The new Cold Wars

China and the U.S. position themselves for a power grab in Africa. Can you guess where? Can you guess why? Look where people are dying and territory is being fought over.

Darfur.

It has oil.

That's a death sentence nowadays, isn't it?

The case of Darfur, a forbidding piece of sun-parched real estate in the southern part of Sudan, illustrates the new Cold War over oil, where the dramatic rise in China's oil demand to fuel its booming growth has led Beijing to embark on an aggressive policy of - ironically - dollar diplomacy. With its more than US$1.2 trillion in mainly US dollar reserves at the Peoples' National Bank of China, Beijing is engaging in active petroleum geopolitics. Africa is a major focus, and in Africa, the central region between Sudan and Chad is a priority.

This is defining a major new front in what, since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, is a new Cold War between Washington and Beijing over control of major oil sources. So far Beijing has played its cards a bit more cleverly than Washington. Darfur is a major battleground in this high-stakes contest for oil control.

And for those hardliners who missed the days of the Cold War and the Soviet Union:

Moscow, Russia (AHN) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday defended the test-launch of his country's new intercontinental ballistic missile, saying the move was in response to the United States' plans to deploy components of a missile shield system in central Europe. During an address to a joint news conference with Greek President Carolos Papoulias, the Russian leader also accused the U.S. government of dictatorship and initiating a new arms race.

"Our partners are filling eastern Europe with new weapons. What are we supposed to do? We cannot just observe all this. In our opinion, it is nothing different from 'diktat,' nothing different from imperialism," Putin said referring to U.S. plans to build anti-ballistic missile sites in the Czech Republic and Poland.

The White House has denied the allegations by Moscow saying the planned anti-missile systems are not aimed at gaining any strategic advantage over Russia but are a defensive measure against countries like Iran which Washington believes may a pose threat to the U.S. and its European allies.

The comments come just two days after Russia test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile which it says can be armed with up to 10 different warheads.

And:

Russian President Vladimir Putin's Cold War-style speech in Munich in February and its combative follow-up, the State of the Nation speech in April, are being matched by Russia's stiffening, and its mounting assertiveness, in opposition to any bolstering or reconsolidating of ailing US-led unipolarity.
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Since US overreach after the Iraq invasion of 2003, and the subsequent decline of the US and the unrelenting rise of Russia, China and India, in concert with the globe's key resource-exporting regimes, have become ever more strident, even brazen, in opposition to US global hegemony. The US can no longer ride roughshod over, nor bully, nor simply ignore resurgent Russia, rising China, or the globe's regimes that supply the vital oil that fuels the US economy.

In the face of such developments, the US isn't finished in its attempt to stand unipolarity back on both its feet. It has by no means conceded the game. Instead, belatedly recognizing the damage done by its distraction in Iraq, a desperate and determined US is refocusing and getting started on the geopolitical project of restoring its lost global might.

A day late and a dollar short, Georgie. And this time you failed the final, you can't pay off the teacher, and the grades are set.

You fucked up and this time there is no one who can clean it up.