Geopolitično prestrukturiranje se danes res dogaja s svetlobno hitrostjo. Zadnji primer je podpis sporazuma o strateškem vojaškem sodelovanju med Saudsko Arabijo in Pakistanom, ki ima značilnosti sporazuma Nata (medsebojna zaščita v primeru zunanje agresije na državo).  Kar efektivno pomeni, da je Saudska Arabija pobegnila pod pakistanski jedrski dežnik, ker ne zaupa ZDA, da jo bodo ubranile pred potencialnimi napadi Izraela. In Pakistan se je odpovedal opciji, da ne bo prvi uporabil jedrskega orožja. 

To s seboj prinaša raznolike velike posledice – glede dedolarizacije cen arabske nafte (S. Arabija je pred tem vezala oblikovanje cen nafte v dolarjih na ameriško zaščito), glede nove kopenske povezave med Iranom in Kitajsko prek Pakistana, konec sanj o evro-indijskem koridorju itd. Spodaj je dober komentar na to temo.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying that this truly is the US’s Suez moment: Saudi Arabia just entered into a NATO-like alliance with Pakistan whereby “any attack on either country is an attack on both.”

The symbolic is extraordinary: Saudi Arabia was in many ways THE poster child of US client states. If they no longer trusts American security guarantees, why should anyone else?

And of course the fact this actually happened and wasn’t prevented by the U.S. is immensely telling in and of itself.

This has so many other consequences that it’s almost too much to fathom:

– First of all, it means that Saudi Arabia now benefits from Pakistan’s nuclear deterrence (and the deal does include nuclear: a senior Saudi Official told Al Jazeera that “this is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means”, https://aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/17/saudi-arabia-signs-mutual-defence-pact-with-nuclear-armed-pakistan). Which means we now officially have two nuclear-backed blocs in the Middle East: US-Israel vs Pakistan-Saudi. Additionally, Pakistan explicitly rejects a “no first use” doctrine – meaning Saudi Arabia now has a protector willing to use nuclear weapons preemptively.

– Given that 81% of Pakistan’s weapon imports come from China (https://scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3302515/china-supplied-81-pakistans-arms-imports-past-5-years-sipri-says), it also means that Saudi Arabia just indirectly aligned itself with the Chinese military-industrial complex

– This effectively extends the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to the Persian Gulf, protected by Pakistani nuclear weapons and Chinese military technology – creating a secure energy corridor from the Middle East to China that completely bypasses the Strait of Malacca

– The timing is probably no coincidence, just days after Israel’s strike on Qatar, the ultimate proof of the worthlessness of US protection.

– Other Gulf states, and probably in due times other countries “protected” by the U.S., are likely to explore comparable models in the next few months. In fact this might lead to a cascading collapse of the U.S. global alliance system, leading to an entirely new international system where regional nuclear powers become security providers.

– Hard to see how that doesn’t permanently kill any chance of Israel-Saudi normalization: Pakistan does not recognize Israel either and with this alliance the Saudis now can resist US pressure as they don’t solely depend on them for their defense

– It puts India in an extremely tough spot: its archenemy just became the security guarantor for one its primary energy suppliers

– This undoubtedly kills IMEC (India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor), the Biden administration’s flagship grand strategy to counter China’s Belt and Road that was supposed to connect India to Europe via Saudi Arabia

– There is a monetary aspect too: this is another nail in the coffin of the petrodollar system (an agreement to price oil exclusively in USD in exchange for US protection). Saudi Arabia is now much more flexible to price oil in whatever currency it wishes

And this is just what’s immediately visible. As a final word: if anyone had any remaining doubt that we were now in a multipolar world, that debate is now settled permanently. American global dominance is no more.

Vir: Arnaud Bertrand

V torek so mediji poročali, da je bila po obisku kitajskega zunanjega ministra Wang Yija v Varšavi odpovedana skupna tiskovna konferenca in tudi skupna izjava obeh zunanjih ministrov. Na srečanju je očitno prišlo do resnejšega “nestrinjanja”. Včeraj pa so se razširile informacije, da naj bi bil vzrok v poljskem negativnem odgovoru na prošnjo kitajskega ministra, da Poljska (na meji z Belorusijo) ponovno odpre železniško povezavo s Kitajsko. Ta povezava je pomembna logistična pot za transport kitajskega blaga v Evropo, precej hitrejša in cenejša od pomorske poti.

Ključno vprašanje je, zakaj je Poljska to naredila in zakaj je najpomembnejši globalni gospodarski velesili prisolila diplomatsko zaušnico. Odgovor je treba iskati v poljskih tesnih povezavah z ZDA. Poljska je najpomembnejša ameriška zaveznica v vzhodni Evropi in ima v EU največjo vojsko (znotraj Nata imata le ZDA in Turčija večjo vojsko), kupuje največ ameriškega orožja in poljski zunanji minister Radek Sikorski je osebno povezan z ZDA. Njegova žena je znana pro-izraelska in rusofobna novinarka Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic, prej The Economist in Washington Post). Imata dva sinova, od katerih naj bi bil eden (po nekaterih poročilih) pripadnik ameriške vojske. In Sikorski je tisti politik, ki je ob razstrelitvi plinovoda Severni tok na twitterju pod sliko uhajanja plina zapisal “Thank you, USA”.

Špekulacije, zakaj je Sikorski zavrnil kitajsko prošnjo gredo v smeri, da je s tem – tudi in predvsem na željo Washingtona – hotel Kitajsko prisiliti, da se v vojni v Ukrajini odmakne od Rusije. No, če je Sikorski hotel s tem prisiliti Kitajsko, da preneha kupovati ruske energente in surovine in izvažati industrijske izdelke v Rusijo, je zelo naiven ali pa zelo aroganten. Če bi namreč Kitajska to naredila, ne bi samo prizadela svojega gospodarstva (kitajski izvoz v Rusijo je v 2024 znašal 115 miljard $), pač pa bi se strateško izpostavila Ameriki, ker bi postala bolj odvisna od uvoza arabske nafte (ki jo kontrolirajo v veliki meri ameriška podjetja) in katarskega ter ameriškega plina. Zakaj neki bi Kitajska kot najmočnejše in tehnološko najbolj napredno gospodarstvo na svetu želela na to pristati? Kitajsko gospodarstvo seveda bistveno lažje “pogoltne” višje stroške transporta na proizvode v vrednosti 25 milijard $, ki se prevažajo prek železnice v Evropo, kot pa izpad 115 milijard izvoza v Rusijo in izpad uvoza poceni ruskih energentov in surovin v skupni vrednosti 130 milijard $ (v 2024).

Kaj neki si je poljski zunanji minister Sikorski domišljal, ko je poskušal izsiljevati Kitajsko? Očitno ni naredil domače naloge, da bi vsaj imel predstavo, kakšna je ekonomska in geopolitična cost-benefit analiza Kitajske. Ali pa je preprosto aroganten.

What if I told you the Winter War wasn’t about Soviet ‘aggression’ but about Finland refusing every compromise, while secretly helping build Hitler’s navy.

Stalin and Molotov tried everything possible to secure the Soviet borders:
🟨They offered money.
🟨They offered a 30-year lease.
🟨They even offered territories twice the size of what they asked for.

But Finland chose war over reason.

Paasikivi and Tanner themselves admitted that Moscow’s terms were generous and that Finland should accept them. But Helsinki refused, while quietly aligning with Germany and was unwilling to make a single concession to Moscow.

In the 1939 talks, Stalin warned that Finland could serve as a springboard for an attack on Leningrad. He was right: just two years later, Finland joined Hitler’s assault in the Siege of Leningrad, which starved 1.5 million civilians. And beyond the battlefield, Finnish authorities also ran concentration camps, where countless Soviet civilians died.

In this thread, I’ll share Tanner’s own words as Finland’s Foreign Minister, so you can sense the atmosphere of those negotiations yourself.

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Thomas Fazi je eden najbolj progresivnih politoloških mislecev sodobnega časa na levici. Leta 2017 sta skupaj z ekonomistom Williamom Mitchellom objavila knjigo “Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World“, ki je bila zelo pred časom. To je bil čas začetka masivnega trenda vzpona populizma na zahodu. Osrednja teza knjige je, da politične demokracije ne moremo imeti brez ekonomske demokracije in da slednje ne moremo imeti brez nacionalne suverenosti. Mnogo pred Covidom in vojno v Ukrajini sta predvidela trende k avtoritarnosti na nadnacionalni ravni, ki so tendirali k zmanjševanju osebnih pravic in širitvi represije. EU sta videla kot institucijo, ki služi za podrejanje držav prek skupnih politik prisiljevanja članic v škodljive politike (kot je politika varčevanja, monetarna politika itd.). In seveda kot podaljšek Nata in kot institucijo, ki drži evropske države v podrejenosti Ameriki. “Vzeti nazaj državo” je bil njun poziv k večji nacionalni suverenosti držav, ki edina lahko legitimira ekonomske politike in s tem tudi politično demokracijo. Brez tega drsimo v avtoritarnost, represijo in militarizacijo … in razpad EU. Kajti na določeni točki bo revolt v evropskih državah narasel do točke, ko bo napolnil jadra populistom, in to desnim, in ti bodo naredili konec EU.

In to je razlog, zakaj bom na naslednjih volitvah volil za stranke, ki se bodo zavzemale za suverenost – slovensko in evropsko.

Reclaiming the State offers an urgent and prescient political analysis and economic program for the Left who are strategizing for these uncertain times. Many of our assumptions—about ideology, democracy, trade, and globalization—are being thrown into doubt, deposed by populism, nationalism, and racism. In response to these challenging times, economist Bill Mitchell and political theorist Thomas Fazi propose a reconceptualization of the sovereign state as a vehicle for change. They offer a progressive view of sovereignty based not on the demonization of the other, but as a way to bring the economy back under democratic control. With nationalism gaining support across the United States with each passing week, Reclaiaming the State provides innovative ideas to mobilize and reenergize a tired, divided Left.

Spodaj je Fazijevo razmišljanje 8 let kasneje ob izidu nemškega prevoda knjige.

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A few days ago, at dinner, the discussion turned (as it sometimes does these days) to Ukraine. The debate – because it was a debate – went on for three hours. I found myself, as I often do on this topic, in a small minority. I reproduce the gist of the discussion here, because it’s very rare, in my experience, for the two sides to engage each other directly: each prefers to stick to its own version of the truth. Animated, but restrained, the argument circled round the two poles of Putin and Trump – their personalities, their motives, and, given these, the possibility of peace in Ukraine any time soon. For each of the two protagonists, there is a case for the prosecution and a case for the defence. At two points in the discussion below, I invite the judgment of Adam Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’.

…

What is Adam Smith’s ‘impartial spectator’ to make of this? He or she is faced with two seemingly irreconcilable stories. Each side dubs the other side the aggressor; each depicts its own position as defensive, and each can adduce evidence on its behalf.. I know of no way of demonstrating that one narrative is ‘truer’ than the other. We are what our stories make us. But what action one takes in response to others’ stories is a different matter. One can react either prudently or imprudently, sympathetically or contemptuously.

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V akademskem svetu je precej perverznosti. Ena izmed večjih perverznosti, vendar ne največja, se nanaša na način objavljanja. V akademskem svetu se vse vrti okrog znanstvenih objav. Doktorski študenti in bodoči akademiki potijo krvavi pot pri delu na raziskavah, promoviranju raziskav prek seminarjev in konferenc, pošiljanju člankov v objavo in popravljanju člankov. Vmes je ogromno zavrnitev objave. Včasih tudi po 10-krat. Od začetka dela na raziskavi do objave znanstvenega članka mine nekaj let. Toda bodoči akademiki nimajo druge možnosti, kot da so v tem procesu. Kajti samo prek dobrih objav lahko dobijo službo. Tri dobre objave v indeksiranih revijah so običajno potrebne za vstop na mesto docenta. In za vsako napredovanje spet po 3 oziroma 6 novih objav. Boljša kot je univerza, višje je določen prag kvalitete revije, kjer mora biti članek objavljen (na najboljših univerzah so potrebne objave v top-5 revijah s področja).

Zdaj pa o perverziji. Večina ljudi izven akademskega sveta misli, da so objave člankov plačane. Niso. Objave člankov omogočajo zgolj vstop v klub – zaposlitev na univerzi oziroma napredovanje. Velja nasprotno, če želiš objaviti, moraš plačati. Bodisi neposredno, da je članek “odprt”, prosto dostopen vsem na internetu, za kar založniki običajno zahtevajo APC v višini 3,000 dolarjev (to za raziskovalca običajno pokrije univerza). Drugi način plačila za objavo pa je, da drugi plačajo za dostop do tvojega članka (običajno okrog 35 dolarjev za članek) in da bi to omogočili imajo univerze posebne aranžmaje z največjimi založniki (Elsevier, Springer Nature itd.), kjer založnikom plačujejo bajne pavšalne vsote za prost dostop njihovim raziskovalcem do člankov, objavljenih v revijah. Torej univerze plačujejo za objavo člankov.

Vendar zgodbe še ni konec. Vsak članek gre skozi recenzentsko sito (2 do 3 raziskovalci s področja ga preberejo in komentirajo ter na koncu dajo zeleno ali rdečo luč glede objave). To delo ni plačano. Zakaj razsikovalci to počnemo? Najprej zaradi etike, ker je to pač del našega poslanstva. Drugič pa tudi zaradi tega, ker smo ali morda še bomo v dotični reviji, od katere smo dobili povabilo k recenziji nekega članka, kdaj objavili kak članek. Če zavrneš recenziranje, pač greš na črno listo pri urednikih.

Perverzija cele zgodbe je v tem, da raziskovalci pišejo članke, nato univerze plačujejo za objavo teh člankov, vmes pa raziskovalci pišejo članke zastonj in zastonj recenzirajo članke drugih. Služijo pa založniki. Elsevier ima običajno nekaj milijard dolarjev dobička letno. Dober biznis. Toda akademski trg je zelo specifičen, zato takšne anomalije.

No, izgleda, da je ta poslovni model postal zelo moteč za velike institucije, ki financirajo založnike. Glejte spodaj.

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Tole spodaj je zelo edukativno branje:

But, but, but… “The USSR and Hitler allied and started WWII together.” Nope. That’s the Western fairytale about the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact which was a pact about neutrality: I don’t attack you, you don’t attack me. Multiple European countries signed agreements and non-aggression pacts with Hitler; the USSR was the last. Hitler broke it, but Stalin knew he would do it. But let’s talk about the real development of events and not the bedtime stories sold to you in schoolbooks or elsewhere. 🧵👇

To understand what happened, we need to get the context. Let’s roll two decades back when Russia was bleeding in the Civil War. Exactly at that moment, Poland saw its chance and launched the Soviet-Polish war that you never heard about. So, Russia had two wars at the same time: the civil war and the Soviet-Polish war. Such a mischievous move wasn’t new for Poland. For centuries, it tried to grab the western lands of Rus’, especially during Russia’s weakest moments like the Mongol invasion and the Time of Troubles.
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Nova ocena “humanitarnih stroškov”, to je smrtnih žrtev zaradi gospodarskih sankcij proti državam (38 milijonov smrtnih žrtev od od leta 1970), ki dodatno poudarja, kar je jasno že nekaj desetletij: sankcije so zelo neučinkovite, če je njihov namen zamenjava režima (le 4 % “uspeh”, glejte spodaj), imajo pa zelo visoke humanitarne stroške, zato se jih Varnostni svet OZN od začetka 1990-ih let ne poslužuje več.

Seveda pa to ne velja za ZDA in EU države, ki jih zelo rade negujejo, ko si želijo zamenjati režim v posameznih državah. Na žalost pa ceno namesto kontroverznih politikov plačajo državljani.

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In February 2025 the U.S. started talks with Russia over ending the war in Ukraine. The Europeans were against such talks. They were still dreaming of winning the lost war – of keeping control over Ukraine by providing it with security guarantees.

The Trump administration gave them a lecture in form of a catalog of questions. As I summarized the issue at that time:

The U.S. has recognized that there aren’t enough troops, money or will to achieve a better negotiation position for what’s left of Ukraine. The European ‘elite’ still fails to get that.
…
There are still dreams of ‘security guarantees’ which would be given to Ukraine after it files for peace or surrenders.

No such guarantees would make any sense. When peace is achieved there will be only one manner that can prevent a new outbreak of war: good behavior towards Russians and Russia by what will be left of Ukraine.
…
The U.S. negotiation team handed the Europeans a list of questions that will hopefully help them to come to grips with that ..
…
Here are the questions with answers by me in Italic:

1) What do you view as a Europe-backed security guarantee or assurance that would serve as a sufficient deterrent to Russia while also ensuring this conflict ends with an enduring peace settlement?

There is no Europe-backed guarantee possible that would be a ‘sufficient deterrent’.

2) Which European and/or third countries do you believe could or would participate in such an arrangement?

Each could provide a few dozen soldiers (plus rotations). None has the size of forces and/or stamina to really commit to the mission.

Are there any countries you believe would be indispensable?

The U.S. – if it would give nuclear guarantees to prevent the eventual annihilation of any ‘security guarantee’ force.

Would your country be willing to deploy its troops to Ukraine as part of a peace settlement?

No!

3) If third country military forces were to be deployed to Ukraine as part of a peace arrangement, what would you consider to be the necessary size of such a European-led force?

…

The purpose and point of the six questions the U.S. gave to the Europeans was to induce some realist thinking:

Applying such one will come to the conclusion that nothing but a long term peace agreement, which does not necessitate ‘guarantees’, makes any sense.

But they still did not get it.

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Najboljša ljudska interpretacija Trumpove “nemogoče grožnje” (v smislu “impossibility theorema” Kennetha Arrowa), ki jo boste kje lahko prebrali (glejte spodaj). Če teorem Arrowa grobo poenostavim in zlorabim: ker noben volilni izid v demokraciji ni popoln v smislu izpolnitve vseh pogojev, je morda sprejemljiva tudi diktatura, ki krši samo enega izmed štirih pogojev. V tem primeru Trump predvideva, da evropske zaveznice ne morejo kumulativno izpolniti vseh pogojev, ki jim jih je postavil (da bi se odločil za sankcije Rusiji), zato bo zanje sprejemljivo nadaljevanje sedanjega stanja (Putinova skorajšnja zmaga v Ukrajini).

Pa recite, da Trump ni bister možakar. Spet je nabrisal evropske “voditelje”.

“I cannot and will not do anything against Russia, so I declare to my allies conditions that are deliberately impossible to fulfill. They simply cannot be met. They have nowhere to get oil except Russian — through India at best — otherwise the price will be too high. They cannot impose tariffs on China — their economies will collapse, store shelves will empty, and China will stop buying from them altogether.

I know NATO countries will never do what I say. But there is no other way, because otherwise it will look like I failed to break Putin. And how can you break him? He doesn’t bend. The one to bend is Zelensky.

And how will I bend Zelensky? Everyone will see that first the U.S. pushed Ukraine into war, refused to resolve the Donbass question, made endless promises, and then shoved Kiev under the Russian hammer — now it has to give up not just Donbass, but two more regions on top.

I myself don’t want to explain this to Ukraine. Let’s do it together, after all, we are all NATO members. And if you don’t agree, then you are fools yourselves. I’m giving up. There’s nothing more that can be done here, only to wait for Zelensky’s capitulation.

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.”