Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
The Israeli occupation authorities release Al Mayadeen Palestine bureau chief Nasser al-Lahham.
Local Syrian sources: An Israeli airstrike targeted a tank and artillery battalion in the city of Izraa in the Daraa countryside
Al Mayadeen's correspondent in eastern Lebanon: 12 martyrs and 5 wounded in Israeli raids targeting the outskirts of Wadi Fa'ra in the northern Bekaa Valley
Local Syrian sources: More than 10 Israeli raids targeted Sweida, with information about more than five casualties from the Internal Security Forces
Local Syrian sources: Initial reports indicate that approximately 15 people were killed or wounded at the al-Radwan family's guest house in Sweida following a direct exchange of gunfire
Israeli media, citing Israeli political sources, reported that the Shas movement is expected to withdraw from the government within less than 24 hours
Qatari Foreign Ministry: Negotiations to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip are still in the first stage. We are continuing our efforts around the clock
Channel 14, citing a senior Israeli political source, reported: The attacks in Syria and Tel Aviv's offensive policy are coordinated with the Americans
Lebanese Ministry of Health's Emergency Operations Center: Six injured as a result of Israeli airstrikes on the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon
Israeli media: The Israeli Air Force has launched a wave of large-scale attacks on southern Syria

‘Impending’ war in Europe is looking more like an economically motivated crisis

  • Samuel Geddes Samuel Geddes
  • Source: Al Mayadeen Net
  • 23 Feb 2022 16:44
  • 6 Shares
6 Min Read

With the loudest war-drumming coming from Washington, the question arises as to why the Biden administration seems so intent on provoking such a dangerous level of tension.

  • x
  • ‘Impending’ war in Europe is looking more like an economically motivated crisis
    ‘Impending’ war in Europe is looking more like an economically motivated crisis

With the global economy beginning to emerge from two years of paralysis, Washington seems to be gambling on a Pentagon-fuelled economic recovery, with Russian “aggression” as the justification. 

With western court stenographers repeated predictions of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, down to the hour, becoming something of a laughingstock, the actions of the US and its NATO satellites are looking more like those of someone who has already decided what the outcome will be, rather than taking meaningful action to prevent it. 

Secretary of State Blinken’s appeals to Moscow to choose the path of diplomacy ring about as hollow as his pretensions to care about the starving citizens of Afghanistan, while robbing them of half their sovereign assets. Such rank hypocrisy passes with as much serious scrutiny as could be expected from the press that we are to believe prevents democracy from “dying in darkness.” 

Were someone to remind Blinken of his bald-faced inversion of reality, they might raise the point that Russia has laid out its concerns regarding the threat it sees from NATO expansion in Eastern Europe. This is not new information, as Russian concerns have gone unaddressed since the end of the Cold War and in blatant disregard of promises which Moscow believed to have been made that further expansion would not occur. It has even gone so far as to propose sweeping changes to the European security landscape that would see it become a partner to the NATO alliance. It may be that President Putin’s counterparts from Caracas to Tehran to Pyongyang lose sleep over just that eventuality and what it may mean for the future of the diplomatic and economic ties they have cultivated with Moscow. 

Fortunately for those leaders, both Russia’s concerns and its suggested solutions have been scornfully dismissed out of hand, showing that Washington, not Moscow which stands to lose everything in a full-scale war, is the side intent on shutting the door to diplomacy.  

It might be easy to characterize this as reciting Kremlin talking points, were it not for the fact that Ukraine, whose sovereignty has suddenly become so uniquely sacrosanct, has also cast doubt on western “intelligence” predicting an imminent Russian invasion. 

Related News

Concentration camps and the road to exile: Gaza as a laboratory of privatized genocide

Understanding Yemen 2/2: Ansar Allah values

With the loudest war-drumming coming from Washington and not the actual countries whose citizens are at risk, the question arises as to why the Biden administration seems so intent on provoking and maintaining such a dangerous level of tension.

NATO as a captive arms market

As a former high ranking US official from the Reagan era told me in a previous conversation, the successive waves of NATO expansion from the 1990s onwards were in large part driven by the desire to obtain new markets for advanced American weapons exports, despite the fact that the justification for those exports (the USSR) no longer existed. The function of NATO countries as a captive arms market was also on full display during the Trump administration, when the former president threatened to upend the alliance unless member states raised their levels of military spending (meaning American arms imports) to at least 2 percent of GDP.  

Regardless of whether war breaks out in Ukraine, we are now likely on the cusp of yet another wave of new members joining the North Atlantic Alliance. Sweden and Finland, already deeply integrated into US security policy, are now being touted as likely new applicants. A renewed push for membership of the states south of the Caucasus, namely Georgia and Azerbaijan, cannot be discounted, especially given the rising influence of NATO’s second-largest member, Turkey. 

Europe as a captive continent

It has been well-established that war would cause a wholesale severing of ties between Russia and Europe, the latter deriving as much as a third of its energy supplies from its massive eastern neighbour. Even the economic powerhouse of the continent, Germany, would be crippled by such a cut-off as half of its consumption of natural gas comes from Russia. Naturally, such a huge gap in the market will have to be plugged and to the surprise of no one, Washington has offered up its own liquified natural gas (LNG), of which it is the world’s leading producer, to assist. Such a gap created by an economic blockade of Russia would be too large for the US alone to fill, so it has set about recruiting compliant allies to redirect their exports accordingly. Qatar seems to figure very prominently in these plans and is already preparing major diversions of LNG exports from its traditional markets in Asia to Europe. 

As such radical and rapid shifts in the energy system will mean that Europe’s consumption needs will be delivered by maritime transport rather than pipelines, supply will be much more vulnerable. As demonstrated by the grounding of the Evergiven cargo ship in the Suez Canal, even a short interruption will have immediate and long-lasting ramifications. 

All this leaves Europe perilously vulnerable to external shocks but will see handsome profits pouring into US coffers as well as those allied states it has recruited to redesign their export profile. Those states, particularly in the GCC will almost certainly be expected to “recycle” their new profits back into the US economy, in the form of huge infrastructure projects, arms deals and financial investments. 

It has been noted by some that the North Atlantic alliance suddenly seems more unified behind American leadership than at any time since the Cold War’s end. The fact that a smirking president Biden could boast about definitively killing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline between Russia and Germany in the presence of the German Chancellor is highly suggestive that planners in Washington are not unhappy with the myriad opportunities that a Russo-Ukrainian war would create. It almost causes one to wonder if such a crisis were not currently underway, would one have to be created?

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • United States
  • Nato
  • Russia
  • Washington
  • Ukraine
  • Antony Blinken
  • Joe Biden
  • Vladimir Putin
Samuel Geddes

Samuel Geddes

Journalist

Russia & NATO

Russia & NATO

As the Draconian Western-led sanctions on Russia exacerbate the economic crisis worldwide, and as Russian troops gain more ground despite the influx of military aid into Ukraine, exposing US direct involvement in bio-labs spread across Eastern Europe and the insurgence of neo-Nazi groups… How will things unfold?

Most Read

All
Why Netanyahu is on the ropes

Why Netanyahu is on the ropes

  • Analysis
  • 4 Jul 2025
Ukraine’s Corporate Carve-Up Collapses?

Ukraine’s Corporate Carve-Up Collapses?

  • Analysis
  • 11 Jul 2025
Zionist infiltration of entertainment industry: The case of United Talent Agency

Zionist infiltration of entertainment industry: The case of United Talent Agency

  • Opinion
  • 11 Jul 2025
Africa’s top university’s ‘Gaza Resolutions’ outrages pro-'Israel' lobby

Africa’s top university’s ‘Gaza Resolutions’ outrages pro-'Israel' lobby

  • Analysis
  • 4 Jul 2025

Coverage

All
War on Iran

More from this writer

All
Absent a full-scale American war on the Islamic Republic, Netanyahu has set up his regime and himself for a historic humiliation. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

The clock is ticking down to 'Israel’s' capitulation

Trump’s GCC tour shows growing US dependence on petro-surplus recycling

Trump’s GCC tour shows growing US dependence on petro-surplus recycling

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem could succeed Pope Francis, bring deeper Vatican involvement in the region

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem could succeed Pope Francis, bring deeper Vatican involvement in the region

If Gazans can be allowed to return to homes which no longer exist in the northern Strip, why should returning to the sites of their own, or their elders’ original displacement be an impossibility? (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

Refugees’ return to northern Gaza sets blueprint for return to '48 territories

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS