A Line in the Steppes: NATO Meets an Expanded SCO

[Mikael Forsberg]

A Line in the Steppes: NATO Meets an Expanded SCO

While NATO leaders were congratulating themselves on the accession of
petite Montenegro into the military pact, NATO’s counter-balancing force
to the east was welcoming as full members India and Pakistan. While
Montenegro’s flag was being raised at NATO headquarters in Brussels, the
flags of the world’s most populous democracy and the third-most populous
Muslim nation – India and Pakistan, respectively – were being raised at
the Beijing headquarters of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The enlargement of SCO effectively neuters NATO’s long-sought march to
the east where it intended to gobble up as members, the former Soviet
Central Asian states.

SCO’s enlargement also signals the end of the neo-conservatives’ dream
of a «New American Century» dominating the entire planet and even
beyond, in space. The 21st century will be a «New Eurasian Century» with
the United States, Britain, the European Union, and NATO sitting on the
sidelines as anemic observers bickering among themselves as the center
of global power shifts to the Eurasian land mass.

In 1904, Halford Mackinder wrote a prophetic article, titled «The
Geographical Pivot of History», that advanced what Mackinder called the
«Heartland Theory» of geopolitics. Mackinder’s «heartland» comprised
Asia, Europe, and Africa, which Mackinder called the «World-Island». In
1919, Mackinder pointed out that whatever power controlled the
world-island would also control the world. Mackinder wrote: «Who rules
East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the
World-Island; who rules the World-Island commands the world». Mackinder
described Britain and Japan as «off-shore islands» of the World-Island.
«outlying islands» included North and South America and Australia.

The expansion of SCO with the addition of India and Pakistan and other
Eurasian nations knocking on the organization’s door represents the
realization of Mackinder’s World-Island as the pivotal event that will
phase out the unipolar domination of the world by the United States and
its allies.

India and Pakistan, while not agreeing on much else, decided to put
their differences aside and recognize that aligning with China and
Russia in SCO is preferable to being led into dubious alliances with the
United States. For China, the Indians and Pakistanis in SCO is a major
boost to its Silk Road initiative, also known as the «One Belt, One
Road» project, of creating new highway, rail, and maritime links with
countries around the world. The prospect of major trans-Himalayan
highways and rail links between China and the Indian sub-continent may
serve as such a boost to the economies of both India and Pakistan that
religious differences over control of Kashmir may subside in favor of
détente and closer economic cooperation. Centuries of religious warfare
between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland subsided after
both Ireland and Northern Ireland became members of the European Union.
Economic development in Ireland, north and south, was preferable to
guerrilla warfare. The same could take place in Kashmir if China’s Silk
Road projects results in Muslims and Hindus concluding that an improved
economic situation relegates religious warfare to an anachronistic
impediment.

Fears that India and Pakistan would disrupt SCO with their mutual
political differences were put to rest when SCO emphasized that its
charter strictly prohibits members using the organization to advance any
bilateral schisms. The same rule applies to the bilateral tensions
between India and China.

China is also flexing its muscles in what Mackinder called the «outlying
island» of the Americas. China drove home the importance it gives the
Silk Road project when it announced that it was establishing full
diplomatic relations with Panama after the Central American nation and
controller of the Panama Canal cut its longstanding diplomatic ties with
Taiwan.

China’s state-owned China Communications Construction, China Railway
Group and COSCO Shipping Company are involved in major infrastructure
improvement projects in the Panama Canal and surrounding region. Chinese
billionaire Wang Jing’s company, the Hong Kong-Nicaragua Canal
Development Investment Company, broke ground in 2015 for a $40 billion
sea-level canal through Nicaragua.

Nicaragua, El Salvador, Paraguay, and the Dominican Republic are soon
expected to ditch relations with Taiwan and recognize Beijing. This will
facilitate China’s continued extension of influence in the «outlying
islands» of Eurasia.

Chinese control of two canals in Central America will give it enormous
economic clout internationally, as well as in America’s backyard.

On deck to join SCO down the road is Afghanistan, where the Trump
administration announced an increase of 4000 military personnel in what
is America’s longest war. There will soon come a time when SCO, after
Afghanistan transitions to full member from observer status, will order
the U.S. and NATO to pull their occupation troops from a SCO member
state. Will Washington risk a war with the four most populous nations in
Eurasia to keep its military planted in a SCO nation? That is doubtful,
especially as the United States fades into a second-rate political power
that happens to possess a technically-advanced and globally-deployable
military force.

The United States has, over the years, attempted to co-opt Mongolia,
situated between Russia and China, as a prime listening post for the
Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and the
National Security Agency. That effort will be marginalized after
Mongolia eventually becomes a full member of SCO. And making things
difficult for Washington and its alliance of Arab potentates in the
Persian Gulf, as well as Israel, is the fact that the next Asian nation
that will become a member of SCO is Iran. While Iran was under United
Nations sanctions, it was prohibited from becoming a full SCO member.
However, after the sanctions were lifted in 2016, China announced that
Iran was on track to become the next full member after the accession of
India and Pakistan.

The addition of Iran, as well as Belarus and the other aspirant nations
as SCO members, will make the organization a powerhouse that can stand
toe-to-toe against not only the United States and NATO, but the European
Union and Japan as well.

Waiting to step into the SCO observer category are «dialogue» partners
Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Armenia, Nepal, Turkey and Sri Lanka. Interest in
SCO has also come from Bangladesh, Vietnam, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and
Maldives. There appears to be no stomach by either Russia or China for
Saudi Arabia to join. After the Saudi-led economic blockade of Qatar, it
is very possible that Qatar may make a play for SCO observer or dialogue
status. SCO has not been particularly eager to act on dialogue partner
applications submitted by Ukraine and Israel. Both would represent
American «Trojan horses» within the SCO community.

Unlike NATO, SCO has been very careful not to grow too big too fast.
India and Pakistan waited for 12 years to become full members of SCO.
Ironically, the stage has been set for SCO to take in its first NATO
nation, Turkey, as a member. Such a development may see Turkey become
the first NATO member state to exit the military pact in favor of SCO.

The Western corporate media chose to almost completely ignore the
accession of India and Pakistan to SCO. Those Western media outlets that
chose to cover the story did so in opinion pieces representing the views
of the CIA-linked Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR and other
«spy shop» think tanks reason that SCO and the BRICS alliance of Brazil,
Russia, India, China, and South Africa are faltering international
organizations unworthy of much press. In fact, it is the European Union
and NATO that are faced with internal dissention and stumbling on the
world stage.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/06/19/line-steppes-nato-meets-an-expanded-sco.html


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