Headline June 11, 2018/ ''' *WORLD AT WORRY* '''

''' *WORLD AT WORRY* '''

BEIJING : PRESIDENT Xi JINPING gave China's first friendship medal to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday as-

The neighboring giants touted their close ties amid diplomatic and economic challenges from the  United States.

President Xi placed the large golden medal around Putin's neck at the grandiose Great Hall of People in front of dignitaries from both countries China's ''highest honor'' is bestowed on foreigners who have made-

''Outstanding contributions'' to the country's modernization drive and helped maintain world peace, Xi said

''This medal of friendship represents the Chinese people's loft respect for President Putin, and symbolizes the profound friendship between China and Russia,'' he said.

The most powerful Russian and Chinese leaders decades, Putin and Xi have forged closer ties as the US President Donald Trump has labelled both countries economic rivals that challenge US interests and values

Therefore, the West is not in a new Cold War. It's an old fashioned fight with China and Russia for power and influence.

But in that case, lets take a look as to Who is most likely to win this new great game? To claim we are living through a new Cold War is both an understatement and a category mistake.................

IF anything, Russian population glories in the atrocities of its former leaders as well as those of the current one.

According to a 2017 poll by the Levada Center, 38 percent of Russians regard the mass murderer Joseph Stalin as the ''most outstanding person'' in world history, followed by Mr. Putin at 34 percent.

Here's were the intellectual dimension of the Great Game comes in :

Societal and self-criticism, alien to large part of the Russian society, is a defining feature of many Western countries.

Publicly expressed and debated tensions between the state and the people, and among various factions of the public, are what make a liberal society tick.

But the strengths of this skepticism can prove to be a weakness if exploited by a force that seeks the destruction of the very concept of truth.

As an intellectual force, Russia is to Europe what Mephisto is to Faust : ''I am the Spirit that denies!''  To paraphrase Johaan Wolfgang von Goethe, who wrote the most famous version of their story:

*For all the West has built, should rightly to destruction run*.

This is why the Russian disinformation and its grotesque twisting of facts is so effective.

Mr. Putin knows that Europeans deeply distrust their governments on questions of war and peace, especially after several of them relied on twisted intelligence to justify the Iraq war.

The poison used on the former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in England, and the chemical weapons dropped with impunity on the children of Syria kill people as well as trust in elected representatives in London, Paris and Berlin.

There is no doubt that the international community has violated its own standard at times, conducting legally questionable or outright illegal actions in Kosovo, Iraq and Syria.

Russia and China are doing the opposite : using their power as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council to block justice and to undermine the West.

Who will win in the long run?

It is too soon to know whether the West is willing to stand up collectively to the challenge. The good news, though, is that Russia and China may yet lose at the new Great Game.

It is expensive to play, and global power grabs untethered to a broader vision of global order tend to falter, as resources and lives expended abroad fail to bring peace and progress at home.

The German poet Theodor Fontane famously described the catastrophe that ended the British Army's attempt to secure hegemony against Russia in the Hindu Kush in 1842 :
''With 13,000 the trek began - one came home from Afghanistan.''

In one way or the another, Russia and China may soon reap similar results.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Parents, Professors and Teachers of the World.

See Ya all "register'' on !WOW! - the  World  Students Society, for every subject in the world, and  Twitter - !E-WOW! - the Ecosystem 2011:

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