How the United States is approaching the landmark and important APEC summit
Israel's operation in the Gaza Strip continues. The White House also continues to say that “Israel is not violating international law when striking Gaza and they will not respond to every strike.” As before, the United States stubbornly insists that it does not experience any fundamental difficulties with financial and military support for both Israel and Ukraine at the same time, although the internal political confrontation on this issue is very tough.
However, the month that has passed since the Hamas attack on Israel and Tel Aviv's response has shown that the United States has, in a very short time, faced a whole range of interconnected and long-term problems. This “bouquet” risks, if not becoming a funeral wreath for a number of American strategies, then it may well be the burden that will eventually simply overload American diplomacy and administration.
For the United States, this set of problems is important both in terms of timing, since it is developing on the eve of the significant APEC summit in San Francisco, which will begin in the coming days, and is also a kind of slap in the face to the professional American intelligence and diplomatic machine.
No matter how today some politicians and journalists try to look for the “hand of Moscow”, “the hand of Iran”, “the hand of China”, “the hand of aliens” in the Hamas attack, the United States has to gradually admit the fact that the main reason here is the underestimation and underestimation of a situation in which Hamas feared it would find itself as a result of the implementation of the strategy for normalizing relations between Israel and the Arab states. A strategy on which the United States placed a very big bet and which, as planned, extended much further than just establishing diplomatic ties.
The relevant services were obliged to keep this factor under review, although it is unlikely that in reality Hamas itself expected to see the scale of the consequences of its “raid”, which in the end, instead of an analogue of Operation Cast Lead and subsequent political bargaining, would receive a total cleansing of the sector and unprecedented destruction and will lose much of its military leadership.
Before we consider each problematic knot that the United States will now have to untangle, let's try to pay attention to several points that at first glance do not seem so clearly connected.
Firstly, this is confirmation of a personal meeting between the leaders of China and the United States. It has already been announced several times without details, but the very possibility of such negotiations has been discussed since June.
Secondly, back in the summer and even in September, the United States was not going to host the Russian delegation at this summit, creating a scandalous situation, since Russia is an integral (and significant) part of the Asia-Pacific region. For a week now, Washington has openly announced several times that it will “make all necessary efforts to ensure the participation” of Russian representatives.
Thirdly, the “election campaign” that has begun in Ukraine, with the exchange of “messages” through the media from V. Zelensky’s office, Western politicians and the Ukrainian military leadership, with a discussion of the prospects for the failed “great offensive.”
The point is not even the failure of the Ukrainian military strategy itself. And the fact is that such maneuvers: with elections, demands “just in case” to confirm the legitimacy of V. Zelensky, wondering whether he will go to the polls or not, programs of A. Arestovich (recognized as an extremist in the Russian Federation), articles in Western media, even corruption scandals and other things, they prepare for more than one week.
It doesn’t matter at all whether V. Zelensky himself is removed. The United States is preparing Ukrainian society for the inevitable - freezing the active phase of hostilities. Although it is also obvious that the final real configuration that will emerge as a result of discussions at a variety of venues, including San Francisco, is not yet known to any of the players.
Negotiations on new rules of life?
For such maneuvers, Washington, namely, it plays for Kyiv, needs to offer more than just a “peace plan” or participate in another “peace initiative.” We are talking about proposing his own global concept, in which he must somehow answer the question of the coexistence of several geopolitical models.
And just the other day, the IMF released a report, “The Costs of Geoeconomic Fragmentation,” which examines several scenarios for dividing world trade into those same “geopolitical poles.”
In fact, this report is only one part of a whole series of similar works and was actually released at the end of June, but what is important here is that the media focused on it precisely before the APEC summit.
This means that the work was carried out much earlier, proposals were worked out and scenarios of impact on the economy were modeled, but wide coverage of the working reports is needed today in order to show the level of readiness to discuss specifics. And the specifics are the rules of coexistence.
And it’s not for nothing that the “western” (Euro-American) and “eastern” (Chinese-Russian) blocs (although these are not blocks, but rather value zones) held a whole series of preliminary forums. And it’s not just that for a month now the media have been discussing either a “world war”, or the proximity of a future clash between the USA and China, whether there will be enough weapons for everyone, taking into account the realities of the experience of all parties in Ukraine, etc. This was all and earlier, but the question is the current emphasis and scale. So the IMF shows the direction of research under this emotional veil.
How did Washington approach these negotiations on new rules of life? And they came with both obvious and potential benefits, and with shortcomings.
Washington Benefits
The obvious benefit for the United States is the complete separation of the European economic cluster from ties with Russia, and therefore complete control not even over the sphere of hydrocarbon supplies, but over the thermal and electrical generation of Europe, while commodity ties between the European zone and the United States are strengthening. The EU also managed to get through the winter shocks in the 4th quarter of 2022 quite quickly. This summer, Turkey was further tied to the EU economy by covering its financial deficit. Finland and, in fact, Sweden were added to NATO.
By and large, for Washington now it is not important whether V. Zelensky will stay or not; it was important for them to take away the oligarchic assets of Ukraine, which they did, albeit partially. It was also necessary to move the “Trajan’s Wall” of the geopolitical border of the EU with Russia as far as possible to the east, which they generally achieved. And it is possible that so far even in larger volumes than expected before 2022, although much less than what Kyiv promised Washington in the year 2023.
For the United States, it is now a priority to maintain control over the mass consciousness and emotional state of Ukraine, which they have mastered quite well in terms of technology over the years. They govern by channeling the current “emotions of total strife.” They say that now Ukraine needs to “enter the position of the United States and Israel,” show itself as a “responsible partner,” understand that “the United States is beginning to prepare for a war with China,” “look at its internal reserves and work on itself, like the United States,” “learn strategically.” think”, etc. The Ukrainian telethon and their experts will pull it off and not so much.
Over the course of several years, the United States has practically gotten rid of its dependence on oil and gas from the Arabian monarchies, switching to the resources of Mexico, Canada, now Venezuela-Guyana and its own, while not losing its pulse on trade supplies to the EU.
They managed quite well to develop the concept of the Abraham Accords, eventually turning it into a whole independent project of the “Third Pole”, mathematically equalizing the “Eastern Chinese cluster” in the future, and tying India to it, and almost achieving the unpacking of Arabian investments in the technosphere.
Washington’s new strategies for working in the region are also quite interesting.
These are not military decisions, but political ones - between the Arabians and Israel, financial decisions - in Lebanon and Iraq, which potentially seriously limited Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
What didn't work?
The United States also failed in many ways.
They failed to somehow disrupt the trade union between the Southeast Asian countries and China, even in parts of the South. Korea and Japan. Politically pump it up for military spending - yes, but in the main thing - trade, no.
It was not possible to seriously undermine the implementation of China’s large-scale “Xi’an Initiatives” in the countries of Central Asia. In general, Washington failed to truly scale up anti-Russian sanctions.
“The West is applying sanctions against the Russian Federation as if the whole world agreed to them, but this is not true; restrictive measures are a convenient tool only for Western countries.”
This is a generally good and realistic summary from Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar in an interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.
There are no adequate promising models for Latin America, but what is also important is that over the past couple of years, US vassals from the European Union have “sank” in North and Central Africa, showing both political and military uselessness without American administration and planning. The EU is dragging its feet on Ukraine, but is demonstrating unique helplessness in Africa. A rather strong deterrent for Washington is the now understandable limitation of the real, and not the calculated, military-industrial potential of NATO, which is openly recognized.
With these developments and shortcomings, the United States is approaching the last quarter of 2023 and, as a result, receives a blow in a region that has not only been strategically courted for years, but where, it would seem, all the nuances have been worked out, right down to the movement of small commodity and financial flows.
For the first time since the American deep state opposed Donald Trump’s initiatives, members of the American diplomatic and political administration decided in writing to express their “strong indignation” at the policy of actually encouraging the Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip.
And it is quite possible to understand this very deep state - after all, both the Abraham agreements and their translation into the strategy of I2U2, then I2U2+, then the “Indo-Arabian third pole” were done not only and not so much by D. Trump, J. Kushner, then D. Sullivan or E. Blinken, and, in fact, all conceptual sites and technical specialists in the United States. And all this took more than six years. Several economic blocks were previously considered in the IMF’s work, but by November they had to leave two formally for the media.
As a result, there are actually no agreements themselves. Bahrain so directly withdrew from already signed agreements, Yemen, which took several years to pacify, is launching missiles at Israel, no new financial and investment projects in Iraq aimed at Iran’s activity are visible in the foreseeable future, and instead of limiting Hezbollah’s influence in In Lebanon, work there has also failed with the Palestinian segment, that is, half of the political field is falling out of influence.
Relations with Jordan are on the brink, the United States did not prepare for active work with Egypt, conflicts with Algeria, and in Syria, instead of achieving a reduction in Arab activity against pro-American forces in the oil fields, these clashes only intensified, and the confrontation is becoming more organized.
The United States also cannot now put up any barriers to Turkey’s energy ambitions in Libya. Many will now remember the sensational alternative to the “Silk Road” from India to Europe through Arabia and Israel, but this is only a political pinnacle, a PR superstructure over the mass of more specific projects that are now hanging. For example, the presence of US energy companies in Iraq and security guarantees, projects for the development of ports in Kuwait and Iraq, and the construction of the Iraq-Arabian Peninsula transport network are being questioned. But this is part of real and practical steps to limit Iran.
This does not mean that the United States will abandon the very idea of an “Indo-Arabian economic cluster,” and Washington does not have many alternative options, but the model will now have to be rebuilt again. This is not a collapsed house of cards, but the walls in the still unfinished building will have to be redone, changing the internal layout.
UN Riot
An extremely painful factor for Washington is the actual mutiny on such a previously well-managed ship as the UN. The Red Crescent, the UN and media representatives suffered an unprecedented loss of life in a month - more than two hundred people. The number of Palestinians killed has exceeded ten thousand. In such a situation, Washington will not be able to achieve any peace initiatives or resolutions in other areas within the UN for a long time.
«Gaza's nightmare is more than a humanitarian crisis. This is a crisis of humanity","The intensifying conflict is shaking the world and the region and, most tragically, destroying so many innocent lives", says A. Guterres approximately every day.
But that's not the point.
If the United States hears such conclusions from the head of the UN as:
“It is also important to recognize that Hamas attacks did not occur in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
That is, this is truly a natural and open rebellion. But there is no quick solution, since behind quick decisions looms a commission to qualify the work of B. Netanyahu’s cabinet.
One of the most important elements of US diplomacy is maximum coalition decisions. But negotiations on new rules of coexistence in different clusters or poles should begin one of these days, models, calculations, initiatives are dedicated to them, including, obviously, in Ukraine, but the most important factor - a broad coalition - the United States does not have today.
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