russia china alliance
Nice pivot, Washington
Moscow and Beijing are accelerating military and security cooperation to counter U.S. "defensive" installations in their backyards

Russia and China are tired of Washington's "defensive" military installations in their backyards — and they're already taking action.

According to the Atlantic Council and other responsible thinkers, the Untied States reserves the right to park its missile shields anywhere it wants, whether it be in Europe, East Asia, or the dark side of the Moon. This is because placing missile shields all over the place is an important cornerstone of Washington's ingenious plot to encourage Beijing and Moscow to put aside their differences and form a long-term security and military partnership.

Take for example Washington's decision to deploy Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems to South Korea.

The Americans claim that their missile defense systems will defend the free world against North Korea. But do they think Putin and Xi were born yesterday?

With yet another missile shield thousands of miles from U.S. soil, Moscow and Beijing have doubled-down on military and security cooperation.

On March 23, the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry Department for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control, Mikhail Ulyanov, noted that Russia "cooperates with China more and more on this issue [US missile defense system]":
He added that China and Russia shared the same concerns but with the regional specifics.

"As for us, it mostly relates to Europe, for China, it is the Asian segment of the missile defense system, which causes the most concerns. This constitutes the ground for our cooperation," Ulyanov noted.
It's important to highlight the beauty of this situation: Russia is more concerned about missile defense systems in Europe, while China is focused on the THAAD systems in South Korea. But instead of pursuing separate national security policies aimed at protecting their own interests exclusively, Russia and China have come together for a common cause: Resisting U.S. military expansion.

Nice "Asia pivot", right?

It's hard to overstate the level of geopolitical disaster that Washington is experiencing.

The last few literate foreign policy thinkers on Capitol Hill even wrote up a report that nicely explains how badly the U.S. messed up:
China and Russia are experiencing what is arguably their "highest period of bilateral [military] co-operation", according to a 20 March report published by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Despite areas of tension and distrust between Beijing and Moscow since normalising relations in 1989, the two countries' militaries and defence establishments "have steadily worked to minimise and overcome these differences", prioritising defence and security ties, which are now among "the most important components of the overall [bilateral] relationship", states the research report.
Read that last sentence again. It's an extremely roundabout way of saying "our terrible foreign policy pushed Russia and China into a military alliance".

As China expert Jeff J. Brown explained in an interview:
If the US strikes either China or Russia first, it's probably World War III and humanity ceases to function as we know it. While there is no announced treaty alliance, we have no way of knowing what Russia and China have agreed to secretly. It is also possible that China and Russia have told NATO back channel to the effect, "You mess with one of us, you deal with us both". I've always wondered if that might be the case, given America's reluctance to push the pedal to the metal in the Ukraine and the South China Sea.