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Ce qui s’est passé hier, tout de mème, en est une bonne illustration:
la banque JPMorgan (toujours elle depuis 1910!)achète B.Stearns pour 1% de sa valeur moyenne des derniers mois, soit 230 millions de dollars.Dans le paquet, il y a incidemment l’immeuble correspondant au siège social de B. Stearns. Valeur du bien estimée aujourd’hui: 1,2 milliards de dollars..
OK; il y a les dettes douteuses.. La Fed a donc “prètée” 30 milliards à JP Morgan pour le rachat de la miséreuse concurrente. Chic alors, JPMorgan n’est pas garant sur ce “prèt”!
A ce tarif, il doit ètre acceptable de faire la danse du ventre toute la nuit si nécéssaire, non?

En fait tout ça n’est pas très drole.
Francis met le doigt là ou ça fait mal; les heureux Elus- alias le Club- se sont certainement parfaitement organisés en prévision des événements, pratiquement quels qu’ils soient..
Il y a une faille; un Dick Cheney peut bien acheter une maison à Dubai et placer son argent en EU et extrème Orient, il oublie que sans base réelle cela ne lui sera d’aucun secours. Surtout dans un monde chaotique; quand 50 000 pakistanais déséspérés vont finir par prendre d’assaut “la rive d’en face” parce qu’ils n’auront plus rien à perdre, ou ira t-il? quand le “programme” aura débordé dans sa lancée (cf CCC de Carlyle)et qu’il sera coincé avec des équivalents “emprunts russes” en valeur euros ou yuans, invendables?..

Et puisqu’on parle du Club, Sarko s’était fait piéger en 2005 semble t-il au moment de cette “vague de révolte” qui avait tout les traits d’une manipulation barbouzarde..

Les dérapages, ça existe…

Ce qui est surprenant c’est la mise en liquidation forcée de Carlyle capital europe . Cette société
n’est pas une entreprise anecdotique ... Ni bear Sterns par ailleurs .
Quant au taux de chomage évoqué par Frédéric on peut raisonnablement s’interroger sur les chiffres pour l’Europe .
L’economie virtuelle est une réalité il suffit de voir les rachats d’entreprises pour des montants
qui sont exhorbitants , ces rachats d’ailleurs
ne durent pas très longtemps , c’est manifestement un jeu , voir Albert Frère sur le JDD qui est un exemple anecdotique ...

Les mesures de l’administration Bush sont ciblées pour permettre aux “gros poissons” d’échapper aux différentes échéances. Les règles du marché ne sont faites que pour les gogos et autres idéologues ... c’est fascinant comme ça marche encore et toujours.

Les “mesures Bush et autres baisses d’impots” sont régulièrement programmées pour les lobbies et ceux qui savent et peuvent sauter dans les trains de la lobbycratie. Une bonne partie de celle ci achève son déménagement global dans les années qui viennent.

Il s’agit ainsi d’augmenter les revenus sur ces mouvements largement planifiés : vive les crises pour les plus forts. Quant aux croyants il reste la résurection dans une autre vie (les marchés étrangers : le vrai sens de la parabole).

Bientôt la baisse des taux de la FED, donc un dollar qui plonge pour tout ceux qui savent se positionner à la baisse : c’est prévisible au point d’être informatisé (avec des contrats d’options en couverture ... pour les “Soros” en embuscade).

Livre, Dollar etc. ces cycles sont long avec des fins tragiques. L’inopérabilité des théories prête à rire, pas dans leur tentative scientifique mais dans l’incroyable prétention des opérateurs et des idéologues.

“20:25 Le dollar s’écroule face à l’euro, à plus de 1,59 dollar pour un euro

20:14 Bush: Washington “maîtrise la situation”économique”

On dirait Sarkozy : Ah si cet hubris n’était plus dans l’ADN de l’UE !

Allez comptez les devises qui “montent” plus que l’euro.

“M. Strauss-Kahn a estimé que “la collectivité dans son ensemble était amenée à prendre en charge” le coût de la lutte contre une faillite du système bancaire, et qu’il ne s’agissait pas de “venir à la rescousse des actionnaires mais du système” financier lui-même.”
C’est exactement cela, l’invention du socialisme pour les très très riches qui se font éponger leurs risques et leurs dettes par les pauvres et très pauvres.

Pour ceux qui s’imaginent que l’économie a un rapport quelconque avec la “réalité”, il manque deux données :
quid du déficit budgétaire étasunien? Il était de 60% le PNB avant l’entrée en Irak ,et avec les 3000 ou 7000 milliards du coût des deux occupations , où en sont-ils?
L’inflation a avoir avec la masse monétaire en circulation. Or la quantité M3 n’est plus publiée par la Frd depuis un an.

En toute rigueur, le gouvernement fédéral étasunien devrait être mis en faillite n’eût été la puissance militaire en nucléaire et autres joyeusetés US pour insolvabilité et escroqueraie de faussaire( émission de fausse monnaie)

.Cher Monsieur, le système n’est pas cantonné au monde anglo-saxon. Toutes les banques et donc les européennes se sont lancées avec délectation dans la spéculation, et le rapport n’est intéressant qu”‘en cas de risque pris important. Le monde financier réclamait et réclame une rentabilté à 15%, l’économie “réelle” croissait péniblement à 2-3%.
Une purge des titres toxiques devrait faire arriver à liquidation la majorité des banques, et pas seulement celles de deuxième ou troisième ordre.
et nous verrions des nationalisations en série.

Cette sortie-là, c’est une mort. Mort du Dieu profit qui finit par être autophage.
Ou encore, pour se survivre, le capitalisme (per capita) doit se muer en communisme , mettre en communles dégâts mais aussi le reste…...

Un article qui souligne un point essentiel et assez rarement évoqué par les connaisseurs de la crise de 1929: c’est bien la Seconde Guerre Mondiale qui sortit les Etats-Unis du marasme et du chômage de masse de la crise des années 30, et non le New-Deal, qui se solda par un quasi échec. Un élément interessant est cet état de sidération qui semble saisir les pratiquant et professionnels de la finance étasunienne, les journalistes et commentateurs désignés “experts” par le système politico-médiatique. La décomposition du coeur financier des Etats-Unis, qui devrait s’accéler dans les mois qui viennent, va sans doute remettre en question le tropisme euro-atlantique du continent, vassalisation héritée de la fin d’une Seconde Guerre Mondiale pourtant gagnée par l’Union soviétique. Trop de certitudes artificielles, qui relevent, en effet, davantage d’une forme de foi savamment et régulièrement inculquée dans l’existence supposée d’une “puissance américaine”, trop peu d’esprit critique et trop d’esprit de système précisément sont à l’origine de la stupéfaction qui semble saisir certains à l’annonce de la faillite de la Bear Stearns. Que dira-t-on alors dans quelques mois alors que nous n’en sommes qu’aux prémisses ? Trop de certitude finit toujours par produire de la sidération.

Curieuse notion que celle d’économie virtuelle.
Qu’une partie de l’économie soit qualifiée de virtuelle est une chose, que ses conséquences, désastreuses pour une grande majorité, soient bien réelles en est une autre, qu’il ne faudrait peut-être pas oublier.

Saute d’humeur, que de demander des allègements fiscaux ? Pour engranger des dollars “virtuels” ?

Saute d’humeur, que d’être expulsé de son appartement ?

Au lieu de vous focaliser sur l’économie ‘‘virtuelle’’ qui à des sautes d’humeur périodiquement - vous devriez le savoir vu les 20 ans d’années d’existence de votre organisme -, concentré vous sur l’économie réelle;

Vous parlez de nombre d’emplois en baisse, qui ramène au chiffre de l’année dernière, mais je signale que le taux de chômage est aussi en baisse,  de 5 % en décembre, il est de actuellement de 4,8 % ;

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

Et si le pétrole augmente, le carburant raffiné flambe, et rappellez qui sont les principaux propriétaires des raffineries dans le monde ?

Stephane, c’est cela, et les centaines de passagers était des clones cylons ? On voit les ravages de certaines lectures dans ce commentaires.

Plus sérieusement, les attentats suicides systématiques ont commencé, on oublie souvent de le rappeller, au Sri Lanka dans le cadre de la lutte des Tigres Tamouls contre le gvt.

Et si s’en prendre à des cibles politiques ou militaire peut semblé ‘‘légitime’‘, l’attaque de marchés, de moyens de transport d’autres lieux fréquenté par le simple public ne fait du suicidé qu’une âme dammée qui mérite les enfers de Dante.

We will never have a perfect model of risk

By Alan Greenspan Published: March 16 2008 18:25 | Last updated: March 16 2008 18:25

The current financial crisis in the US is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the second world war. It will end eventually when home prices stabilise and with them the value of equity in homes supporting troubled mortgage securities.

Home price stabilisation will restore much-needed clarity to the marketplace because losses will be realised rather than prospective. The major source of contagion will be removed. Financial institutions will then recapitalise or go out of business. Trust in the solvency of remaining counterparties will be gradually restored and issuance of loans and securities will slowly return to normal. Although inventories of vacant single-family homes – those belonging to builders and investors – have recently peaked, until liquidation of these inventories proceeds in earnest, the level at which home prices will stabilise remains problematic.

The American housing bubble peaked in early 2006, followed by an abrupt and rapid retreat over the past two years. Since summer 2006, hundreds of thousands of homeowners, many forced by foreclosure, have moved out of single-family homes into rental housing, creating an excess of approximately 600,000 vacant, largely investor-owned single-family units for sale. Homebuilders caught by the market’s rapid contraction have involuntarily added an additional 200,000 newly built homes to the “empty-house-for-sale” market.

Home prices have been receding rapidly under the weight of this inventory overhang. Single-family housing starts have declined by 60 per cent since early 2006, but have only recently fallen below single-family home demand. Indeed, this sharply lower level of pending housing additions, together with the expected 1m increase in the number of US households this year as well as underlying demand for second homes and replacement homes, together imply a decline in the stock of vacant single-family homes for sale of approximately 400,000 over the course of 2008.

The pace of liquidation is likely to pick up even more as new-home construction falls further. The level of home prices will probably stabilise as soon as the rate of inventory liquidation reaches its maximum, well before the ultimate elimination of inventory excess. That point, however, is still an indeterminate number of months in the future.

The crisis will leave many casualties. Particularly hard hit will be much of today’s financial risk-valuation system, significant parts of which failed under stress. Those of us who look to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder equity have to be in a state of shocked disbelief. But I hope that one of the casualties will not be reliance on counterparty surveillance, and more generally financial self-regulation, as the fundamental balance mechanism for global finance.

The problems, at least in the early stages of this crisis, were most pronounced among banks whose regulatory oversight has been elaborate for years. To be sure, the systems of setting bank capital requirements, both economic and regulatory, which have developed over the past two decades will be overhauled substantially in light of recent experience. Indeed, private investors are already demanding larger capital buffers and collateral, and the mavens convened under the auspices of the Bank for International Settlements will surely amend the newly minted Basel II international regulatory accord. Also being questioned, tangentially, are the mathematically elegant economic forecasting models that once again have been unable to anticipate a financial crisis or the onset of recession.

Credit market systems and their degree of leverage and liquidity are rooted in trust in the solvency of counterparties. That trust was badly shaken on August 9 2007 when BNP Paribas revealed large unanticipated losses on US subprime securities. Risk management systems – and the models at their core – were supposed to guard against outsized losses. How did we go so wrong?

The essential problem is that our models – both risk models and econometric models – as complex as they have become, are still too simple to capture the full array of governing variables that drive global economic reality. A model, of necessity, is an abstraction from the full detail of the real world. In line with the time-honoured observation that diversification lowers risk, computers crunched reams of historical data in quest of negative correlations between prices of tradeable assets; correlations that could help insulate investment portfolios from the broad swings in an economy. When such asset prices, rather than offsetting each other’s movements, fell in unison on and following August 9 last year, huge losses across virtually all risk-asset classes ensued.

The most credible explanation of why risk management based on state-of-the-art statistical models can perform so poorly is that the underlying data used to estimate a model’s structure are drawn generally from both periods of euphoria and periods of fear, that is, from regimes with importantly different dynamics.

The contraction phase of credit and business cycles, driven by fear, have historically been far shorter and far more abrupt than the expansion phase, which is driven by a slow but cumulative build-up of euphoria. Over the past half-century, the American economy was in contraction only one-seventh of the time. But it is the onset of that one-seventh for which risk management must be most prepared. Negative correlations among asset classes, so evident during an expansion, can collapse as all asset prices fall together, undermining the strategy of improving risk/reward trade-offs through diversification.

If we could adequately model each phase of the cycle separately and divine the signals that tell us when the shift in regimes is about to occur, risk management systems would be improved significantly. One difficult problem is that much of the dubious financial-market behaviour that chronically emerges during the expansion phase is the result not of ignorance of badly underpriced risk, but of the concern that unless firms participate in a current euphoria, they will irretrievably lose market share.

Risk management seeks to maximise risk-adjusted rates of return on equity; often, in the process, underused capital is considered “waste”. Gone are the days when banks prided themselves on triple-A ratings and sometimes hinted at hidden balance-sheet reserves (often true) that conveyed an aura of invulnerability. Today, or at least prior to August 9 2007, the assets and capital that define triple-A status, or seemed to, entailed too high a competitive cost.

I do not say that the current systems of risk management or econometric forecasting are not in large measure soundly rooted in the real world. The exploration of the benefits of diversification in risk-management models is unquestionably sound and the use of an elaborate macroeconometric model does enforce forecasting discipline. It requires, for example, that saving equal investment, that the marginal propensity to consume be positive, and that inventories be non-negative. These restraints, among others, eliminated most of the distressing inconsistencies of the unsophisticated forecasting world of a half century ago.

But these models do not fully capture what I believe has been, to date, only a peripheral addendum to business-cycle and financial modelling – the innate human responses that result in swings between euphoria and fear that repeat themselves generation after generation with little evidence of a learning curve. Asset-price bubbles build and burst today as they have since the early 18th century, when modern competitive markets evolved. To be sure, we tend to label such behavioural responses as non-rational. But forecasters’ concerns should be not whether human response is rational or irrational, only that it is observable and systematic.

This, to me, is the large missing “explanatory variable” in both risk-management and macroeconometric models. Current practice is to introduce notions of “animal spirits”, as John Maynard Keynes put it, through “add factors”. That is, we arbitrarily change the outcome of our model’s equations. Add-factoring, however, is an implicit recognition that models, as we currently employ them, are structurally deficient; it does not sufficiently address the problem of the missing variable.

We will never be able to anticipate all discontinuities in financial markets. Discontinuities are, of necessity, a surprise. Anticipated events are arbitraged away. But if, as I strongly suspect, periods of euphoria are very difficult to suppress as they build, they will not collapse until the speculative fever breaks on its own. Paradoxically, to the extent risk management succeeds in identifying such episodes, it can prolong and enlarge the period of euphoria. But risk management can never reach perfection. It will eventually fail and a disturbing reality will be laid bare, prompting an unexpected and sharp discontinuous response.

In the current crisis, as in past crises, we can learn much, and policy in the future will be informed by these lessons. But we cannot hope to anticipate the specifics of future crises with any degree of confidence. Thus it is important, indeed crucial, that any reforms in, and adjustments to, the structure of markets and regulation not inhibit our most reliable and effective safeguards against cumulative economic failure: market flexibility and open competition.

The writer is former chairman of the US Federal Reserve and author of The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

Cher Monsieur

Je souscris totalement à votre analyse.
Aujourd’hui le prtoblème est pour les Européens : comment éviter la contamination systémique de la crise nourrie par l’approche néo libérale anglo saxonne?

Cette contamination fut ravageuse en 1929. Elle a conduit aux événements que nous connaissons.

Que faire face à la compétition multipolaire acharnée qui anime le monde et que les anglo-saxons et leurs “relais” (pour ne pas utiliser un terme plus polémique) médiatiques et politiques en Europe présentent de manière irénique comme un mouvement inéluctable et nécessairement ccccheureux à terme…?

La seule réponse, pour éviter cette contamination systémique est sans doute de montrer aux Européens qu’ils doivent, de toute urgence,élaborer une veritable conception “géopolitiqe” de leur place dans ce monde qui vient.

Cette conception est actuellement totalement absente de leurs préoccupations.

Les premières grandes lignes de cette conception devraient être ,sans auun doute: le partenariat stratégique renforcé et accéléré  avec la Russie,la grande Union Méditerranéenne( cf. G Kepel); le partenariat avec l’Afrique. Tout ceci représente déjà beaucoup de reflexion et d’énergie dans l’immédiat…Pour le   reste on verra plus tard.

Biens cordialelement à vous.

Jean-Claude Empereur.

Vice Président Délégué de Paneurope France.

ps : vous nous avez manqué au colloque de Nancy sur la souveraineté européenne.
J’espère que nous pourrons, à nouveau, vous compter parmi nous lors d’une prochaine rencontre Paneuropéenne.(parmi nos projets : un colloque sur la souveraineté alimentaire de l’Europe, en principe à Parme).
jce

Russia throws a wrench in NATO’s works
By M K Bhadrakumar

For the first time in the 60-year history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Russia will attend the alliance’s summit meeting on April 2-4 in Bucharest, Romania.

It is clear that NATO will defer to a future date any decision to put Ukraine and Georgia on its Membership Action Plan. This means effectively that the two former Soviet republics cannot draw closer to NATO for another year at the very least, which in turn implies that the earliest the two countries can realize their membership claim would be in a four-year timeframe.

That is a huge gesture by NATO to Moscow’s sensitivities. Conceivably, it clears the decks for what could prove to be a turning point in Russia-NATO relations. Russia may be about to join hands with NATO in Afghanistan. A clearer picture will emerge out of the intensive consultations of the foreign and defense ministers of Russia and the United States within the so-called “2+2” format due to take place in Moscow from Monday through Tuesday next week. From the guarded comments by both sides and the flurry of US diplomatic activity, it appears highly probable that Russia is being brought into the solution of the Afghanistan problem, along with NATO.

According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant and the Financial Times of London, the initiative came from Russia when its new ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin - erstwhile Russian politician with a controversial record as a staunch Russian nationalist who routinely berated the West - signaled a strong interest in this area at a recent meeting of the NATO-Russia Council at Brussels. The plan involves Russia providing a land corridor for NATO to transport its goods - “non-military materials” - destined for the mission in Afghanistan. Intensive talks have been going on since then over a framework agreement.

From the feverish pace of diplomatic activity, the expectation of the two sides seems to be that an agreement could be formalized at NATO’s Bucharest summit. In an interview with German publication Der Spiegel on Monday, Rogozin confirmed this expectation, saying, “We [Russia] support the anti-terror campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. I hope we can manage to reach a series of very important agreements with our Western partners at the Bucharest summit. We will demonstrate that we are ready to contribute to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.”

Russian diplomats have been quoted as saying that Moscow is engaged in consultations with the governments of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as regards the proposed land corridor to be made available to NATO.

Given the complicated history of Russia-NATO relations, the issue is loaded with geopolitics. Russian President Vladimir Putin hinted as much at a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Moscow last Saturday. He said, “NATO is already overstepping its limits today. We have no problem to helping Afghanistan, but it is another matter when it is NATO that is providing the assistance. This is a matter beyond the bounds of the North Atlantic, as you are well aware.”

Putin also took the opportunity to harshly criticize NATO’s expansion plans: “At a time when we no longer have confrontation between two rival systems, the endless expansion of a military and political bloc seems to us not only unnecessary but also harmful and counter-productive. The impression is that attempts are being made to create an organization that would replace the United Nations, but the international community in its entirety is hardly likely to agree to such a structure for our future international relations. I think the potential for conflict would be only set to grow. These are arguments of a philosophical nature. You can agree or disagree.”

The implications are obvious. Russia would be willing to cooperate with NATO, but on an equal and comprehensive basis, and, secondly, the sort of selective engagement of Russia by NATO that the US has been advocating will be unacceptable to Moscow. Significantly, Putin frontally questioned the standing of NATO’s monopoly of conflict resolution in Afghanistan.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has also separately signaled Russia’s readiness to provide military transit to Afghanistan for NATO provided “an agreement is concluded on all aspects of the Afghan problem between NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization [CSTO]”. Significantly, Lavrov was speaking immediately after the 7th session of the Russian-French Cooperation Council on Security Issues in Paris on Tuesday. He asserted that “most NATO members, including France”, favor Moscow’s idea of a NATO-CSTO cooperative framework over Afghanistan. Lavrov all but suggested that Washington was blocking such cooperation between NATO and the Russian-led CSTO.

On the face of it, Washington should jump at the Russian offer of support to the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Pakistan has proved to be an unreliable partner in the “war on terror”. The growing political uncertainties in Pakistan put question marks on the wisdom of the US continuing to depend so heavily on Pakistan for ferrying supplies for its troops in Afghanistan.

US military spokesmen are on record as saying that about three fourths of all supplies are currently dispatched to Afghanistan via Pakistan. There are fundamental issues as well, such as the US’s continued ability to influence Pakistani politics and, indeed, the evolution of Pakistan’s political economy as such in the coming critical period.

The coming to power of the Awami National Party (ANP), an avowedly Pashtun nationalist leftist party, in the sensitive North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, further complicates political alignments.

ANP leader Amir Haider Khan Hoti bluntly told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in an exclusive interview this week, “Our priorities are clear. We first want to move toward peace through negotiations [with the Taliban], jirgas [tribal councils], and dialogue. God willing, we will learn from [failed talks and jirgas in the past] and will try not to repeat the same mistakes. We will try to take into confidence our people, our tribal leaders, and our [clerics] - and together with them, we will try to move toward peace through negotiations.”

Hoti didn’t speak a word about the “war on terror” or the George W Bush administration’s expectations of Pakistani military operations in the tribal areas. It remains a riddle why the Bush administration should have so far kept out of conflict resolution in Afghanistan countries such as Russia and China, whose interests are vitally affected, perhaps even more immediately than the US or European countries. As US statesman Henry Kissinger wrote in an article in the International Herald Tribune on Monday, “A strategic consensus remains imperative ... Pakistan’s stability should not be viewed as an exclusively American challenge.”

The million-dollar question is whether there is political will on the part of the Bush administration to reach a “strategic consensus” over Afghanistan with Russia at the forthcoming NATO summit. Clearly, Moscow is willing. NATO old-timers such as France and Germany, too, are conscious that the alliance may suffer a defeat in Afghanistan, which would be a catastrophic blow to its standing, and that NATO and Russia after all share the same goals in Afghanistan.

The Kremlin has badly cornered the Bush administration. Taking Russia’s help at this critical juncture makes eminent sense for NATO. The alliance is struggling to cope with the war in Afghanistan. By the analogy of Iraq, some observers estimate that a force level close to half a million troops will be required to stabilize Afghanistan, given its size and difficult terrain.

But cooperation with Russia involves NATO embarking on cooperation with CSTO and possibly with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as well. (Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, addressing the Security Council in New York on Wednesday, proposed that for effectively combating drug trafficking originating from Afghanistan, a system of security rings promoted by Russia in the Central Asian region in recent years would be useful and that the potential of CSTO and SCO should be utilized.)

What worries the US is that any such link up between NATO and CSTO and SCO would undermine its “containment” policy toward Russia (and China), apart from jeopardizing the US global strategy of projecting NATO as a political organization on the world arena.

The most damaging part is that Russia-NATO cooperation will inevitably strengthen Russia’s ties with European countries and that, in turn, would weaken the US’s trans-Atlantic leadership role in the 21st century.

At the meeting of the foreign ministers of the alliance at Brussels on March 6, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner urged the NATO Council to “take into account Russia’s sensitivity and the important role it plays”. Moreover, he argued, relations with Russia are already strained over Kosovo and the US’s planned missile defense shield based in Europe, and should not be subjected to further strain. The French newspaper Le Monde quoted him as saying, “We [France] think that EU-Russia relations are absolutely important. And France is not the only country wanting to maintain a relationship with Russia as a great nation.” (France is assuming the rotating EU presidency in July.)

Indeed, France is not alone in this respect. Germany also has lately shifted to equidistance between the US and Russia on global security issues and is reaching out once again - reminiscent of the Gerhard Schroeder era - as a strategic partner to Russia in European Union-Russia relations.

Two days after her recent visit to Moscow, Merkel addressed the prestigious forum of the German armed forces’ top brass (Kommandeurtagung) in Berlin on Monday, where in the presence of NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, she brusquely proceeded to bury the proposals on NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia even ahead of the Bucharest summit.

“Countries that are involved in regional or internal conflicts cannot become members,” she said. Merkel added that aspiring countries must ensure that “qualitatively significant” domestic political support would be available for their accession to NATO. Germany has virtually blocked NATO’s further expansion into the territories of the former Soviet Union - a declared goal of Russia.

By putting forth a bold blueprint of cooperation with NATO over Afghanistan, Russia has effectively challenged the US to make a choice. It is by no means an easy choice for Washington. How do you deal in the world of tomorrow with a country whose energy exports are close to reaching a milestone of US$1 billion per day? Russia’s benchmark Urals crude topped a record of $100 per barrel this week and once it trades at $107.5 per barrel, the daily value of crude, refined products and gas exports will hit $1 billion. And, Russia’s 2008 budget is based on an average Urals price of $65 per barrel.

Besides, post-Soviet Russia’s influence in Central Asia has peaked even as the first real possibility of the emergence of a “gas OPEC” involving Russia and the Central Asian countries has appeared. This may well outshine all other foreign policy legacies of Russia in the Putin era. Russia has been for long seeking an association of former Soviet gas producers and exporters on the pattern of the oil cartel. Russia and the Central Asian suppliers - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan - have now agreed that starting in 2009, they will switch to the European price formula.

The move, which bears all the hallmarks of the Kremlin, elevates energy cooperation between Russia and the Central Asian producers to an altogether higher level of coordination and common strategy in foreign markets. The implications are far-reaching for European countries and the US. Russia has checkmated US-sponsored trans-Caspian energy pipeline projects.

Surely, the great shortfall in the Putin legacy has been the failure of his presidency to make Russia a full-fledged partner of Europe. He has now made an offer to NATO that is irresistible - making Russia a participant in the alliance’s Afghan mission. The Russian offer comes at a time when the war in Afghanistan is going badly and NATO can afford to take help from whichever quarter help is available.

Washington faces an acute predicament insofar as Moscow won’t settle for selective engagement by NATO as a mere transit route but will incrementally broaden and deepen the engagement, and major European allies might welcome it. Moscow insists on the involvement of the CSTO and even SCO. On the other hand, Russia’s involvement could invigorate the NATO mission in Afghanistan and ensure that the mission is not predicated on the highly unpredictable factor of Pakistan’s partnership.

Will Washington bite? Putin, with his trademark fighting spirit of a black belt in karate, could well be counting that his presidency still has five or six weeks to go and that is a lot of time for making Russia NATO’s number one partner globally and ensuring a durable place for Russia within the common European home.

At the very least, history comes full circle when Putin arrives in Bucharest in the next 18 days for the gala 60th anniversary summit of the alliance. That would be 54 years since the Soviet Union suggested it should join NATO to preserve peace in Europe.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Je me permets de vous indiquer cette analyse dans le Réseau voltaire, sur les raisons de la démission de l’amiral Fallon avec un point sur la situation en Irak
Voici le lien:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article155917.html

A noter: le JSF revient par la fenêtre en Israël, dans sa version à décollage vertical (ou court).

En effet, la prolifération des missiles moyenne portée dans la région (Syrie, Liban-Hezbollah)rend les terrains d’aviations très vulnérables.

Vous êtes des menteurs.
Sur le ton de l’analyse, vous distillez votre fiel.
Aucun discours du Président de la République Française(Congrès, Nation-Unis, parlement européen) ne va dans le sens de votre speudo analyse bien au contraire.
Je vous invite à les écouter sur le site de la présidence.

Vous placez sur un pied d’égalité le régime Iranienne et Américain.!!! (allez, vivre en Iran, ayez une pensée pour tous ces heunes hommes et femmes pendu parce que simplement gays.)

Les résolutions prisent par la Nation-Unis contre l’Iran sont à l’iniative des 6 ( les 5 membres permanents du Conseil de Sécurité + l’Allemagne), la dernière (Mars 2008) a été adopté par 14 voix pour et une abstention.

L’occident n’est pas le mal!!! voyagez et ouvrez les yeux vous verez que l’Europe est le meilleur avenir que puisse avoir notre planète.

Bien à vous.

Les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 n’ont pas vu de suicide. Les avions etaient des appareils militaires radio commandes (http://www.letsroll911.net)

De meme pour les attentats de Londres.

False flag terrorism…