In service of corporate capital, the Pentagon and NATO have been encircling Russia and China with military bases and missile defense systems with a vested interest in the region’s natural resources, Bruce K. Gagnon reports.
The US has established military bases in Romania and Bulgaria with plans for another in Albania, contributing to the surrounding of Russia. Bases with missile defense systems are located in Turkey, Poland, and Romania, while US Navy destroyers with comparable capabilities operate in the Black Sea. Similarly, NATO has expanded into Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia on Russia’s border, with talk of Georgia, Sweden, Ukraine, and Finland joining NATO adding to the potential for encirclement. US and NATO deployment is designed to “safeguard oil and gas fields in the [Caspian Sea] region,” according to Gen. James Jones in 2006 when he was NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander.
The US Navy is also preparing to increase its presence in the Arctic, officially to “protect shipping.” However, Senator Angus King (Independent-ME) has observed that previously inaccessible fossil fuels in the Arctic will now be accessible, suggesting that, as in the Caspian Sea region, protection of sea lanes is linked to the potential for increased oil extraction in the Arctic.
In encircling China, the US Navy has Aegis destroyers with missile capabilities patrolling the region. In addition to the naval presence, there are thirty ground based missile defense systems in South Korea as well as bases located in Hawaii, South Korea, Japan, Guam, Okinawa, Taiwan, Australia, and the Philippines. Author Noam Chomsky has described US foreign and military policy regarding oil supplies as a “lever of world domination.” Control over natural resources keeps competing markets dependent on the US as well as in line with its interests.
Source: Bruce K. Gagnon, “The Pentagon’s Strategy for World Domination: Full Spectrum Dominance, from Asia to Africa,” Plymouth Institute for Peace Research, August 10, 2014, http://www.pipr.co.uk/all/the-pentagons-strategy-for-world-domination-full-spectrum-dominance-from-asia-to-africa/.
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