fuTuRe sHOcK

J. R. Nyquist says,
These were the words of a Soviet diplomat, speaking anonymously to Pravda in late July. A few days prior to this statement, at a meeting of Russian ambassadors convened by President Dmitry Medvedev, Moscow launched a new diplomatic offensive to push the United States out of Europe. A war between Russia and Georgia would provide the catalyst. Europe’s attention would be galvanized. Special negotiations between Moscow and Berlin, Moscow and Paris, Moscow and Rome, could move forward, and new security arrangements announced for the whole of Europe. The United States would be depicted as an irritant in otherwise good relations between Russia and Berlin. In the process, Washington would be gradually isolated.

In his November 5 address to the Federal Assembly, President Medvedev spoke of “long-term economic” plans, including the modernization of Russia’s armed forces. “Events of great significance for each one of us in this country, I am sure, have taken place,” he underscored, “events that have also been a serious test for all of Russia.” He was referring to Russia’s military incursion into Georgia, prepared over a period of many months. Russia’s disinformation campaign has now succeeded in obscuring the fact that Russia planned to invade Georgia for many months. Russian agents in South Ossetia goaded a Georgian over-reaction that would justify a Russian “counter-reaction.

This last sentence is the key phrase in Medvedev’s Address to the Russian Federal Assembly. The destabilization of the foundations of the world order is Moscow’s objective. It is not the result of the war in Georgia, but the reason for initiating it. Since the Kremlin planned the war months in advance, since it was not a spontaneous reaction to Tbilisi’s “aggression,” since the South Ossetians were the ones who provoked the Georgians into action for the sake of justifying a Russian “reaction,” the destabilization of the world order was in view from the outset. Such is the Russian strategic plan. Destabilization opens a pathway to a Russian-dominated world, where American power is neutralized once and for all. Listen carefully to the words of the Russian president: “The global financial crisis also began as a ‘local crisis’ on the U.S. domestic market. As the biggest developed economy, tightly linked to the markets in all the developed countries, when the U.S. economy began to slide it pulled financial markets all around the globe with it in its fall. This crisis has now become global in scale.” More

Thousands of dairy farmers from all over Germany rallied in Berlin on Wednesday to protest the low prices they receive from major dairies and supermarket chains. Twenty tractors lined up in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate as the crowd, including many young farm workers, listened to speeches from dairy farm representatives.

Posters and banners at the rally testified to the militancy of farmers. They made clear that the current pricing policies of the major food retailing chains and the European Union were threatening the livelihoods of thousands of German small and middle-sized farmers.

Speakers at the rally brought solidarity greetings to the rally from farmers in France, Switzerland and Holland, making clear that the problem of increased production costs and declining returns was a pan-European problem. Prices paid to European Union farmers for milk have fallen by around 30 percent during the past six months, while the farmers’ production costs have risen dramatically. More