{"id":1511234,"date":"2025-01-02T04:20:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T09:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1511234"},"modified":"2025-01-02T04:20:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T09:20:00","slug":"escobar-2025-a-second-renaissance-or-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/escobar-2025-a-second-renaissance-or-chaos\/1511234\/","title":{"rendered":"Escobar: 2025 – A Second Renaissance, Or Chaos?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Escobar: 2025 – A Second Renaissance, Or Chaos?<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Pepe Escobar,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a dazzling Tuscan winter morning, and I am inside the legendary Dominican church of Santa Maria Novella, founded in the early 13th\u00a0century and finally consecrated in 1420, in a very special place in History of Art: right in front of one of the monochrome frescos painted in 1447-1448 by master of perspective Paolo Uccello, depicting the Universal Deluge.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Paolo Uccello: Universal Deluge. 1448 fresco at Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Photo by Pepe Escobar<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s as if Paolo Uccello was depicting us \u2013 in our current times of trouble. So inspired by neoplatonic superstar Marsilio Ficino \u2013 immortalized in a chic red robe by Ghirlandaio at the Cappella Tornabuoni \u2013 I tried to pull off a back to the future and ideally imagine who and what Paolo Uccello would feature in his depiction of our current deluge.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the positives. 2024 was the Year of the BRICS \u2013 with the merit for all the accomplishments going for the tireless work of the Russian presidency.<\/strong><\/p>\n

2024 was also the Year of the Axis of Resistance \u2013 until the serial blows suffered during the past few months, a serious challenge which will propel its rejuvenation.<\/p>\n

And 2024 was the year that defined the lineaments of the endgame in the proxy war in Ukraine: what remains to be seen is how deep the \u201crules-based international order\u201d will be buried in the black soil of Novorossiya.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s turn to the auspicious prospects ahead. 2025 will be the year of consolidation of China as the paramount geoeconomics force on the planet.<\/p>\n

It will be the year where the defining battle of the 21st century \u2013\u00a0Eurasia v. NATOstan<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 will be sharpened in an array of unpredictable vectors.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And it will be the year of advancing, interlocking connectivity corridors \u2013 the defining factor in Eurasia integration.<\/p>\n

Not by accident Iran is central to this interlocking connectivity \u2013 from the Strait of Hormuz (through which transits, daily, at least 23% of the world\u2019s oil) to the port of Chabahar, which links West Asia with South Asia.<\/p>\n

Connectivity corridors to watch are the return of one of the top Pipelineistan sagas, the 1,800 km-long Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline; the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC), which links three BRICS (Russia-Iran-India) and several aspiring BRICS partners; the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project; and last but not least, the fast advancing Northern Sea Route (or Northern Silk Road, as the Chinese call it), which will eventually become the cheapest and fastest alternative to the Suez canal.<\/p>\n

A few days before the start of Trump 2.0 in Washington, Russia and Iran will finally, officially sign a comprehensive strategic partnership deal in Moscow, over two years in the making: once again, a key deal between two top BRICS, with immense, cascading repercussions in Eurasia integration terms.<\/p>\n

A completely sealed channel of negotiation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dmitri Trenin, respected member of Russia\u2019s Foreign and Defense Policy Council, has what is so far the most realist road map for an acceptable end of the proxy war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcceptable\u201d does not even begin to describe it \u2013 because from the point of view of the collective West political \u201celites\u201d which bet the farm and the bank on this war, nothing is acceptable except Russia\u2019s strategic defeat, which will never happen.<\/p>\n

As it stands, President Putin is in fact containing elite sectors in Moscow who favor not only cutting off the head of the snake but the body as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump for his part has less than zero incentive to be dragged into a further quagmire; leave that to the clueless European chihuahuas.<\/p>\n

So a possible drive towards a wobbly \u201cpeace\u201d agreement also suits the Global Majority \u2013 not to mention China, which understands how war is bad for business (at least if you\u2019re not in the weaponizing racket).<\/p>\n

When it comes to an always possible \u201cexistential\u201d escalation, we\u2019re not out of the woods yet; but there are still three weeks left for some major terror-fueled coup, as in a false flag.<\/p>\n

The first two months of 2025 will be absolutely decisive, when it comes to sketching a possible compromise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Elena Panina from RUSSTRAT has offered a concise, and sobering, strategic assessment of what may pan out.<\/p>\n

What Trump essentially craves, like a trashy McDonald\u2019s burger, is to look like the ultimate Alpha Male. So Putin\u2019s tactical negotiating strategy will not be focused on undermining Trump\u2019s tough guy act. The problem is how to pull it off without undermining Trump\u2019s pop star power \u2013 and without adding more fuel to the NATOstan warmongering pyre.<\/p>\n

Putin holds an array of trump cards close to his chest \u2013 related to Europe, the Brits, China, Ukraine itself and the Global South as a whole.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Determining spheres of influence will be part of a possible agreement. The thing is no specific details should be leaked \u2013 and must be kept impermeable to Western intel.<\/p>\n

That means, as Panina notes, Trump needing a completely sealed channel of negotiation with Putin, which even the MI6 cannot crack.<\/p>\n

A tall order, as privileged Zio-con silos across the Deep State are dizzy with the latest Old Testament psycho-pathological victories in Lebanon and Syria, and the way they enfeebled Tehran. Yet that does not mean the Iran-Russia-China-BRICS link is in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

The dynamics are set; tread carefully<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Putin and the Security Council should be ready to implement a quite complex, step-by-step diplomatic game, as they know that the trifecta of defeated, supremely angry Democrats, Brits and Bankova will apply maximum pressure on Trump and turn him into \u201can enemy of America\u201d or some similar crap.<\/p>\n

Moscow will accept no truce and no freeze: only a real solution.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It that doesn\u2019t work, the war will continue in the battlefield, and Moscow has no problems with that \u2013 or with more escalation. The final humiliation of the Empire of Chaos will then be total.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Cold War 2.0 between China and the U.S. will advance more on the pop sphere than in substance. The sharpest Chinese analysts know that the real competition is not over ideology \u2013 as in the original Cold War \u2013 but over technology, from AI to upgrading seamless supply chains.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Trump 2.0, at least in principle, has less than zero interest in unleashing a proxy war \u2013 Ukraine-style \u2013 on China in Taiwan and the South China Sea. China has way more geoeconomic resources than Russia.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not exactly intriguing that Trump is floating the idea of a G2 between the U.S. and China. The Deep State blob will see it as the ultimate plague \u2013 and fight it to death. What\u2019s already certain is assuming this goes ahead, the European poodles will be left drowning in a dirty swamp.<\/p>\n

Well, political \u201celites\u201d that appoint braindead specimens like the Medusa von der Lying and the batshit crazy Estonian chick as top representatives of the EU; who start a war against their most important energy supplier; who fully support a genocide broadcast 24\/7 to the whole planet; who are obsessed on eradicating the culture which has defined them; and who at best pay only lip service to democracy and freedom of speech, these \u201celites\u201d do deserve to wallow in filth.<\/p>\n

On the Syrian tragedy, the fact is Putin knows who the real enemy is; certainly not a bunch of Salafi-jihadi head-chopping mercenaries. And the Sultan in Ankara is also not the enemy; from Moscow\u2019s perspective, for all his lofty dreams of replacing \u201cCentral Asia\u201d with \u201cTurkestan\u201d in Turkiye\u2019s school textbooks, he is a minor geoeconomic and even geopolitical player.<\/p>\n

To paraphrase the inestimable Michael Hudson \u2013 perhaps our Marsilio Ficino dressed by Paolo Uccello as a writer in a chic red robe \u2013 it\u2019s as if in this pre-deluge juncture American elites were saying, \u201cThe only solution is total war with Russia and China\u201d; Russia is saying, \u201cWe hope there\u2019s peace in Ukraine and West Asia\u201d; and China is saying, \u201cWe want peace, not war.<\/p>\n

That may not be enough for reaching a compromise \u2013 any compromise. So the dynamics are set: the U.S. ruling class will keep imposing instances of chaos while Russia, China and BRICS will keep testing in the \u201cBRICS lab\u201d de-dollarization models, alternative set ups to the IMF and World Bank, and eventually even an alternative to NATO.<\/p>\n

An anarchy and War of Terror cornucopia on one side; cool-headed, coordinated realism on the other. Be prepared \u2013 for anything. From Renaissance Florence, one of the \u2013 few \u2013 peaks of humanity, now living in memory, tread carefully across this flame-filled 2025.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 01\/01\/2025 – 23:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/markets\/escobar-2025-second-renaissance-or-chaos<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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