BREXIT, BRITAIN, AND A RENEWED COMMONWEALTH: YES, BUT WHAT’S THE ...

I received two articles this week having to do with Great Britain and the Commonwealth that caught my attention. The first from Ms. K.M., and the second from Mr. S.D. Before we get to those, however, I want to remind people of a bit of high octane speculation that I began to advance shortly before the BREXIT referendum in the United Kingdom. During the campaign prior to that referendum, I observed a number of things that convinced me that there was a certain segment of the British oligarchy that was profoundly unhappy with two things: (1) the growing bureaucratic tyranny of the Brussels-Berlin E.U., and its corollary, discontent in certain segments of the British population - that part of the population with a shred of sanity left - over the growing Islamicization of their country; and, (2) the growing dissatisfaction with the "unipolar world" of Mr. Globaloney. There were, I argued, several signals that indicated "something was afoot" behind the scenes in the British deep state or oligarchy, and chief among these things were three indicators - at least to me and a few others - that the polls prior to BREXIT, which showed the "remain" forces leading - might have been deliberately concocted. By my hack-from-South Dakota lights, there were three signals that spoke very loudly:

(1) The state visit of Mr. Xi Jinping to that nation;

(2) Great Britain's entry as a board member to the Chinese Asia Infrastructure Development Bank, a move not joined by only two nations, the USA and Japan; and,

(3) The dinner at the Palace with Queen Elizabeth II and then Prime Minister David Cameron's Vice Premier, during which, according to the British tabloids, the Queen expressed the Royal Displeasure at the way things were proceeding with the European Union.  Of course, interpreting stories coming from the Crown is always hazardous, since British monarchs have, in the last two centuries, exercised their very real and considerable power very quietly. The Crown speaks its own special variety of the "dialect of power" that Vatican watches know as "romanita".  In this case, the Queen expressed that Royal Displeasure in the form of asking the Vice Premier (so the story went) to name three benefits Britain accrued from membership in the E.U.  It could therefore be argued that Her Majesty was simply asking questions, not expressing "the Royal Displeasure." But in the context of the other two events named above,  it seemed likely to me at the time. In terms of the logic of the situation, one can perhaps understand why, for from the royal point of view, the income of the civil list might conceivably be a target for the Brussels bureaucrats, M. Jean-Claude Juncker, faithful minion and lackey to Mad Madam Merkel.

The BREXIT happened, and I argued that the next step for Great Britain - a logical and natural one - would be to revive the soft-power culture card of the British Commonwealth. That, indeed, appears to be happening, for as readers of this website are aware, Britain has extended the idea of making the United States an associate member, and the Trump Administration appears to be listening.

From the geopolitical point of view, the move makes sense, for India, a principal member of the BRICSA bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), would be a crack in the emerging Eurasian dike, and with British membership in China's Asia Infrastructure Bank, Britain has carefully positioned itself as a go-between between the West and that bloc, and that during a time when Brazil's participation has been severely diminished due to the overthrow of Dilma Rouseff as that nation's president.

Now there's this confirmation in the article shared by Ms. K.M.:

A Future of the English-Speaking People

Notably the article appeared in the US magazine Foreign Affairs, the darling of the Council on Foreign Relations, long known to be the "official organ" of the Rockefailure interests, as the Economist is to that of the Rottenchilds. This article, notably, stresses the very same soft power card:

Legal systems of Common Law, a relentless defense of democratic principles, English as first language, common business practices, and traditional support for free trade are the glue that holds together countries that are geographically so distant. Cultural ties lower transaction costs between countries and foster trust. No wonder that, in making foreign direct investments, the United States shows a strong preference for Anglo-Saxon countries, with about 23 percent of total American foreign direct investment going to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.

In finance, technology, science, and trade, the Anglosphere already plays a dominant role, albeit in an informal way. But there are also formal means of cooperation, including the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing group; the Air and Space Interoperability Council, which aims to make members’ defense systems interoperable; and the Rhodes Scholarship, which brings students from around the world to study at Oxford University. More recently, New Zealand has offered to send London its top trade negotiators to augment the British civil service as it prepares to renegotiate hundreds of trade agreements with the rest of the world. And a recent poll found overwhelming support within Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom for granting nationals reciprocal rights to live and work freely among the four countries.

And notably, the CFR article also views the Commonwealth-Anglo-Sphere "revival" in terms very different from the top-down centralizing and federalizing experiment of the E.U. as a model for a multi-polar world, and it does so without nary a peep of protest, indicating that at least certain factions within Mr. Globaloney's house realize that a different tack is needed from the vowel-impaired unipolar American empire visions of Mr. Zbgnw Brzznsk:

To be sure, the Anglosphere would never be a European Union among English-speaking nations. After all, it would be the by-product of a time when states seek to regain full sovereignty, cooperating when interests coincide but competing when they diverge. The institutions of the Anglosphere would be open and not exclusive, allowing each nation to pursue its regional goals independently. So, for instance, Australia would be free to work on trade relationships with its Asian partners after Trump has dismissed the Trans Pacific Partnership. London, meanwhile, would be free to entertain post-exit relations with Europe.

The article goes on to say that the UK and US will retain NATO as their preferred alliance structure. The unspoken factor here is not Russia; it's Germany, for NATO serves - to borrow the observations of Mr. Brzznsk - as much as a check on potential German re-militarization as it does on ostensible Russian ambitions. My prediction? Germany will be forced to remilitarize rather heavily, regardless of what NATO does or does not do, and there will thus be pressure on NATO's structure to be "revised."

But any revival of the Commonwealth, in the form I and now the CFR article has suggested, will require a "project" sufficiently large to bring together the Commonwealth. And for that, we'll have to wait until tomorrow.

See you on the flip side...