The Cold War Unleashed by Biden has Turned into Freezing Temperatures in Texas

 27.02.2021 Author: Vladimir Odintsov

Column: Politics

Region: USA in the World

The new ruler of the White House used his first foreign policy speech since taking office – given at the international online session of the Munich Security Conference, devoted to relations between Europe and the United States – not to deliver a call to become involved in constructive activity, something objectively needed in the world today in the wake of the collapse caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but instead to stoking the next round of military confrontation. US President Joe Biden, dropping his mask of “peace lover”, accused China and Russia of allegedly aspiring to weaken NATO and transatlantic unity, and promised to bolster the most important values and strength of Western democracies – something he sees only in terms of whipping up military hysteria.

Stressing that “with his arrival” Europe should no longer think about its strategic autonomy, Biden reaffirmed his administration’s intention to reinforce mutual values by modernizing the countries’ military forces and maintaining military support for European NATO members. He “reassured” his European allies that, unlike during the “times of Trump”, now the problems involved in Western European security and cooperation within NATO are the main priorities for current US political leadership.

A similar tone taken by Biden about ratcheting up the military confrontation prevailed at the G7 forum, with calls to collectively rebuff Beijing and Moscow. As no one doubted, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who chaired the summit, became an active middleman for Washington’s policies there. However, Biden’s harshness toward Moscow and Beijing openly annoys European leaders, and so far on the European continent there are no signs of any enthusiasm for supporting this line taken by the White House, or of Washington’s success in pulling France, Germany, and Japan onto its warship. The attempt to create a world alliance against China and Russia by relying on Sinophobic and Russophobic ideologies has not yet yielded any results.

Explaining the unrealistic nature of these aspirations held by the United States, the Chinese state-run newspaper Global Times, in particular, emphasized that the G7 states, although they still have an advantage in terms of technology and the international division of labor, only account for a portion of the world economy, and that this portion has been rapidly decreasing in recent years. The G7 countries now account for 33% of world GDP, while 30 years ago that figure was about 70%. Meanwhile, China alone generated 18.6% of global GDP in 2020. Therefore, talking about economic recovery after the pandemic without involving China in this process is “like sailing the seas without a compass”.

The same applies to the futility of the West opposing Russia by imposing sanctions or creating various kinds of “circles of friends for the United States”, since not only in the field of military innovations and modern-day weapons, but also in the civilian effort to combat the global disaster – the coronavirus pandemic – Moscow showed the advantages it has to everyone long ago. It is with good reason that the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, and Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems, have recently been increasingly compared to the “Russian Kalashnikov” in everyday language.

Today, the only common interest Americans and Europeans have is gaining leverage as a bargaining tool to contain China and Russia. This motivation is especially strong for the Europeans, because they do not want to lose their profits due to curtailing commercial ties with either China or Russia. And this economic cooperation between the two sides will continue, at least throughout this decade. And this, in particular, is confirmed by the landmark publication that appeared recently in the American conservative journal on international politics called The National Interest, where even the former chairman of the American Conservative Union, David Keene, urged the US not to make Russia into a scapegoat for its domestic political purposes.

Clearly aware of the short amount of time he will spend in the White House, Joe Biden is actively seeking to demonstrate an unusually hawkish approach toward Russia and China, imposing the conditions for a new global cold war. However, he still does not realize that the new Washington administration will have to wage four wars at once: two cold wars in the international arena against China and Russia, a civil war within the country, and a major cultural war – first in the United States, and then across the entire globe. The possibility cannot be ruled out that, in all likelihood, more than one local military conflict will be added to those, and because of this Biden is not going to reduce, but expand the US military presence in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

Moreover, the United States will have to fight on all fronts at the same time, while facing a growing shortage of resources! And the fact that the United States has not been able to win a single war over the past 70 years is common knowledge for everyone, especially in regard to Vietnam and Afghanistan.

Hence, as they say in the Orient: The dog barks, but the caravan moves on. Along with that, in the Orient they know that “barking” is the province of the weak.

Therefore, it is not surprising that in response to the White House’s calls for a cold war Mother Nature herself has punished the United States for its militaristic policy, and indifference towards ordinary Americans. Almost without exception, all last week American media outlets – along with Biden’s calls for a cold war – talked about the sudden cold weather that has swept the United States, resulting in power outages and dozens of victims. More than 200 people have perished, and five died of hypothermia. According to the KHOU television channel, the family of a boy frozen to death in Texas has filed a $ 100 million lawsuit against the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which serves about 90% of the consumers in the state, and a local energy company called Entergy. Several million people were left without electricity, about 14 million Texas residents encountered problems related to the water supply, and more than 260,000 were left without potable water. A frozen Texas is driving the American oil industry to the verge of collapse, Bloomberg stated. As a result, US President Joe Biden has already declared Texas a natural disaster zone.

And although in many countries, including the United States, warmer weather is expected in the near future, today many people, including Americans, are posing a very pressing question: will a thaw come in the foreign policy position taken by the Biden administration?

Vladimir Odintsov, political observer, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook“.

https://journal-neo.org/2021/02/27/the-cold-war-unleashed-by-biden-has-turned-into-freezing-temperatures-in-texas/