was brilliant – in conception and execution; a Hybrid War of economics plus Vietnam. Now, «leading from behind», Dr. Zbig «Grand Chessboard» Brzezinski – Obama’s foreign policy mentor – is trying to pull off a similar trick.

But oops, we got a problem. The Beijing leadership, already preoccupied with tweaking the Chinese development model, clearly saw the Empire of Chaos’s effort to Divide and Rule (and Conquer) the entire world. If Russia went down, China would be next.

It was only, virtually yesterday, around 2010, when US intel regarded China as their major military threat, and were starting to move against the Middle Kingdom via the «pivoting to Asia». But suddenly the CIA realized that Moscow had spent a trillion dollars jumping two generations ahead in defensive and offensive missiles – not to mention submarines; the weapons of choice for WWIII.

That is when Russia was enthroned as the major threat. Carefully surveying the chessboard, the Beijing leadership then accelerated the alliance with Russia and the BRICS as an alternative force, creating an earthquake in Washington of absolutely devastating proportions.

Now, Beijing has deftly engineered the BRICS into play as a serious alternative power structure – with their own IMF, SWIFT payment system, and World Bank.

Beware the wrath of an Empire of Chaos scorned. That’s what’s in play now against the BRICS; Brazil under siege, the fall of South Africa, the weakness of India, China and Russia progressively surrounded. Hybrid War variations from Ukraine to Brazil, mounting pressure in Central Asia, the «Syraq» powder keg, all point to a concerted Full Spectrum Dominance offensive to break up the BRICS, the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership, and ultimately the New Silk Roads uniting Eurasia. Oil price wars, the ruble collapse, the refugee flood in the EU (caused by «erratic» Sultan Erdogan), 21st century Operation Gladio remixes all over, distract the masses against imaginary enemies while terrorism of the phony Daesh variety is manipulated as a sophisticated diversionist tactic.

It may be brilliant, even masterful, in its conception and in its execution, and it’s so flashy in a cinematic sense. But make no mistake; there will be blowback.

© 2010 - 2016 | Strategic Culture Foundation