ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

By Tyler Durden - "ZeroHedge"- If it was the intent of the West to bring Russia and China together - one a natural resource (if "somewhat" corrupt) superpower and the other a fixed capital / labor output (if "somewhat" capital misallocating and credit bubbleicious) powerhouse - in the process marginalizing the dollar and encouraging Ruble and Renminbi bilateral trade, then things are surely "going according to plan." For now there have been no major developments as a result of the shift in the geopolitical axis that has seen global US influence, away from the Group of 7 (most insolvent nations) of course, decline precipitously in the aftermath of the bungled Syrian intervention attempt and the bloodless Russian annexation of Crimea, but that will soon change. Because while the west is focused on day to day developments in Ukraine, and how to halt Russian expansion through appeasement (hardly a winning tactic as events in the 1930s demonstrated),

By Pepe Escobar  - " RT "-At the center of the simultaneous tumult faced by both Afghanistan and Pakistan stands the ultimate taboo: Pashtunistan. How does the dream of a common Pashtun land connect to the secession of Crimea from Ukraine? And what does China think about all this? Let’s start with Pakistan. US counterinsurgency “experts” such as disgraced former Gen. David Petraeus’ guru, David Kilcullen, insist Pakistan is imploding. No wonder; hacks like himself get paid to predict chaos. It’s much more nuanced, as usual. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is actually trying to prevent Pakistan from imploding. That's why he wants a deal with the TTP – the Pakistani Taliban. Sharif’s party, the PML-N, is conservative in religious and neoliberal in economics terms. It's intimately connected to Pakistani religious parties. Sharif knows he has to be careful in the Punjab region because of the local popularity of anti-Shiite jihadists – the Sipah-e-Sahaba outfit. A de