There have been reports claiming Russia has supplied Venezuela with certain missiles and there are Russian personnel involved in training Venezuelans to use this equipment. Sort of like a replay of the Cuban missile crisis. Only then the US had a far smarter, less arrogant President.

A good place to start might be this pdf

Summarizing

The Primakov Doctrine and New Generation Warfare

The Primakov Doctrine shapes Russia’s approach to establishing a multipolar world and influences its actions in Venezuela.

The doctrine seeks to counter U.S. dominance and promote Russian interests globally.
It emphasizes the use of asymmetric warfare, combining military and non-military measures to achieve political objectives.
Russia’s military interventions in Syria and potential actions in Venezuela reflect this strategic framework.

Economic and Geopolitical Interests in Venezuela

Russia’s partnership with Venezuela is driven by overlapping economic and geopolitical interests, making it a critical ally.

Russia has invested approximately $20 billion in Venezuela’s oil sector through Rosneft.
Venezuela owes Russia $3.1 billion for arms sales.

Fortune.com

The U.S. seizure of a massive oil tanker offshore of Venezuela this week represented a brazen escalation of the Trump administration’s repeated military incursions in the area. It’s also a broader sign of the increasing involvement of the U.S. in South America’s petroleum politics.

The corporate role

In July, Trump granted Chevron a new, restricted license to produce oil in Venezuela. As the only U.S. oil producer in the country—Chevron has worked in Venezuela for a century—Chevron produces about 25% of Venezuela’s crude with state oil company PDVSA. However, Venezuela ships about 80% of its oil to China under deep discounts because of U.S. sanctions.

“Getting involved in regime change in Venezuela would probably be the most ambitious military mission he would be involved in, which is why I don’t think he’s going to overcommit,” Reed said of Trump. “I think what he wants to do is tighten the noose and make Maduro untenable—make sure everyone understands that maybe the U.S. and Venezuela can turn the page once he’s out of the picture.”

Does Trump want to commit or not? Because if he does “over commit”… he could definitely be biting off way more than he could chew.

The Spectator World via Archive.ph

This time around, the US campaign raises the same question. What is the goal?

“You can shoot all the little boats you want out of the water, and it’s not going to make any strategic difference,” says Farah. Washington has positioned itself between choices without fully committing to any of them. A full-scale intervention is unrealistic, limited strikes risk looking symbolic and financial pressure remains only partial. The result, Farah says, is ni quita ni limonada – neither fish nor fowl. “If strategy remains undefined and pressure fades away, then the regime wins. And that’s a bad option. Maduro will say he defeated the United States.”

That is precisely what Moscow hopes for. Russia cannot rescue Maduro militarily, but it may not have to. If the US campaign withers away without an outcome, the Kremlin can score a victory and claim, once again, that even a war-drained Russia can out wait American attention span.

All of this said, including in other reports. It seems to me controlling the oil resource is primary for the US. It’s practically all the Nobel Peace Prize, useful idiot, Marina Corrina Conchada speaks of. Not just for the simple reason of having primary or sole access but also for denying access to others. This could be far uglier then most might realize? Hard to say.

So a delay on Venezuela as we can all enlighten ourselves on this topic. Unless some of you are/were already aware of this?

Primakov Doctrine and Russia’s Multipolar World

Primakov Doctrine

The Primakov doctrine, named after Russia’s former Foreign and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, sets the tone for Russia’s grand strategic objectives. The doctrine rejects several tropes and terms associated with Russian strategic thought, i.e., Hybrid Warfare and Gerasimov Doctrine. It rejects the notion of uni-polarity and implies that Russia should strive for a multipolar world managed by multiple powers to counterbalance the sole hegemony of the United States (US) and its so-called uni-polarity. It elucidates that, Russia, a vestige of the Soviet Union’s colossal, should enhance its influence in the post-Soviet space and resist the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) expansion. The Primakov doctrine calls for blending Russia’s hard and soft power to achieve its grand strategic objectives.

The Primakov doctrine has served as a foundational document for Russia’s foreign and defence policy for two decades. On the other hand, the Gerasimov Doctrine is purely a military effort to develop an operational concept for Russia’s future battlegrounds.

Russia’s former Foreign and Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov envisaged a concept for developing deep relations with China and India to counterbalance the Western influence, especially in the South Asia, Middle-East, and East Asia. He stressed Russia to enhance its presence in the former Soviet republics and promoting multilateralism.

During his term as the Foreign Minister of Russia from January 1996 till September 1998, he remained very active and strongly portrayed Russia’s vision in the post-Soviet world. He effectively opposed NATO’s expansion and convinced the Western policymakers to honour their promises and assurances. Yevgeny Primakov was instrumental in signing the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security on May 27, 1997, between Russia and NATO. The Founding Act had 4 main sections, and it was noted that “Other areas can be added by mutual agreement.”

Yevgeny Primakov was the main architect of the letter that was jointly written by Russia and China to the United Nations Secretary General to proclaim multipolarity.

Russia’s Multi-Polar World

The post-Soviet Russia is striving hard to bring multilateralism in to the world affairs. It is also struggling to turn the international system as multipolar. There is no doubt that the Primakov Doctrine was the very first conceptual instrument put forward by the Russian policymakers to offset the international structure. Yevgeny Primakov was well aware of the so-called US Uni-Polar Moment and the international fallout of such narratives. It is to be remembered here that Charles Krauthammer was among the Neo-Cons who celebrated the demise of the Soviet Union and trumpeted the victory of the US.

Conclusions

The Primakov Doctrine continues to serve as the foundational document to understand Russia’s contemporary foreign policy and its multilateral approach towards International Relations. Undoubtedly, Russia is a great power, and it has global concerns which require eloquent articulation of its foreign conduct. In hindsight, it is a fact that Russia and its policymakers have never opted for a unipolar world order.

Like all great powers, the Russian foreign policy is in tandem with its grand strategy. The Russian foreign policy is an instrument to achieve its grand strategic objectives, especially in the areas of ‘core national interests’ including Georgia, Ukraine, Arctic, Baltic States, and Eastern Europe. Having a multifaceted approach, the Russian foreign policy is centred on securing its strategic backyard and soft belly.

TASS from 2014

In January 1996 – September 1998 Primakov was Russia’s foreign minister, and in September 1998 – May 1999 led Russia’s Cabinet of Ministers.

“I believe that in the near future historians will coin a special term to describe Primakov’s role in politics. They may call it the Primakov Doctrine,” Lavrov said. “The moment he took over the Russian Foreign Ministry heralded a dramatic turn of Russia’s foreign policy. Russia left the path our Western partners had tried to make it follow after the breakup of the Soviet Union and embarked on a track of its own,” Lavrov said.

He recalled that Primakov was the first to have come out with an idea of enhancing cooperation in the trilateral format of Russia, India and China (RIC), which triggered the emergence of the BRICS group of nations. “The line of countries eager to join that structure as full-fledged members or as dialogue partners keeps getting longer,” Lavrov said.

Lavrov confirmed that over the years Primakov was Russia’s foreign minister the high-rise building in Smolenskaya Square underwent some fundamental changes. However, “inside the foreign minister’s room he avoided changing anything and his successor, Igor Ivanov, followed suit.”

Link

But like most great ideas, Primakov’s was simple. First, Russia must end its subservient foreign policy guided by the US. Secondly, he emphasised the necessity of renewing old ties with India and fostering the newly discovered friendship with China.

Primakov argued that a Russia-India-China (RIC) troika in a multipolar world would allow some protection for free minded nations not allied to the West. He said the economic crisis in Russia had presented a rare convergence of conditions in the RIC.

“India, being different in many respects, enjoys a similar wealth of historical experience, often incomprehensible to westerners. The last couple of centuries have been a time of degradation and humiliation for these two great nations. In the eyes of the Chinese and the Indians, this was inextricably linked to the European/western expansion: colonialism and imperial dominance, including the imposition of a normative and economic servitude that still keeps then trapped in the semi-periphery even after the era colonialism.”

Russia found itself in a similar state. It was a time when the former planned economies were “ruthlessly looted by the victorious democracies under the guise of economic reforms or liberalisation. Russian social thinkers and historians noted similarities to the historic period of the destruction and pillage of China and India in the 19th and early 20th centuries”, writes Prof Li Xing writes in The BRICS and Beyond.

In 1998, Primakov visited India and pushed the proposal for creating the RIC strategic triangle. The new Russian leadership under Vladimir Putin reversed the Boris Yeltsin era drift in Russia-India ties, signed a major strategic partnership treaty and established the institution of annual summit meetings. Fourteen years after Russia had abandoned its old ally, Indians heard friendly voices emanating from Moscow. “India is number one,” Putin said, referring to India’s primacy in the subcontinent.

To be sure, the troika took a long time to reach a basic agreement. A key reason for RIC not getting early traction is the India-China border dispute, which has spun off an Asian version of the arms race between the two giants.

Secondly, in any trilateral partnership, the weakest member – in this case India – acquires prestige and power out of proportion to its actual strength. Beijing – which has traditionally viewed India as weak, divided, slavishly pro-West and above all as a potential strategic rival – clearly did not want to help India achieve that status.

It wasn’t until 2012 – coinciding with India successfully testing long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching China’s eastern seaboard – that RIC talks took off. Finally, the February 2015 meeting in Beijing imparted a fresh momentum, with China endorsing Russia’s move to include India in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Wider footprint

Large as its scope is, Primakov went beyond RIC. “The Primakov doctrine is designed primarily to dilute America’s strength and influence while increasing Russia’s influence and position in the Middle East and Eurasia,” writes policy analyst Ariel Cohen of the US-based Heritage Foundation in a report titled ‘The Primakov Doctrine: Russia’s Zero-Sum Game with the US’.

“Primakov has shown himself to be a master at exploiting anti-American sentiments of the Iranian Shiite establishment, the Arab nationalists, and even the French foreign policy elite. On visits to Japan and Latin American, Primakov promised Russia’s support for their efforts to secure permanent seats on UN Security Council.”

Lastly – Think BRICS substack

Tomorrow, if time permits, we’ll talk Venezuela

Tariff Man’ Returns To Center Stage

Trade tariffs have been a cornerstone of US policy since its earliest days, long before the 2018 tweet in which then-President Trump dubbed himself a “Tariff Man” and made them a central theme of his first administration. The first US president, George Washington, signed a law mandating a 5% tariff on most imports.

Trump stands out as the first modern US president to make tariffs a central pillar of trade policy, significantly shaping economic direction since the globalization of the 1990s. “The first wave of tariffs was a big shift in US trade policy,” says Michael Pearce, deputy chief US economist at Oxford Economics. “Until that point, tariff revenues had been a small and declining share of the economy. Then, tariff revenues more than doubled during Trump’s first term.”

Tariffs had reached record lows before the onset of the subsequent trade war. According to the World Bank, US tariffs were among the lowest in the world, with a simple-average Most-Favored Nation (MFN) rate of around 3.4%.

By 2018, however, the US role in global trade had shifted dramatically—from leading the charge in reducing tariffs to spearheading tariff increases.

The trade war initiated by the Trump administration marked a sharp departure from [the previous] trend,” says Aakarsh Rattan Ramchandani, analyst and chief strategy officer at Bigdata.com, an artificial intelligence platform developed by RavenPack. Our “analysis highlights how the 2018 tariff increases reversed years of progress in trade liberalization, creating ripples across global markets.”

The tariffs introduced by Trump in 2018 prompted retaliatory measures from major trading partners, including China, the EU, Canada, and Mexico. Despite the change in leadership in 2021, the administration of President Joe Biden retained most of these Trump-era tariffs and, in some cases, expanded them. For example, tariffs on electric vehicles were increased from 25% to 100% in 2024, underscoring bipartisan support for the growing wave of US protectionism.

Biden was the tariff President too!

Everything must be on the table to protect Canadian competitiveness

Although the Trump administration has yet to impose its much-anticipated tariffs on Canada, we shouldn’t assume that the president’s threat of “economic warfare” isn’t already underway.

The art of war isn’t just about direct attacks or invasions. It can take different forms, including psychological warfare—or psyops.

The issue of tariffs is a good example. The economic harm to Canada doesn’t depend on the actual imposition of tariffs. Even the threat itself is bound to have damaging effects. It creates heightened uncertainty for businesses and investors that’s likely to have the effect of essentially freezing capital in the short term and causing firms to rethink their binational distribution of production over the medium term.

The key point here is that Donald Trump’s capricious claims and evolving threats can impose real costs in and of themselves. One gets the sense that he and those around him understand this. There may in fact be a method to the madness.

read entirely at the second link

If you missed the Michael Hudson piece;

Cutting off your nose to spite your face!

Hubris is at work in this dystopian fantasy. As the world’s hegemon, U.S. diplomacy rarely takes account of how foreign countries will respond. The essence of its hubris is to simplistically assume that countries will passively submit to U.S. actions with no blowback. That has been a realistic assumption for countries like Germany, or those with similar U.S. client politicians in office.

U.S. domestic politics is equally unstable. Trump’s America First political theater that got him elected may get his gang unseated as the contradictions and consequences of their operating philosophy are recognized and replaced. His tariff policy will accelerate U.S. price inflation and, even more fatally, cause chaos in U.S. and foreign financial markets. Supply chains will be disrupted, interrupting U.S. exports of everything from aircraft to information technology. And other countries will find themselves obliged to make their economies no longer dependent on U.S. exports or dollar credit.

Trump assumes the world hasn’t changed. He’s mistaken.

So, Turkey wanting to join BRICS is not a surprise. It’s just survival.

Turkey Bids to Join BRICS to build alliances beyond the West or Yahoo

Bloomberg) — Turkey has formally asked to join the BRICS group of emerging-market nations as it seeks to bolster its global influence and forge new ties beyond its traditional Western allies, according to people familiar with the matter.

The country’s new diplomatic push reflects its aspirations to cultivate ties with all sides in a multipolar world, while still fulfilling its obligations as a key member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, they said.

Straddling Europe and Asia, Turkey submitted an application to join BRICS some months ago amid frustration over a lack of progress in its decades-old bid to join the European Union, the people added. The bid is also partly a result of rifts with fellow NATO members ( as NATO repeatedly back stabbed the Turkish nation) after Turkey maintained close links with Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the people added. Turkey’s foreign ministry and presidency declined to comment.

“Turkey can become a strong, prosperous, prestigious and effective country if it improves its relations with the East and the West simultaneously,” Erdogan said in Istanbul over the weekend. “Any method other than this will not benefit Turkey, but will harm it.”

The BRICS grouping, named after Brazil, Russia, India and China and South Africa, includes some of the biggest emerging economies. It got four new members at the start of this year when Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt joined its ranks

The group’s further enlargement could be discussed during a summit in Kazan, Russia, from Oct. 22-24, said the people. Malaysia, Thailand and Turkey’s close ally Azerbaijan are among other countries looking to join.

First NATO Ally Seeks to Join Putin-Xi’s BRICS Union

“One driver of this is an aspiration for enhanced strategic autonomy,” Ülgen told Newsweek. “The second driver is these accumulated frustrations with the West and the European Union,” one of which included stalled negotiations for modernizing an EU customs union deal.

"The bilateral relationship with the U.S. has also been problematic," Ülgen said. "These type of frustrations have motivated the Turkish government to move in this direction," he added. There is a belief in Ankara that it can do this “without a political cost that would be attached to this realignment.”

Problematic is a nice way of describing the relationship. One could say it’s a very diplomatic description many things considered.

The western backed Gabon government has been overthrown- There was a recent election, the results showed the challenger Ondo Ossa had won. However Ali Bongo overthrew the results and claimed the win and the power! Gallier has extended family present in the area.

Gallier’s comment

gallier2says:

August 30, 2023 at 4:42 am•Edit

To something completely different.
There’s an ongoing putsch in Gabon. Ali Bongo has fled the country to Morocco. There were presidential elections last week and most polls showed the runner up (Albert Ondo Ossa) as victorious. Bongo nonetheless proclaimed victory which triggered the military to annul the election result, to shut down completely the gouvernment. The Internet and phone lines had been suspended last week (by Bongo). It has been re-established. Afaict (and afamwct (as far as my wife can tell) she just was awake whole night in contact with family) no violence occured yet. I have no idea what France plans to do, as Gabon was the last colony that seemed part of the “Françafrique” network.
People in Gabon are fed up by 60 years of Bongo family reign. I have no idea, who is behind the putschists though (color revolution? brics? no idea). If I manage to find something I will inform you.
PS: my mail is a scoop, European media are still stuck on the “Bongo won the election” and only slowly start to mention the military coup.

Gallier2 also left this!

gallier2says:

August 30, 2023 at 4:47 am•Edit

I found an article praising Ondo Ossa on the BRICS news portal.
http://infobrics.org/post/39016/

Albert Ondo Ossa is the most rational candidate for the leadership of Gabon. This was stated by the President of the Foundation for the Development of Modern Diplomacy Amram Petrosian in his comment on the course of the presidential election campaign in the republic.

Thank You for the scoop Gallier2!

Some relevant points

Gabon is another former French colony- Gabon has reserves of uranium, oil and gas.
The army of Gabon took power in the country and announced the dissolution of the current government.
The country’s borders are closed until further notice.

A smattering of reports

ITV

Military officers in Gabon said they were seizing power in order to overturn the results of the country’s presidential election.

The announcement came hours after the central African country’s President Ali Bongo Ondimba was declared winner of an election deemed fraudulent by the opposition.

Within minutes of the announcement on Wednesday, gunfire was heard in the centre of the capital, Libreville. ( I’d suggest celebratory gunfire from the looks of things)

The coup attempt was announced by a dozen uniformed soldiers on state TV later the same morning.

The group, claiming to represent “defence and security forces” said it would “dissolve all institutions of the republic” and aims to “defend peace by putting an end to the regime in place”.

The officers said election results would be voided and the country’s borders closed until further notice.

The president is now under house arrest, the group added in a later state TV broadcast.

European news

European Union defence ministers are to discuss the situation in Gabon, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Wednesday, adding that a coup, if confirmed, would heap more instability on the region.

“The whole area, starting with Central African Republic, then Mali, then Burkina Faso, now Niger, maybe Gabon, it’s in a very difficult situation and certainly the ministers … have to have a deep thought on what is going on there and how we can improve our policy in respect with these countries,” he said.

“This is a big issue for Europe,” he added.

The signs of a coup in Gabon come just weeks after members of the presidential guard in Niger seized power and established a junta.

The people of Gabon look positively ecstatic! They are celebrating. Out on the streets cheering.

https://twitter.com/kesandutg/status/1696825347130396936

I’ll link to some twitter accounts providing visuals

Elle Vit Belle

Link @Sen.Yusuf Datti Baba Ahmed