The National Interest: "NATO military analysts believe that Russia will attack the Baltic countries"

The US analytical magazine The National Interest writes about the meaninglessness of NATO's accusations against Russia. After the end of the Cold War, the world sighed quietly, the old contradictions were eliminated, and new ones were not yet purchased, and Europe was confident of its durability and indivisibility. However, such expectations did not come true, as NATO and the United States have their own views on the division of the modern world.

After the events in Georgia and Ukraine, the alliance again saw their longtime rival and enemy Moscow as the main target. The Obama administration recently approved a multi-billion dollar program of funding for the US military forces in the Eastern Europe. The fact is that NATO military analysts now believe that Russia will attack the three Baltic countries, which are members of the alliance. Such statements only increase tensions in the world, but have nothing to do with reality.

NATO's policy is to attract new members to the alliance, which actually does not play a significant role in ensuring security on the continent and does not have a powerful military potential. Such behavior is driven by a desire to gain control over the territories bordering Russia in order to be able to deploy a military force in case of deterioration of relations with the Kremlin and to use them as military bases. In fact, the Baltic countries are not doing anything in order to ensure their own safety. And the growing concerns about the fact that Russia is a threat to them are groundless. Certainly, Moscow has powerful military potential, but it is used to protect its borders and in the fight against global terrorism, not against neighboring states. With regard to Crimea, then in fact it was a historic reunification of the ethnic territory of Russia, and it is not comparable with the military expansion of the United States, for example, in Iraq.

But even if we assume that a military conflict is still to take place, then NATO doesn't have enough resources to stand up against Russia, and all the claims about protecting Europe's borders are purely speculative in nature and are intended to enhance the panic among the Europeans, who are already caught in a difficult situation because of the influx of refugees and the economic crisis.

The independent publication Axis of Logic writes that the fate of petrodollars is sealed. Russia became the largest exporter of oil to China, thereby taking first place among the oil-producing countries in increasing the demand for resources. At the beginning of the decade Saudi Arabia accounted for 20% of China's oil imports, while Russia was far behind with 7%. Now the Saudis are on a par with Moscow, with 13-16% of China's imports from each country. But Russia's share continues to grow, and the Kingdom is trying to maintain a foothold.

Analysts attribute this change of situation and a huge increase in the share of Russian oil to the fact that the Kremlin is ready for mutual settlements with China in the yuan and Saudi Arabia still holds on to the proverbial dollar. The business publication Bloomberg in July 2015 wrote that if Saudi Arabia wants to regain the top line in the rankings, it needs to accept the yuan as a payment for oil exports, as Russia, as the head of the EAEC and a member of the BRICS negatively set in relation to the dollar. Now other countries are following the Russian example: Iran and India announced last month that they intend to use national currencies in  international financial transactions.

The dollar is slowly but surely losing its privileged place in the international trade transactions. For the US, this means the collapse of its hegemonic hopes and plans for global expansion, while for Russia it is a new chapter in economic relations.